A recording of Monday’s live streamed meeting of Waterloo Region District School Board won’t be posted to the school board’s YouTube channel, as is normally its practice.
The decision comes after concerns were raised during the meeting about comments made by a delegation that may have constituted a violation of the Human Rights Code.
At the Jan. 17 school board meeting a local teacher was removed from the meeting while commenting on a review the school board is undertaking to identify library resources that may be considered harmful to staff and students.
Carolyn Burjoski said the book The Other Boy by MG Hennessey, about the medical transition of a female who now identifies as a boy, “is misleading because it does not take into account how Shane might feel later in life about being infertile.”
During her presentation, Burjoski was abruptly halted by board chair Scott Piatkowski who said that he was concerned that her delegation may be problematic.
“I would caution you to make sure that you're not saying anything that would violate the human rights code,” Piatkowski said, adding her comments might violate the province's protections for gender expression and gender identity.
The school board typically posts a recording of the live stream the day after the meeting.
In this case it decided not to, saying the minutes will serve as the official record of the meeting.
Those minutes have yet to be posted on the board’s website and it’s not known if direction has been given to redact the comments made by Burjoski.
In an emailed statement to CambridgeToday, interim chief communications officer with the board Eusis Dougan-McKenzie confirmed the recording was not posted due to concerns over a Human Rights Code violation.
“We are also sensitive to the many students, staff and members of the wider community who were impacted by comments made during the meeting," she said.
The board did not reply when asked if a policy guided its decision and later told CambridgeToday it removes recordings of live streamed meetings past a certain date.
Meetings held prior to last July have been removed from the school board’s YouTube channel.
Some trustees, including Mike Ramsay, disagreed with the decision to shut down the delegation, saying on Twitter he believes “disagreements on important matters [at the school board] are not only inevitable, but also healthy.”
"I did get the impression that the teacher was speaking about age appropriateness," said trustee Cindy Watson, who was in favour of allowing Burjoski to continue speaking.
