Stand with pro-life trustee Mike Del Grande: LifeFunder

(Campaign Life Coalition) — If you’ve been following our reports, you’ll know that Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) Trustee Michael Del Grande has been persecuted since 2019, in various, unjust witch hunts.

One of those vindictive inquisitions – by the Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) – may finally be coming to an end. Closing arguments by the prosecution and defense lawyers were heard by the two-member judicial panel on September 4 and 5.

Why is this witch hunt and attempt to strip him of his teaching license even happening?

We believe the OCT is doing this to make an example of him to other school board trustees who are watching across the nation, so that they’re never tempted to challenge any of the woke-ism and transgender ideology flooding their own schools.

“Challenge our LGBTQ orthodoxy, and we’ll come for you, too! So, keep your mouth shut,” is the message the left is trying to send with this Stalinist show trial.

Defense’s arguments should result in easy win

The closing argument by trustee Del Grande’s lawyer, Dr. Charles Lugosi, brilliantly summed up how the OCT’s attempt to regulate the speech of an elected official is “unprecedented by an administrative body,” how it is “a matter of national importance,” and how it strikes at “the very heart of democracy.”

It was so compelling in fact, that unless the judicial panelists are woke activists who don’t care about Canada’s constitution or freedom of expression, we don’t see how they could possibly side with the prosecution to find Del Grande guilty of “teacher misconduct.”

Also keep in mind that his supposedly “offensive” speech was made in his capacity as an elected municipal politician, during a political debate, in the legislative chambers.

He was not a teacher conducting a lesson in a classroom.

Del Grande was speaking as a trustee to his fellow trustees, in the trustee boardroom – not as a teacher to his students in a classroom – so, the entire case against him is beyond ridiculous, and it lays bare the ideological nature of the College’s pursuit.

Examples of compelling closing arguments

Trustee Del Grande’s lawyer, Dr. Charles Lugosi, cited much case law and foundational legal principles that should be extremely persuasive to exonerate him.

However, his appeals to common sense, to logic, and simply to the need for Canada to remain a free society, were also irresistible.

We’ll provide you with a few highlights of those arguments, which, we believe, if there’s any sense of justice in the hearts of the judges at all, will win the day for Trustee Del Grande.

Speaking to the Teachers College lacking jurisdiction to regulate the speech of elected politicians:

There is not one legal authority, case law, statute or otherwise that authorizes the College to regulate the political speech of elected representatives. Yet, your independent counsel maintains you have jurisdiction to do that.

That’s why I say this case is of national importance. It’s unprecedented and in excess of the jurisdiction of the College. There is nothing in the statute at all. Simply, there (exists) jurisdiction over members regarding the teaching profession.

So, if someone is not engaged in the teaching profession, and they’re engaged in politics, the argument is, and the law is, there’s no jurisdiction!

Here, we’re at the edge of a new frontier because until this case came around, no other administrative body in the history of Canada has said: ‘We are regulating the political speech of one of our members.’

Speaking to the fact that Trustee Del Grande has never worked as a teacher:

Logically, you can’t have off-duty conduct unless there is also on-duty conduct. So, it’s absurd to think that. It defies the construction principles of legal interpretation.

Responding to the College’s laughable proposition that prosecuting a Catholic trustee for debating a motion to defend the authentic Catholic faith in Catholic schools does NOT infringe on his freedom of religion:

Independent Counsel said, ‘Look there’s nothing about this case that stops Mr. Del Grande from being a devout Catholic, from practicing his Catholic faith.’

Well, that issue was never before this tribunal! What we’re talking about is within a different context.

The freedom of religion we’re talking about is not him being able to go to Mass or not, go to Confession or not, or taking Communion or not.

What this is about is him abiding by his religious oath of office, about the religious mission of his job as a school board trustee, and his constitutional obligation to preserve the denominational nature of the Catholic school system in the province of Ontario in the City of Toronto.

In other words, his political speech is about preserving the denominational nature and denominational rights given under section 93 of the constitution.

