Juno News - Schools in Hamilton to apply “anti-colonial lens” to graduation ceremonies

00:00:00.640 The Ontario Minister of Education, Paul Calandra, just told school boards to knock off the divisive

00:00:07.200 politics. In a direct response to Juno News reporting, Minister Paul Calandra demands that

00:00:12.720 grad ceremonies this year stay apolitical or else after an anti-colonial memo about graduation was

00:00:20.960 leaked from the Hamilton-Wentward District School Board. Well, that was our leak. You can read it

00:00:25.520 right here. It was an internal memo sent to me by someone within the school out in Hamilton,

00:00:31.700 which told principals that they had to organize anti-oppressive, anti-racist, anti-colonial

00:00:37.880 graduation this year for all the students. Now, days after this reporting, Ontario Minister of

00:00:44.100 Education Paul Calandra stepped in. He barged straight in with a fierce warning to the education

00:00:49.840 system to back off or else. And in a letter to the school boards, Paul Calandra said that graduation

00:00:55.900 is not an appropriate forum for political views and must remain strictly student-centered,

00:01:02.340 apolitical, inclusive, and respectful. He even said he would use all the tools necessary

00:01:08.580 at his disposal within the Education Act if they fail to comply. And how do I know that he was

00:01:15.080 responding to Juno News' reporting? I made it very clear in that letter that I don't want

00:01:19.820 teachers put in the middle of disagreements between students and school boards. There was a

00:01:24.500 memo that went out from the Hamilton District School Board to teachers. So a faceless

00:01:29.540 superintendent in that board decided that graduation ceremonies shouldn't focus on

00:01:35.100 student achievement. Student achievement, by the way, which comes about because of the hard

00:01:39.100 work of teachers, right? So a graduation ceremony is about the student success, but it's also a way

00:01:46.360 for parents to recognize what teachers have done to build on that success. So this superintendent

00:01:52.240 in Hamilton decided, let's make it divisive. Let's turn it away from the success of students

00:01:56.800 and put that on the responsibility on the shoulder of the teachers organizing. Well,

00:02:02.780 that superintendent, you know what that superintendent should do? Go to every single

00:02:06.640 one of these graduation ceremonies so that when parents are upset by the divisive nature of it,

00:02:11.240 When parents are upset that the focus is not on students, let them take the heat from the students, not the teacher.

00:02:17.980 We should focus on success of students and what they've accomplished.

Juno News - March 26, 2026