Catholic trustee wins appeal in conflict case
‘I feel vindicated,’ Angela Kennedy says
Toronto Catholic District School Board trustee Angela Kennedy has been cleared of conflict-of-interest charges, more than a year after she was found guilty and temporarily ousted from her trustee position. “I feel vindicated,” said Kennedy of the Ontario Divisional Court’s unanimous decision Monday in favour of her appeal. The court voted to overturn a 2010 Ontario Superior Court verdict that found Kennedy guilty of a conflictof-interest offence. The charges stemmed from a May 2008 school board budget meeting where Kennedy voted against staff layoffs. Justice Lois Roberts ruled in 2010 that Kennedy’s vote may have affected a son who worked for the school board. Kennedy, a nurse who has served on the Catholic board of trustees for more than a decade, was first elected in 2000. She served on the board for 10 years before she was booted from the post in the summer of 2010 following the guilty verdict. But Roberts did not bar Kennedy from entering the fall 2010 election for the trustee position — so she ran again for the East York/toronto trustee spot, and won.
Kennedy’s guilty charge came during a period of turmoil for the scandal-plagued Catholic school board. In 2008, a supervisor took control of the board in light of spending abuses and the board’s failure to balance the budget. A number of trustees faced conflictof-interest allegations in the years that followed.
But Monday, the appellate court ruled that any economic interests Kennedy could have gained by voting against staff cuts back in 2008 were “so remote and insignificant” that they were unlikely to influence her actions or decisions.
“From the beginning, I had asserted that I did nothing improper at the meeting,” Kennedy said in an email. “I am happy that the court found that I was there for my constituents, and not for members of my immediate family.
“It’s nice to have it behind me and do the job I was elected to do,” she said.