Is the Waterloo Catholic District School Board trying to sweep a woke trustee’s financial conflict-of-interest scandal under the rug?

It’s been a full eight months now since Rebel News released a scathing expose about Kitchener-Wilmot Trusteee Kathy Doherty-Masters, and still she has not been sanctioned in any way!

Back in March, it was alleged that Doherty-Masters participated in school board decisions which resulted in several WCDSB contracts being awarded to her husband. These deals were worth thousands of dollars.

Additionally, the report includes evidence which suggests that Trustee Doherty-Master may have "padded" her trustee mileage expense claims.

The conflict-of-interest allegations are serious enough on their own, but Rebel News also revealed a secretive, $300,000 LGBT book buy that Doherty-Masters apparently voted in favour of!

According to the Rebel News report, Doherty-Masters voted to pay for the reading materials with money from the board's "reserve fund", which is meant for emergencies. It's safe to conclude that buying new LGBT propaganda materials does not qualify as an emergency!

Fortunately, faithful Catholic trustees on the board found out about this radical expenditure and shut it down.

Now, this all came to light back March, but has the WCDSB sanctioned Kathy in any way?

No. She has never been punished.

She's still out there representing the Board at community events, as if nothing ever happened.

A major conflict-of-interest scandal involving board finances are grounds for dismissal at any corporation. But has she been asked to resign yet?

Again, it's another NO. Has she even been banned from attending board meetings or being able to vote? These are common sanctions for school board code of conduct violations.

Nope!

At the very minimum, she should be banned from attending board meetings and voting for the remainder of her term of office which ends October 2026.

It seems the WCDSB, including the Board Chair Bob Sikora, wants to sweep these scandals under the rug, hoping the public will simply forget about the allegations and move on.

But we haven’t forgotten, and it’s time to remind the board about its responsibility to Catholic voters and ratepayers.

TAKE ACTION

Please email the Board Chair, Robert Sikora, to express your outrage at the lack of sanctions against Trustee Doherty-Masters, and to demand he press for her resignation, publicly. Here is Trustee Sikora’s contact information:

Board Chair Robert Sikora
[email protected]

When you email him, copy all the other trustees. For your convenience, here’s a string containing all the other trustee email addresses which you can copy and paste into your email program:

[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

If you'd like to phone Board Chair Sikora as well, his phone number is 519-578-3660 Ext. 2164.

Secondly, if you haven’t already, please sign our petition, calling on Trustee Doherty-Masters to resign from her position immediately.

She had an ethical and legal obligation to recuse herself from any board decisions that could have resulted in providing a monetary benefit to her husband, but failed to do so. Questionable expense claims are a bitter cherry on top.

That is unacceptable behaviour from a Catholic school trustee and steward of taxpayer money.

Parents and separate school ratepayers in Waterloo Region can't afford this kind of financial malfeasance and they deserve better.

Finally, pray for the WCDSB board members, asking God to touch their hearts and give them the grace to fulfill their duties in an authentically Christian way.