It is time to see who is truly ready to hold the seat of Toronto District School Board (TDSB). I made the decision to withdraw from the bid to run for the seat. Despite moving into the community last year, I received a letter from the district that stated I was still under investigation as a missing persons case by the Toronto Police Services. Though no charges have been laid against me, it leaves me with a question about my sanity.
My former colleagues started asking me to withdraw in July, asking if I could still run. I said no. One person asked how long it would take for the first vote to take place and in that moment, I knew there was only one option: I had to step aside. I did not receive an explanation as to why I was still under investigation by the Toronto Police Services, so it is as if the district did not trust me to make the right decision for my constituents.
I have been working as a lawyer for 20 years and practiced law in Toronto for over 20 years before that. When I began practicing law, I made a promise to myself that I would not represent people with special needs, queer and trans people, or underprivileged communities, despite the lack of opportunities. While I initially answered that question by saying, “no,” I ended up making the mistake of what is termed by legal scholars as an “idiosyncratic approach to law,” one that makes a promise to someone but can never be kept as long as that person is unable to work out a method to put the promises in action.
It was discovered that my nomination papers had a set of different signatures that were not mine.
I hope that when the situation resolves, I will be able to work with the new slate to improve schools, keep up the fight to close the loopholes in our system, and to create a school board that puts children first.