The Ontario College of Teachers and their Relentless Pursuit of Ideological Conformity

Ontario Teacher Under Investigation Once Again

By Chanel Pfahl (former Ontario teacher)

I’m a very controversial figure. You see, in February 2021, I posted a non-politically correct Facebook comment in which I suggested teachers should not indoctrinate kids, but teach them how to think for themselves. I added that they should model kindness and speak out against all forms of discrimination — even discrimination brought on by the “anti-racist” movement, which claims that all white people are racist by default.

Anyone who works in a school knows this last part especially is a big no-no. Even I knew that. To be equally concerned with the treatment of all people is wrong, because only non-white people deserve any kind of sympathy or consideration in this new progressive era. Well, I say: to hell with that. If this new ideology is going to have us revert back to treating individuals differently based on their race, I want no part in it. I am simply not going along with that regressive insanity. More on why I am saying “no” to this toxic ideology in this article. 

So, as it goes, I was immediately reported by a random teacher I’d never interacted with, investigated by my school board, then suspended by my school board in March 2021.

A year later the Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) decided to “investigate” me for that same comment, an investigation that lasted for months and was just officially put to rest in February 2023. They decided not to bring the case to a disciplinary hearing, and simply to issue an “oral caution” — essentially a warning not to voice my political opinions. Being represented by constitutional lawyers at The Democracy Fund likely scared them off.

It was a victory for sure, and I received many hopeful messages from people wondering whether the tide was finally turning, and whether common sense might be making a comeback. I knew very well that this was not the case, because I am regularly in touch with teachers and constantly monitoring what is being taught in schools. Things are only getting more extravagant. You can scroll through my Twitter page (@ChanLPfa) to see for yourself.

All to say, though it was a win that the investigation had been dropped, I wasn’t holding my breath. When I discussed it with friends, I told them simply: “I’m sure they will come for me again very soon.”

It took exactly a month. Now, the OCT is coming after me for a tweet I posted in October 2022, when I was running in the municipal election as a school trustee candidate for the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB).

I posted an email which had been sent to me by an OCDSB employee to inform me that there was a board-wide initiative to invite kids of certain faiths, races and sexualities to join after school virtual “hangouts.” Mondays were for Muslim students, Thursdays for African, Black and Caribbean students, and Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays for 2SLGBTQ+ students. Here is the tweet (better pictures of the email further down):

The complainant, a different one than the last time around, alleged that the above tweet contained “sensitive information”, notably “links to meetings meant for students” and “access codes to meetings even though it said many times not to share them publicly.”

The official allegations, written in French, are below.

Now, here are clearer images of the email I posted, so that you can see for yourself that:

• there are no meeting links contained in the email;

• where it was indicated that the meeting code should not be shared (the first two meetings), there was no meeting code given, only a meeting “nickname”. I don’t know about you, but a nickname and a code aren’t the same thing to me. 

The email also clearly indicated that students would need to log in to their OCDSB Google account to access the Meets — so only OCDSB staff and students could access these meetings, anyway.

Of course, however, nobody cared about the facts. The woke brigade piled on me saying I was sharing ‘student emails’, ‘doxxing kids’, etc. None of that was true either — all the email addresses contained in the screenshots were public, employee emails, easily found online.

The OCDSB went ahead and tweeted, on October 8th:

Confidential details relating to student support group meetings were posted on Twitter. The public sharing of meeting links intended for students creates situations of risk, including attacks on individuals and cybersecurity threats.

A little hyperbolic, no?

The Ottawa Citizen was happy to join in on the hysteria…

And yet, it is obvious that there was no threat whatsoever to anyone (except perhaps to myself, but I will not get into that…).

Even IF I had posted the meeting links, and even IF no OCDSB account was needed to join the Meet, what was the worst that could have happened? Someone might have decided to jump in on the virtual meeting? That was the threat?

Were they worried a parent might discover their daughter was being referred to as ‘he’ by staff and peers, despite never having been informed?

Are OCDSB staff unaware that Google meets have security settings that allow for the meeting administrators to let participants enter the meeting one by one, once they are approved?

I think it all boils down to one big question, which is this: why were so many people so keen on keeping these meetings a secret?

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Thanks for reading. For more from this author read, In Defence of Free Speech: Ontario Teacher Stands with Dr Jordan Peterson

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