So, this is the part of freedom of religion that applies, because the Catholic faith will die otherwise, if it’s infiltrated and invaded by secular human rights ideologies that conflict with the basic doctrines of the Roman Catholic faith.

He’s a defender of the Catholic faith. That’s how freedom of religion applies.

Speaking generally to freedom of speech:

This is an unprecedented regulation of speech. The question is: Is this constitutional? Does it infringe upon freedom of expression of an elected public official? The College conceded it does. The question is, is it a reasonable limit?

I’m not going to repeat my earlier argument why the College cannot meet its burden, suffice to say that since the very lifeblood of democracy is freedom of expression, how can you kill or limit freedom of speech, and still pretend we live in a democracy? Either we’re in a democracy or we’re not.

Quasi-privilege was a term that was used by Independant Counsel. What I have used is parliamentary privilege and the need to extend it to the municipal level – that is, school board trustees and City Hall – out of necessity, because our Supreme Court has said: ‘Out of necessity, we will extend parliamentary privilege.’

You don’t have to call it parliamentary privilege. You can call it absolute privilege, the same way school board officials who were elected to public office in the United States have absolute privilege, so they can freely have freedom of speech.

Speaking to the College’s argument that it wasn’t violating the “separation of powers” doctrine with its attempt to prosecute an elected official:

Can you imagine any democracy, a representative democracy in Western society, where an administrative tribunal that governs the behaviour of the teaching profession, can intrude upon the freedom of expression of elected representatives at any level of government? Doesn’t that impact on the separation of powers?

You have the judicial branch, the legislative branch, and the executive branch. And now you have a creature of statute, an administrative tribunal! And separation of powers doesn’t come into play? I strongly disagree.

Turning the OCT’s accusation against Del Grande of allegedly “poisoning the school environment” with his anti-gender ideology motion back on the OCT, by asserting that the OCT itself is guilty of “poisoning democracy.”

Both Ms. Miller and Independent Counsel talked about ‘poisoning the environment’ of the school. Well, what we’re really talking about is poisoning the environment of the legislative chamber and the private chambers of school board trustees.

In other words, what’s being poisoned by the overreach of the College regulators, is the poisoning of the environment of free and robust debate, and all the tool kits that comes with that. That’s being poisoned. They’re poisoning democracy, in a nutshell. That’s the real poisoning going on.

And what Mr. Del Grande was doing by introducing his amendment, was to try to win votes to his position. He was not trying to poison the school environment, but he was trying to keep it safe from poisoning from government intrusion into the section 93 denomination role that he and the other school trustees are bound by law and by faith to defend. It’s all a matter of perspective.

Scuttling an attempt by prosecutors to dismiss recent case law in which an Ontario judge acknowledged that municipal elected officials may indeed have a form of “parliamentary privilege” which protects their speech when uttered in their capacity as elected politicians:

Qualified privilege is in a straitjacket according to (opposing) counsel. In other words, it only applies in the narrow context of defamation cases.

But the whole principle of qualified privilege is that if you’re engaged in official business before your elected body, then you are covered by privilege.

And I’m saying the principle is wider than simply defamation suits. It extends to the invasion by administrative tribunals of the free speech rights and freedom of expression rights, of the elected representatives.

Explaining that any finding of Del Grande’s “slippery slope” motion as having engaged in the official charges called “conduct unbecoming” or “dishonourable conduct,” would be found by a real court to be “void” because of its vagueness in the context of his job an elected school trustee:

Independent Counsel did not address the situation of what ‘conduct unbecoming,’ and ‘unprofessional,’ and ‘dishonourable conduct,’ how these terms apply in the political context. She did not address that. She says that there’s all kinds of legal authorities that say, ‘Everyone kind of has an understanding of what these words mean, but they just can’t be vague.’

You look at it in the sexual assault context, you look at it in the classroom context. Nobody’s debating that in this case.

But the problem is that when you’re in a heated political debate, and you’re using rhetorical hyperbole to get a shock, to exaggerate, and to use whatever political tools in your toolkit, how do you know when you’re going to cross the line, or not cross the line?

