Ottawa school board to elect its first Indigenous student trustee
New position part of board’s commitment to reconciliation, says chairperson
The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board is creating a new Indigenous student trustee position for the 2024-25 school year. (File photo by Madalyn Howitt)
An Ottawa school board will elect its first-ever Indigenous student trustee for the upcoming academic year.
The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board will introduce the new position for the 2024-25 school year following a motion approved by trustees, board spokesperson Darcy Knoll said in a news release.
It will be the first school board in Ottawa to have an Indigenous student trustee at the board table.
The Indigenous student trustee will help highlight the perspectives of Indigenous students during important conversations at the board, Knoll said.
Inuit, Métis and First Nations students who will be in grades 11 or 12 in September 2024 can run in an election for the position.
All Indigenous secondary students are eligible to vote for the Indigenous student trustee on Feb. 28.
“Many of the issues we discuss as a board concern how we can better support Indigenous students to reach their full potential. Adding an Indigenous student voice to these conversations will benefit our discussions,” board chairperson Lynn Scott said in the announcement.
“The [board] is moving forward in our commitments to reconciliation. Increasing Indigenous representation is an important part of this process.”
Currently, the board has 12 elected adult trustees and two student trustees.
Ottawa is situated on the unceded homelands of the Algonquin Nation and also has the largest population of Inuit in Ontario, the school board’s land acknowledgement says.
Approximately 1,500 students, or two per cent of the student population of the Ottawa-Carleton board, have self-identified as First Nations, Métis or Inuit.
According to the board website, student trustees receive an honorarium of $2,500 for each complete year they hold office.
Not how democracy works – time to replace any board out of touch enough to support this sort of thinking.
Perhaps not consistent with a pure democracy, but it is consistent with a liberal democracy, which Canada is.
Wait, only Indigenous students can vote for these candidates, but they get to make decisions that affect all students, even the non-Indigenous ones? So, non-Indigenous students are being effectively disenfranchised? Who thought that this was a good idea?
Where is the equity and social justice in this? Somebody explain this to me.
Where’s the reconciliation? “Working separately?”
“The weak revenge..”
“The strong Forgive and the intelligent take notice and move on.”
-Albert Einstein
I’ve always understood ‘liberal-democracy’ as meaning laws are in place to prevent the tyranny of the majority, rule of law, etc.
That has nothing to do with this case. In this case a select population are being given a form of power over all, where only a small minority of the electorate is allowed to vote for them. There are huge problems with that type of thinking.
Imagine that if decided that in Iqaluit that we would reserve one seat on council for those of West-African heritage, and only those of West-African heritage could vote for them, but they could still vote on laws and policies that affect everyone. People would rightly outraged. This situation is the same.
One seat out of 15 is hardly going to tip the balance of power into the hands of the barbarians…
The kind of behavior advocated by the Ottawa school board is racist toward all ethnic groups, undemocratic to Canadians and a general blight on society