TCDSB Investigation Series - Part 2
The Price of Silence
How Expense Scandals Distract From a System in Crisis
1. The Six Thousand Dollar Headline. The Six Billion Dollar Problem.
When Global News and CityNews reported that Education Minister Paul Calandra ordered TCDSB Chair Markus De Domenico to repay about six thousand seven hundred dollars in office expenses, the story spread fast.
TV wall mounts. Electronics. Apple Watch straps. A neat, tidy scandal. The kind the public can sink its teeth into.
Calandra framed it as principle.
“Taxpayer dollars belong in the classroom.”
But this tidy scandal is a smokescreen.
The Toronto Catholic District School Board sits on a sixty six million dollar operating deficit inside a province-wide funding crisis that runs into the billions. Trustees have no authority to fix it. They can barely speak about it. The supervisor approves every budget line.
Focusing outrage on a handful of receipts keeps the public looking down at pennies instead of up at the structural collapse.
2. Selective Transparency: One Standard For Trustees, Another For Ministers
Trustees now operate under microscope-level scrutiny.
Every expense. Every cable. Every misplaced note.
Meanwhile, Calandra’s own publicly reported spending includes:
• twenty three thousand dollars on a single community BBQ
• almost twelve thousand dollars on parade events
• more than fifty four thousand dollars in office rent
• about six thousand in hotel stays
• steady spending on festivals, hospitality, community events
All legal.
All permitted.
All insulated by layers of provincial bureaucracy.
This is not balanced transparency.
This is targeted transparency.
A political lever, not a governance reform.
The public is told to rage at trustees while ministerial optics run unchecked.
3. Parents Step In Because Trustees Cannot Speak
The Ontario Autism Coalition just held a province-wide Town Hall for families in TDSB, TCDSB, YCDSB, and OCDSB.
The opening line said everything.
“If you cannot talk to your trustee about the lack of support your child is receiving, this evening is for you.”
Parents are bypassing trustees because trustees have been sidelined by design.
The hashtags tell the real story.
#FundOurSchools
#BetterCallPaul
#KeepTrustees
Accountability is no longer local.
It is grassroots.
And it is angry.
4. The Budget Sleight of Hand: What the Scandals Hide
Here is the part that never makes the nightly news.
• TCDSB is operating with a sixty six million dollar deficit
• Special Education funding is flat despite rising needs
• EAs and ECEs carry impossible caseloads
• Teachers burn out under growing class sizes
• The School Closure Moratorium prevents efficient infrastructure planning
• September saw board-wide class reorganizations, the yearly chaos no one likes to admit
You can move a teacher halfway across the building in week three.
You can collapse a class.
You can split a grade.
This is the real price of underfunding.
But it never goes viral.
A five dollar watch strap does.
5. The Catholic Layer: Identity Under Pressure
Catholic boards face an added tension.
Their identity is rooted in faith-driven education, parish life, and cultural programming.
But under supervision, even these are pushed through provincial filters.
We now have:
• Ministry-driven directives like the Dufferin-Peel flag order
• Public messaging routed through Supervisor-approved channels
• Cultural and faith programming maintained at the school level but controlled at the governance level
• Hiring requirements tied to Catholic practice, while provincial directives reshape Catholic spaces from the outside
On the surface, the board still celebrates:
All Saints and All Souls.
Remembrance.
Virtue of the Month.
Internment Commemoration.
Franco-Ontarian culture.
Dance-a-Thons.
Athletics partnerships.
Underneath that surface, the authority to shape Catholic identity is slipping.
Trustees can no longer defend it.
Supervision makes sure of that.
6. The Expense Scandal Playbook
This is not new.
Ontario used the same script on the TDSB.
Step one.
Leak expenses.
Create moral panic.
Step two.
Install a supervisor.
Step three.
Remove trustee voting power.
Silence oversight.
Step four.
Extend supervision.
Call it temporary.
Let it last indefinitely.
The same thing is now playing out inside the Catholic board.
Different trustees.
Same Ministry.
Same strategy.
7. What the Province Has Bought Is Not Accountability. It Is Quiet.
Trustees who challenge the system get disciplined.
Trustees who speak publicly get slapped down.
Trustees who try to move motions see them deferred or blocked.
The Supervisor approves the entire budget.
The Supervisor controls parent communication channels.
The Supervisor decides which motions proceed.
So the expense scandal is not about six thousand seven hundred dollars.
It is about political control.
The receipts are the distraction.
The silence is the goal.
Closing Note: Follow the Power
When trustees are publicly shamed and privately neutered, local democracy stops being local. It becomes administrative theatre.
Parents can rage about Apple Watch straps all they like.
The real fight is over who gets to decide how Catholic schools operate, how money flows, how culture is shaped, and who is allowed to speak.
This was never about the receipts.
It was about removing the people who ask hard questions.
The real question is what happens to Catholic identity when its governance is taken away.
Part 3 uncovers the two realities inside the TCDSB.
Continue to Part 3.