Because the most obvious grasping of where the line is boils down to your political ideology. For example, if what you say as a conservative-minded person offends people in the woke culture of this country, people will lay complaints. They’ll say: ‘That’s conduct unbecoming of a teacher!’ Or engineer. Or a lawyer. Or a nurse. Whatever the profession happens to be.

So, this is the problem. These words outside of the teaching profession, are vague in the political context. So, it is legitimate to make that constitutional argument that these words are void for vagueness outside the context of the teaching profession, in the political environment.

Dr. Lugosi refuted the contention that a 2019 debate between a female student trustee and trustee Del Grande regarding the former’s pro-abortion views, in the Trustees Lounge following a TCDSB board meeting, should be considered by the judges to be a “teacher-to-student relationship” rather than a peer-to-peer, “trustee-to-trustee relationship.”

This debate was later used by the student trustee to allege Del Grande “verbally and emotionally abused” her when he politely challenged the inconsistency between her public pro-abortion statements and her duty as a Catholic education leader and board member:

[She] was there in the trustee lounge. Not as a student. She was there in her trustee capacity as an elected representative of thousands of students. She was not there as a student.

She is there as a trustee, a respected, important position that’s to be taken seriously by a board that is political, where the business of the board involves making decisions that are hopefully consistent with the oath of office to preserve and defend the Catholic faith, to make it a truly denominational school in substance as well as in form.

So, my learned friend, Ms. Miller, basically says, ‘Well if there’s no abuse – verbal or emotional or otherwise, psychological – then, you can still find Mr. Del Grande guilty of misconduct.’

The question is, for what? It’s not comparable to a sexual assault situation … that doesn’t apply in the context of a political debate about the business of the board, in terms of a position on being pro-life or not being pro-life, or about fulfilling your responsibility as a role model for the Catholic faith to thousands of students.

Eviscerating the Ontario College of Teacher’s argument that prosecuting an elected official for introducing a motion at a board meeting does not constitute a significant infringement of his constitutional right to freedom of speech:

What I heard also is that this speech may not necessarily be political speech. How could it be otherwise?

This is a political body. And the invitation to you by Independent Counsel to say, ‘Well, this isn’t necessarily political speech’ is so contrary to the evidence. Mr. Moscoe (a defense witness) said the school board is a political body. He knows. He watched the process for years. He was a teachers union president. This is a political body, and it behaves as a political body.

If I’m not misinterpreting what she said, she (the prosecutor) said: ‘You can have your political speech, Mr. Del Grande, but you have choices. You can make your political speech in a church basement, or in a private home, where nobody would hear you.’

Well, what’s the point of political speech? Are we living in a kind of a totalitarian regime where the only robust and free political debate has to be done in secret, in a private setting? That’s not consistent with the democracy of Canada, as we understand it.

The OCT’s judicial panel is now in the process of writing its decision and we’ll soon learn whether it does the right thing and exonerates trustee Del Grande of any “teacher misconduct.”

We hope that we’ve been able to impress upon you that Michael has an excellent lawyer with the skill to navigate complex legal issues in constitutional and administrative law.

This top-notch legal defense is expensive, but is only available to trustee Del Grande because CLC has been heavily crowdfunding for him.

While our donors have been generous in donating to our legal defense fund at STAND WITH MIKE, and we’re so grateful to them, the donations have been far less than the total legal bills.

As a result, Mike is in a perilous financial situation as I write this.

In fact, if the OCT judges rule against Mike, we may not be in a position to fund his appeal to a real court. That would be a loss because his lawyer very deliberately introduced evidence during the Teacher’s College hearings to help ensure that Mike would be successful on appeal.

So, can I ask you a favour?

If you’ve never donated to Trustee Del Grande’s legal defense fund, would you please make a generous contribution right now, by clicking here?

If you’ve donated before – thank you – but are you in a position to dig deeper? Perhaps to make a larger contribution like $1,000 or $5,000?

I feel so uncomfortable begging like this, but the situation really is desperate, and Mike deserves our support. Democracy needs our support.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Reprinted with permission from Campaign Life Coalition. 

Stand with pro-life trustee Mike Del Grande: LifeFunder