A legal warning letter has been issued to the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board after it suspended an elected school council member for voicing a respectful objection to land acknowledgements.Catherine Kronas, a parent of a student at Ancaster High Secondary School, was re-elected to the school council in October 2024. At a council meeting on April 9, Kronas requested that her dissenting view on land acknowledgements be included in the meeting minutes. The meeting continued without disruption.However, on May 22, the board informed Kronas that her involvement was being “paused,” citing allegations that she caused harm and breached a Code of Conduct Policy. She was barred from attending the next meeting.“I was taken aback by the board’s decision to suspend me from the school council after delivering a respectful objection,” Kronas said. “By barring me from the next meeting, the council sends a troubling message to all parents: that even respectful disagreement may be met not with dialogue, but with disciplinary action.”The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms is now representing Kronas. Constitutional lawyer Hatim Kheir said her remarks “were a reasonable and measured expression of a viewpoint held by many Canadians.”“The board’s decision to suspend her from the council, which she has a right to sit on as an elected parent member, is an act of censorship that offends the right to freedom of expression,” Kheir stated.He is calling for her immediate reinstatement and for assurances that she can serve her elected term without further retaliation.
