Leal, Pinto ready for new roles as trustees
New Catholic trustees are both Trent students and graduates of Holy Cross
A new generation of the Leal family is entering politics.
Braden Leal, the 20-year-old son of former MPP Jeff Leal, was recently acclaimed as a trustee for the local Catholic school board.
Leal will be representing the city of Peterborough on the Peterborough Victoria Northumberland Clarington Catholic District School Board.
He said his parents – Jeff and Karan – were on vacation in Newfoundland when they read in The Examiner online that Braden had been acclaimed.
“My parents were very, very proud of me,” Leal said. “They were just so happy for me.”
Leal is a graduate of Holy Cross Secondary School, and he’s going into his third year at Trent University (he’s studying environmental chemistry).
But he won’t be the only young trustee on the Catholic board: he has a friend who was also acclaimed.
Emmanuel Pinto, 18, will be a trustee representing the County of Peterborough.
Pinto and Leal were classmates. Pinto just graduated from Holy Cross in June. In September he begins his studies at Trent University, too (major to be determined).
These two young men were also on the student council at Holy Cross together. Pinto was a councillor in Grade 10, a few years ago, while Leal was council president.
“I came to know him (Leal) and respect him – and we had a lot of fun,” Pinto recalled.
This summer both the trustees are working: Leal at the LCBO near Chapters, and Pinto at Foodland in Norwood.
They didn’t plan to be school board trustees together. They simply were both inspired at the same time.
Leal said saw there was a vacancy, and that struck him as an opportunity.
“I thought, what a great way to give back,” he said.
Pinto, meanwhile, describes himself as a strong Catholic who values community services.
He said he expects to live in Norwood for the next four years, while he studies at Trent – but he doesn’t know where life might take him following that.
If he wanted to do community service in Peterborough County, he said, now’s the time.
“Why wait?” he asked.
Pinto said he was surprised to be acclaimed, as he was planning a campaign.
He was on summer vacation in Washington, D.C. with his 30-year-old brother when he learned via email he’d been acclaimed. They had a celebratory dinner that night.
Both trustees say they’ll bring a new perspective to the board, since they know first-hand what students of today face.
“I can definitely talk about issues students are having,” Pinto said. “I’ll have a unique way of addressing that.”
They both also said they aren’t sure they will be lifelong politicians.
“I’m still young,” Leal said when asked whether he’d like to follow in his father’s footsteps (Jeff Leal was the Liberal MPP for Peterborough from 2003 until 2018, a provincial cabinet minister, and was a city councillor for 17 years prior to that.)
Then again, Leal adds that he’s learned so much from his father over the years.
“He’s always been dedicated to our family and to the community,” Leal said. “I’ve always looked up to him.”