Archbishop allows trustee candidates to meet voters at church

For the first time ever, the Archdiocese of Toronto is inviting candidates running for spots on the Toronto Catholic District School Board to come and meet with parishioners on church property every Sunday until the election.

“I have chosen to make an exception for the October 25th election: candidates for Catholic School Board Trustee will be permitted to present information to parishioners outside of our churches,” wrote Archbishop Thomas Collins in a Sept. 12 pastoral letter.

During previous election periods, candidates could meet with voters on the sidewalk from a distance, or at meet and greets organized by individual parishes. 


Sent out to all churches in the Archdiocese of Toronto, the letter called the election enormously important and reminded readers “the well-being of Catholic Education depends to a great degree on the trustees whom we elect.”

Without mentioning outright the scandals that plagued the board over the past four years, Collins alluded to past problems by suggesting the next round of trustees should possess qualities such as competence, fiscal responsibility, and respect for the law.

“Getting to people who are coming out of church is obviously a way of meeting them where they’re at and can be a way of reaching a large number of people in a particular ward,” said Neil MacCarthy, communications director for the archdiocese of Toronto.

Although the church is normally wary of mixing politics and faith, MacCarthy acknowledged the Toronto Catholic District School Board in particular had suffered from a series of scandals in recent years.

“We’d be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge the fact there are certainly high profile articles in the media about the Toronto Catholic Board in particular,” he said. “(The letter) is a reminder to all those who are running for trustee and also to the electorate to be responsible for the people who we elect.”

In 2008, the board was hit with an expense scandal where it was revealed that some trustees had charged their expense accounts for personal items such as dinners and shopping expeditions.

A board vote in May of the same year resulted in conflict of interest charges against former chairs Oliver Carroll and Angela Kennedy, as well as trustee Barbara Poplawski. In separate trials, a judge ordered Carroll and Kennedy to step down from office.

Poplawski’s trial is currently ongoing.

Despite the charges both Kennedy and Poplawski are running for re-election.

In August of 2009, the province placed the board under the interim control of supervisor, Richard Alway, a former president of The University of Toronto. Alway recently told the Town Crier he expects his duties as provincially appointed supervisor to be complete by the end of the year.

This is not the first time the church has weighed in on the dubious conduct of the board. In a letter written to trustees in May of 2008, Archbishop Collins said “the reality of this board’s actions over the past few years reflects poorly on Catholic education, and on our whole Catholic community.”