Ontario Education Minister Paul Calandra has introduced a rare piece of legislation aimed squarely at removing a single school board trustee who refused to repay expenses from a controversial overseas trip.
The bill targets Mark Watson, a trustee with the Brant Haldimand Norfolk Catholic District School Board, who was part of a delegation of four trustees that spent $45,000 on a trip to Italy last year — during which the group also purchased $100,000 worth of art for the board.
Calandra said that while three of the trustees reimbursed their travel costs, Watson refused to pay his share of $12,370, prompting the province to take action. “We said, ‘pay it back or we fire you,’ and today is the culmination of that promise,” Calandra told reporters. “We’re going to fire him and make an example out of him.”
If passed, the bill will immediately remove Watson from office and bar him from seeking election as a trustee in 2026 or serving on any Ontario school board until 2030.
Calandra condemned the trustees’ spending as “both excessive and unjustifiable,” adding that such behaviour undermines public trust in school governance. The board’s chair, Carol Luciani, said the board will continue to co-operate fully with the Ministry of Education.
The move is part of Calandra’s wider crackdown on school board oversight. The minister has already placed five boards under government supervision for alleged mismanagement and hinted that more could follow. He is also considering a more radical reform — eliminating elected trustees altogether.
“I’ve been all over the province talking with parents and teachers,” Calandra said. “They tell me the same thing — the results we’re getting from boards aren’t what families expect. We can fix it, and they expect us to do better.”
Watson did not respond to requests for comment.