A retired Waterloo teacher has vowed to press on with her legal fight for the freedom of speech denied her by the board’s trustees.
Carolyn Burjoski announced this week that she is appealing a ruling by three judges with Ontario’s Divisional Court to dismiss her application for a judicial review of a January 2022 decision by the largely woke trustees – who cut off her delegation exposing some highly sexualized books in the board’s elementary school libraries.
“This ruling is deeply concerning,” she says in a video on her website. “It could set a troubling precedent for free expression in Canada empowering school boards to silence and censure every voice they disagree with.
“This is not just about one school board … it is about the integrity of open dialogue on important issues in our education system and other public forums.”
She referred to “administrative overreach” which stifles open dialogue that should be protected by our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Burjoski barely got through four minutes of her presentation in January of 2022 – during which she objected to the two highly sexualized books – when then board chairman, Scott Piatkowski, a longtime NDPer, stopped her and expelled her from the meeting.
The next day she was put on home assignment and warned to keep quiet (if she wanted to receive her retirement benefits) while Piatkowski did the rounds of friendly Kitchener-Waterloo media alleging she was “transphobic” and had used “hate speech” in the meeting.
She filed a $1.7-million defamation suit against the board and Piatkowski in May of 2022, alleging Piatkowski also said her presentation would cause trans people to “be attacked.”
That lawsuit is still working its way through the courts.
On June 21 of last year, she applied for judicial review of Piatkowski’s decision to end her presentation amid claims it violated the Human Rights code.
On Nov. 29 three judges of the divisional court – five months after the hearing – issued their ruling dismissing Burjoski’s application.
They indicated the Waterloo Region District School Board’s decision to cut her off mid-deputation was “reasonable” and that there was no “actual bias” on the part of the board’s chairman (at the time) Piatkowski or the NDP trustees who supported him.
In what can be reasonably called, in my view, a very weak, biased and almost laughable ruling that sympathized with the board’s actions, the judges appeared to reprimand Burjoski for veering off topic from her deputation request to speak about the “need for transparency” in the board’s review of library books.
They seemed miffed that she included (and read from) two specific books she felt should be removed from the libraries during the board’s review.
“Soon after Burjoski began her delegation, she digressed from the scope of the issue that had been approved … shifting rapidly toward a critique of specific books that were available in school libraries,” the decision says.
As someone who listened to her original presentation, she did indeed raise those two books – both on LGBT issues – as examples of subjects she felt were age inappropriate for elementary school libraries.
Reading the ruling, one wonders if the judges entirely lost the plot or couldn’t be bothered to connect the dots.
Burjoski was arguing about transparency. The very fact that the board’s trustees had to approve the topics of her deputation first strikes me as the crux of the problem.
These judges not only ignored that fact but called the reference to the two books “irrelevant” and claimed the board “followed its own procedures” for ending the presentation even though the bylaws do not articulate how the board may stop a delegation.
According to the judges, as long as the decision was legal, the Waterloo trustees were free to do what they wanted.
“The process that was afforded to Burjowski was not unfair,” the judgment says, in this case spelling her name wrong.
On the bias issue, the judges claim that because the decision to shut her down was made by “five members of the elected WRDSB,” there was no actual bias and that Piatkowski did not have a “closed mind” before he voted on the decision.
Except that, in my view, not only did Piatkowski have a closed mind but so did the rest of his sycophants who supported him.
It was clear viewing their outrageous behaviour that night that they didn’t want Burjoski to expose the questionable books. Their lack of transparency carried over to the next several days when they refused to post the video of the public meeting.
The final insult with this ridiculous ruling was that $5,000 in costs were awarded to the WRDSB, who have used a pricey downtown Toronto law firm to fight Burjoski.
What this shows is that getting justice from a school board is an uphill battle considering they can use (unlimited) public resources to fight back. In this case, it appears that our justice system protected the status quo too.
However , Bujorski is not deterred, noting that she’s thankful she has the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms to fight her case pro bono.
