Perhaps you are familiar with the queer adage, “an army of lovers cannot fail.”
Newly revealed text messages between deputy chief of police Mike Brown and Associate Deputy Minister of Education, Jennifer McCrea refer to those who attended the grassroots No 2 SPLOs SD61 rally in January 2025 as “losers.” It seems that when losers take action, they can win.
These text messages led to a dramatic turn of events with the SD61 School Board Trustees, who were fired over the SPLO program, being reinstated on Monday. This marks a major win for the Trustees. Not only did the province withdraw their case, they immediately reinstated the trustees and agreed to pay backpay for their months off the job and cover their legal fees.
All in all, an expensive turn of events for the province (ahem, for the public), a seriously embarrassing moment for the Ministry of Education, and vindication for the Trustees.
And from our perspective? Well, it’s not often organizing gets to have such juicy and satisfying outcomes, and the story is still young.
The Rundown
Our brief overview is informed by media reports. We recommend reading reporting from CHEK News, including this video, CTV, Vic News, Times Colonist, and CBC, for more details of what has emerged over the last few days.
The issue surrounds a series of text messages that the Ministry of Education was legally required to disclose. These texts also included special advisor Kevin Godden, who was appointed to assist the School Board to development of a Safety Plan. Minister of Education Lisa Beare claims this oversight in disclosure was “accidental.” Media reports that the judge on the case disagreed and expressed concern for what she felt was an intentional decision on the part of the province to withhold information from the court order.
While the extent of what was included in these messages is beginning to release more information (CTV article, Vic News article), we have attained a copy of the affidavit filed in court on Monday (i.e. we have a copy of the texts). We look forward to sharing more information and a detailed analysis soon, but for now can confirm media reports that a protest organized in January 2025 outside of the Ministry of Education offices by the grassroots group, No 2 SPLOs SD61, resulted in a series of text messages between McCrea and Brown that included disparaging and derogatory comments about protesters, GVTA members, School Board Chair, Nicole Duncan. Texts from earlier in 2024 included derogatory comments about BC Human Rights Commissioner, Kasari Govender.
The newly reinstated Trustees believe evidence from the case, including the recently disclosed text messages, make it clear that the process was a “set-up”:
“In view of the evidence produced in this case, including the very recent disclosures from this weekend, we are more convinced than ever that the whole process was just a set-up, and it was coordinated by senior Ministry staff who worked closely behind the scenes with police and other advocates for a School Police Liaison Officer Program to try to force us to do as they wished. Under duress, the Board did approve the safety plan the Minister’s special advisor recommended, but we also approved other options which we preferred. In response, the government fired us.“
This reflects what our friends at No 2 SPLOs argued during their intensive organizing campaign over December 2024 and January 2025, that the Ministry of Education had every intention to ensure the SPLO program was implemented in Greater Victoria schools. To see reports on evidence of collusion with police and lack of neutrality on the part of Godden appears to confirm what No 2 SPLOs knew all along. More to come.
What does this mean for the SPLO program?
While this is a sweet victory for democracy, the future of the SPLO program remains unclear. In a statement released Monday, the Board states:
“We were never opposed to having police in schools in any number of different functions. That has always been the case in Victoria schools. But based on the evidence that had been provided to us, we did not feel a Police Liaison Program was appropriate. Reasonable people can disagree about these matters. We were elected by the community to make policy decisions like this. We did what we believed was in the best interests of students in our school district.“
With the elected trustees back at the School Board, now is the time to reach out, express discontent with the SPLO program, and advocate for the trustees to end the program. If you work in schools or your family has interacted with police in schools since the implementation of the SPLO program this September, now is the time to share them with Trustees. Let’s make this a major election issue for the upcoming municipal and school board elections on October 17th.
We’ve provided Trustee email contacts below.
We need strong progressive voices opposed to police in schools on the SD61 Board of Education. If you are interested in running for the School Board, you can attend information sessions being hosted on June 2nd and August 25th. More information here
Trustees contact information:
- Nicole Duncan – nduncan@sd61.bc.ca
- Karin Kwan – kkwan@sd61.bc.ca
- Natalie Baillaut – nbaillaut@sd61.bc.ca
- Angela Carmichael – ancarmichael@sd61.bc.ca
- Mavis David – mdavid@sd61.bc.ca
- Derek Gagnon – dgagnon@sd61.bc.ca
- Emily Mahbobi – emahbobi@sd61.bc.ca
- Diane McNally – dmcnally@sd61.bc.ca
- Rob Paynter – rpaynter@sd61.bc.ca