I want to share the latest development in a disgraceful story out of Red Deer, but first, I have a question.

Who gets to choose the democratically elected trustees to represent you on the local Catholic school board?

Is it the voters who live in the district, or is it a handful of self-appointed overlords?

Common sense, and the long-standing democratic tradition here in Canada, would suggest it’s the people who get to choose their elected representatives for the next four years, by the casting of their ballots. But apparently not in Red Deer, not after what happened with Trustee Monique LaGrange.

You see, Monique was one of seven democratically-elected trustees with Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools (RDCRS), since the 2021 municipal election. "Was" is the key word.

ABOVE: Monique LaGrange, former trustee for Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools.

Unbelievably, five of her trustee colleagues on the board “unelected” her on Tuesday, November 14th, for opposing LGBT indoctrination in schools and for violating subsequent sanctions on her free speech…

You read that correctly.

Five of her fellow school trustees turned on her for speaking out against LGBT indoctrination in Catholic schools.

Trustees Anne Marie Watson, Murray Hollman, Cynthia Leyson, Dorraine Lonsdale, and Sharla Heistad voted to literally undo the results of the 2021 election.

And POOF, just like magic, the election was undone!

The ballots cast by the Catholic electorate in Red Deer were nullified.

Their votes amounted to nothing. Democracy was nothing more than an irritation that the five woke trustees could wipe away, like a smudge on a windshield.

All 2,436 of the electors who cast their ballots in the 2021 election to have Monique LaGrange represent them for a four-year term until the next election on October 20, 2025, were disenfranchised.

In the Unites States, voter disenfranchisement is a big deal. People go to jail for robbing electors of their votes. But NO, not in Red Deer.

Here in Alberta, woke trustees apparently have a special legal power of “un-election”, in which they get to nullify the people’s ballots if they don’t like the candidate elected by the voters!

Well, that sounds like an anti-democratic dictatorship to me! It’s disgusting. I’m absolutely enraged by this affront to democracy... and you should be too.

And I don’t care if the Alberta Education Act has a provision that allows trustees to remove (i.e. “disqualify”) a colleague for alleged “misconduct”. All that means is that The Education Act is wrong!

That provision in the Act should be repealed by Premier Danielle Smith as an affront to democracy. And even if the provision is there, no self-respecting trustee who values democracy should ever consider using it.

You cannot cancel a faithful Catholic school trustee for expressing political and religious opinions that other, less faithful Catholic trustees disagree with. It's totally un-democratic and anti-democratic.

If anybody is going to fire a trustee because they don’t like her job performance, it should be the voters, at the next election, not five autocratic power elites, and some of whom who don’t even live in or represent Red Deer!

What’s behind Trustee LaGrange’s unprecedented “un-election”?

The whole debacle goes back to just before the start of the school year when Ms. LaGrange shared this post in Instagram:

She posted the above meme criticizing LGBT indoctrination in schools against a cultural backdrop of parental protests springing up everywhere, all across the country, in opposition to classroom Trans & Gay Pride propaganda. That parental rights rebellion culminated in the 1MillionMarch4Children phenomenon in which Christians, Muslims and parents of other faiths took to the streets to protest LGBT brainwashing of impressionable children.

So, the context of the meme was very much in line with what was happening in the culture around Trustee LaGrange, and the meme’s message was appropriate. Essentially, she was saying that schools, especially Catholic ones, need to stop indoctrinating other peoples’ kids with Gender Ideology and relentless LGBT programming.

But the CBC and professional gay-activist groups didn’t like her speaking so much truth. They attacked Trustee LaGrange viciously, accusing her baselessly of all sorts of terrible crimes, and called for her removal.

BRAINWASHING IS BRAINWASHING

I think the meme is an accurate comparison between the way the Nazi propaganda machine was targeting children in Germany back then, and the way in which LGBT sex activists are brainwashing children in our schools today.

Not only that …

It took tremendous courage to share the truth about the nature of the transsexual and homosexual indoctrination taking place, but sometimes the truth hurts, and it didn’t take long before the torches and pitchforks came out.

Monique was immediately censured from committee meetings and removed from her role as director of the Alberta Catholic School Trustees' Association, but it didn’t end there.

She was barred from officially representing the board, or the school division, in public, and from making any statements about the LGBT movement or the Holocaust.

Then, on Tuesday, November 14th, a majority of the RDCRS trustees used a legal loophole under Section 90 of Alberta’s Education Act to “eliminate” their “problem.”

The Board released a statement about the “disqualification,” saying:

“This decision was made following careful consideration and deliberation, with a commitment to maintaining RDCRS’ foundational statements of supporting inclusive learning communities that foster care and compassion for students, families and staff.”

As a result of the board’s decision, and under the force of the Education Act, Ms. LaGrange had no choice but to resign, but it wasn’t a decision she made willingly.

“INCLUSION,” INDOCTRINATION & WHAT COMES NEXT

Monique’s march to the Cancel Culture guillotine was swift, and all but one of her fellow trustees (Kim Pasula) voted to un-elect her.

This story is far from over, though.

The RDCRS says it’s going to issue a detailed list of reasons why it “disqualified” Ms. LaGrange, and that document should be made public no later than November 24.

In the meantime, Ms. LaGrange has a lawyer and is looking at fighting for a judicial review of the school board's ruling to try to overturn the decision.

Take Action: Ask the Anti-Democracy Trustees to Resign

While it’s encouraging that Monique isn’t going to take this injustice laying down, the people of Red Deer must also work for justice.

For starters, please call on every one of the RDCRS trustees who cancelled Monique, who voted to undo the results of a democratic election, to step down immediately.

Here’s a list of the board’s trustees with their phone numbers and emails, so you can ask them to step down:

Murray Hollman, Chair
403-391-0336
[email protected]

Dorraine Lonsdale, Vice-Chair
403-844-0263
[email protected]

Sharla Heistad
403-994-3871
[email protected]

Cynthia Leyson
403-848-1232
[email protected]

Anne Marie Watson
403-348-1064
[email protected]

Please be respectful in your communications.

Then, sign our petition calling on these five democracy-hating and Catholicism-hating trustees to resign. Click here to sign the petition, and then share it with everyone you know in the jurisdiction of Red Deer Regional Catholic Schools.

Mobilize to Defeat the Bad Eggs in 2025

There’s something else we can do, too. We can start organizing to defeat these trustees in the next election, which is scheduled to take place in October of 2025, just 23 months away. And together with their defeat, hopefully we can re-elect Monique LaGrange, if she’s willing to run again.

I know that seems like a long way off, but we’re almost in 2024, so now is the time to start getting organized.

Of course, Monique LaGrange represented the Red Deer ward, and if she decides to run again in 2025, we’ll count on you to help re-elect her. A fifth trustee, Mr. Kim Pasula, also represents the Red Deer ward, and we’ll want to re-elect him, too. He’s the only trustee who voted against reversing the results of LaGrange’s 2021 election.

If you think you might be interested in running to become a trustee with the RDCRS, or if you know of someone who would be the perfect candidate, please send us an email. If you’re not interested in running for Catholic Trustee yourself, perhaps you could approach friends or relatives, and whom you feel would be excellent for the job?

In closing, we should all pray for the conversion of these unfaithful board members. Please keep Monique in your prayers, too, because, as you can imagine, this has been a stressful ordeal for her.