Author: Jack Fonseca
Jack Fonseca is Director of Political Operations for Campaign Life Coalition, a non-profit which advocates for the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death, and traditional family values. Jack is a practicing Catholic, a husband and father of two school-age children.
Toronto Catholic school board ratepayers may be surprised to learn how much money their board spent on lawfare against one of their own—a trustee whose only offence was to oppose gender identity language being added to board policy.
These ratepayers already know about the $16 milkshake and the more than $300 in Beertown receipts from TCDSB chair and Ward 2 trustee Markus de Domenico that last year prompted Education Minister Paul Calandra to step in.
De Domenico’s lavish spending of more than $7,000 on items such as TV mounts, an Apple Watch strap, AirPods, and late-night munchies exposed the board to humiliation on television and in newspapers. Calandra had already placed the board under provincial supervision in June 2025 over its deficit and alleged mismanagement. The expense stories landed in September and became the public face of that takeover.
During the media storm, De Domenico even admitted to taking his parents out to lunch and billing taxpayers for all the food. He did not seem the least bit embarrassed.
Minister Calandra cited this kind of wasteful and inappropriate spending as further justification for keeping the board under government supervision, freezing De Domenico and his trustee colleagues out of further decision-making authority, except on questions of the Catholic faith.
Calandra claimed that De Domenico’s ratepayer-funded spending spree was widespread at the board level, although he didn’t cite any further examples.
One example has been buried—until now. And it is the most egregious of all.
A Freedom of Information request we recently obtained shows that the TCDSB spent $431,147.60 between 2019 and 2025 on legal and related processes aimed at one colleague: Trustee Michael Del Grande.
Why did the TCDSB spend nearly half a million dollars in public money going after one of its own? Because Trustee Del Grande opposed the entry of non-Catholic sexual theories into the Catholic board and fought against it.
Specifically, Del Grande spoke out against gender ideology—which holds that if a boy identifies as a girl, he must be celebrated as such, and vice versa—in TCDSB schools. He opposed an amendment to add “gender identity” and “gender expression” to the board’s code of conduct. He called it a slippery slope, arguing that a Catholic board should not write contested and non-scientific gender theory into its governing rules. He based his stance on traditional biblical beliefs as well as Catholic moral teaching.
When Del Grande raised his voice in opposition, the board, led by De Domenico, buried him under a mountain of code-of-conduct complaints and board investigations, which led to court hearings and Ontario College of Teachers complaints. It was calculated lawfare designed to make an example of Del Grande, sending a message to all trustees about what would happen to them if they uphold authentic Catholic doctrine and oppose what is contrary at the board level.
It began with an internal TCDSB investigation and trial to declare Del Grande guilty of trustee misconduct. When the board failed to garner enough votes to find him guilty, it worked with activists to manufacture a media firestorm and demand a re-vote. With the orchestrated outrage, they flipped one trustee from “No” to “Yes” to secure a guilty verdict.
Del Grande sued the TCDSB to clear his name and to defend the principle of free speech for elected officials. After a lower court decision and two appeals, a Trudeau-appointed judge’s ruling siding with the TCDSB was upheld.
Such lawfare comes with a cost—in this case, almost half a million taxpayer dollars spent by the TCDSB.
This is not the cost of a milkshake, expensive tech equipment, or late-night snacks. This is hundreds of thousands of dollars that should have gone to educating students and were used to attack a trustee whose only offence was to try to keep the Catholic board rooted in its Christian mission.
Yes, Toronto Catholic ratepayers should be outraged by Trustee De Domenico’s lavish expenses exposed last year. They should be more outraged, however, that the board paid high-priced lawyers so that it could punish a colleague for trying to keep the board Catholic.
Campaign Life Coalition, where I work, helped fund Del Grande’s defence. We did so because a publicly funded Catholic board has a constitutional reason to exist: to transmit the Catholic faith, not to punish trustees who try to keep the board true to its mission.
Minister Calandra was right that money spent outside the classroom is money not spent on children learning to read. If the cost of a milkshake can become a morality play about trustee waste, what does a $431,000 legal campaign against a sitting Catholic trustee become? Perhaps the biggest boondoggle in the history of the TCDSB?
Catholic ratepayers may be interested to know that De Domenico is running again in Ward 2, Etobicoke. The vote is on October 26. They are entitled to know the extent of the waste in the previous term. It goes way beyond milkshakes.