Ontario school board facing constitutional challenge over mandated land acknowledgements
The Alberta-based Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms has filed a legal challenge over Waterloo Region District School Board’s decision to mandate the reading of land acknowledgements at school council meetings, while prohibiting debate on the issue.
The application has been brought on behalf of Geoffrey Horsman , a biochemistry professor and member of the Kitchener-Waterloo Collegiate and Vocational School Council as the father of three children attending district schools.
Horsman’s concerns began when the council started opening its meetings with land acknowledgements despite the fact that no vote or debate had ever been held on the practice, says the JCCF. In the spring of 2025, he sought to have the matter placed on the agenda for discussion. However, the council chair declined and referred him to the school principal.
On May 9, says JCCF, the principal informed Horsman that the board requires land acknowledgements at all school council meetings and that the topic could not be debated.
The judicial review challenges the Board’s conduct on three grounds:
- mandating land acknowledgements compels Horsman to sit through a statement that contradicts his belief in the inherent dignity and equality of all people;
- prohibiting any discussion of land acknowledgements at school council meetings suppresses his ability to raise or challenge the issue;
- the Board has no statutory power under the Ontario Education Act or Regulation 612/00 to dictate school council practices or impose ideological recitations.
The dispute follows a related instance that arose in September, when another parent, Cristina Bairos Fernandes, raised an objection to opening parent involvement committee meetings with a land acknowledgement, reports Juno News .
The chair of the committee agreed to “note” her objection but Scott Miller, the board’s director of education, intervened stating that: “I think we’ve been pretty clear as a district school board what we believe, our commitment to Truth and Reconciliation, call to action. And that’s across the province.”
The committee ultimately voted to record the objection, but exclude mention of the director’s interference. Horseman was one of a few parent-committee members who requested the minutes include the director’s interference “rather than (leaving it out) as though it never happened.”
It wasn’t the first time a parent faced roadblocks for objecting to land acknowledgements at parent-run meeting, says the JCCF . In April, Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board parent Catherine Kronas raised concerns about imposing political speech in government settings. In response, she was suspended from attending council meetings. However, she was later reinstated following legal intervention from the JCCF .
Constitutional lawyer Hatim Kheir stated that Kronas’ comments “were a reasonable and measured expression of a viewpoint held by many Canadians.”
Further, he said: “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.”
In both instances, the parents expressed concern that reciting land acknowledgements is a form of political speech and questioned their appropriateness in government institutions.
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