A local public school board is asking the court to rule whether one of its elected trustees should be kicked off the board for taking a temporary job in Halifax.
On Feb. 27, the Simcoe County District School Board filed a legal application to the Ontario Superior Court asking whether Barrie trustee Lisa-Marie Wilson has legally vacated her board seat because she took a temporary work placement out of province, based on the rules of the current Education Act.
If the court rules Wilson has legally vacated her seat, the board asked the court to order her removed from her office.
Wilson, who has a Barrie address on file with the board and included in the filing, is currently living in Nova Scotia as part of what she says is a one-year temporary work placement.
Since leaving this past summer and notifying the chair of the board at that time, changes have come down the pipe through the Education Act that, according to the school board leadership, call Wilson's position into question.
“This is orchestrated and targeted. If (my temporary work placement) were intended to be a permanent thing, I would have gladly vacated my seat,” Wilson told Village Media in an interview regarding the legal filing. “I’m livid.”
Wilson has been attending school board meetings virtually while in Halifax.
The 207-page court filing includes 22 exhibits to support the board’s case, including affidavits from former chair and Orillia/Severn/Ramara trustee Jodi Lloyd, current chair and Barrie trustee Dana Powell and former director of education John Dance.
It includes IT logs from the board’s network showing the location and times Wilson accessed her trustee email, the SCDSB code of conduct, bylaws and policies and emails between Dance, Lloyd, Wilson and others.
A letter from the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General — Wilson’s employer — is included as evidence and confirms the ministry approved Wilson’s temporary leave of absence.
Village Media’s story on Wilson’s secondment is included in the filing as an evidence exhibit as well.
Changes to the Education Act came into place provincially in July. One key change to the act is that all trustees are required to participate in-person at regular board meetings, unless permission is asked for and granted by the chair in writing ahead of the meeting under specific circumstances.
Wilson’s electronic participation in board meetings was first called into question publicly during at an Oct. 23 board meeting, as part of the agenda was regarding amendments to the board’s own policy on participating remotely in meetings, to bring it in-line with the Education Act changes.
As part of that meeting, then-director Dance noted that the Education Act only says that a person is qualified to be elected as a member of a district school board or school authority if the person is qualified to vote for members of that district school board or that school authority and is a resident in its area of jurisdiction at the time of election.
He said at that time that the “imprecise nature” of the wording of the act means it doesn’t contemplate what should happen if someone moves mid-term, or if that would make them ineligible to hold office.
In November, according to the filing, Wilson provided the board with updated banking and primary residence information, listed in Nova Scotia.
Wilson contends that she did open a bank account in Nova Scotia for her to use while living there, but that this wasn’t any kind of admission she had moved there for longer than one year.
Simcoe County District School Board trustees are paid a salary of $14,200 annually plus some eligible expenses.
The SCDSB didn’t formally amend their own electronic participation policy to be in-line with the Education Act until their meeting on Dec. 18.
Since the changes to board policy in December, Wilson still participates remotely, and received written permission from now-chair Powell for every instance.
‘I didn’t think we were voting to have anyone removed’
Wilson said representatives from Hicks Morley Hamilton Stewart Storie LLP — the board’s lawyers — worked to track her down in Nova Scotia to serve her with the legal application in-person, which she expects likely cost significant taxpayer dollars.
When contacted by Village Media regarding the lawsuit, including questions about how much the lawsuit has cost so far and how much staff time was invested into preparing the filing, communications manager with the board Sarah Kekewich declined to answer any questions.
“As this is a legal matter, we are not able to provide comment at this time,” Kekewich said in an email.
Current board chair Powell said he couldn’t speak on the issue now because it’s before the courts, but said the decision to proceed with the legal application came at an in-camera meeting in late 2024. His affidavit included in the filing notes that the date of the meeting was Dec. 11.
“It all happened in closed session. There’s really nothing I can say about it,” said Powell.
Collingwood/Wasaga Beach trustee Mike Foley confirmed the decision was made in-camera, but also declined to provide information about what happened in that meeting.
“I tried to support Lisa as much as I could,” said Foley. “I don’t really understand what’s going on with the legal background work at this point.”
“Lisa is a valued member of the board. I hope we have some clarity at the end of all of this,” he said.
At least one trustee has said this course of action is not what she thought she was voting for late last year.
“I thought we were voting just to get clarification and guidance on the act. I didn’t think we were voting to have anyone removed,” said New Tecumseth trustee Sarah Beitz in an interview.
“I’m not an expert in this arena. We weren’t presented with any documentation that was going to be sent. I was surprised that this is the turn it has taken,” she said.
Beitz pointed to her own history of difficulty with the board. Last year, she dealt with a series of integrity commissioner investigations against her over various code of conduct complaints, although the details of some of the complaints were addressed in closed session and weren’t made public. As a result, she was banned from meetings for a month.
“I have learned that you have to be really careful. Processes that are supposed to make things good and fair... can be skewed. As a trustee, you don’t have protection or the resources of the board. You can’t use a board lawyer, or have the protections of a union,” said Beitz.
“I’m worried that the same type of thing that happened to me, is going to happen to her,” she said.
Wilson said she’s worked hard to make sure the issues faced by her community are addressed at the board, even from afar while dealing with her work secondment.
“I didn’t do this for money. I did this to be a voice not only for Barrie, but particularly the racialized community,” she said. “Public service ... has been my passion.”
“There is no malicious or evil intent to what I’m doing,” she said.
Wilson has not yet filed a formal response to the application. She said she is cutting her temporary work placement short, and is returning to Barrie full-time in April. She said she decided to move back early for personal reasons, and not necessarily because of pressure from the board or the legal action.
“It just sickens me. I’ve cried over this. I feel attacked,” said Wilson.
The board's application has not yet been before a judge.
