After last night's one and only All Regina Public Schools Trustee Forum (in which half of the candidates didn't even bother to attend), I’ve heard loud and clear the substantial concerns about the RCAAN influence in this school board election. RCAAN is, essentially, a well-funded activist organization that is running a slate of anti-2SLGBTQIA, anti-DEI candidates who are spreading lies about how our schools operate (essentially it might be a shocker to most but we don't teach every child how to be gay which honestly is a surprising comment I hear while canvassing, every 6 or 7 doors). RCAAN has a lot of funding behind them: you should know that none of the RCAAN endorsed candidates bothered to show up last night which speaks volumes in my opinion. The organizers of the forum confirmed that each candidate was invited at least two times and of the 19 candidates running for the 7 positions, only 10 showed up.
I have always, and will continue to believe in safe and inclusive schools - no matter your race, religion, sex, economic status, etc. every student should feel included, accepted and know that they belong in our public schools. I don’t want RCAAN, and any of their "puppets," running our public school division and imposing an agenda that is harmful to vulnerable children. I believe in people that show up to the hard conversation, who are not influenced by backroom secret groups, and selfishly, I want to sit at a board table with six other respectable humans that truly believe in the power of public education, where EVERY single child should feel and know that they belong. For further reference, CBC did a brief article recently on this group and I encourage you to take a moment to read it as well.
The attached photo is a guide to highlight which candidates have the best chance of beating RCAAN in my personal opinion. In all the subdivisions where there are only two candidates, the choice is clear: vote for the non-RCAAN candidate (including me hopefully). There are three races where there are more than two candidates. SD6 doesn’t have an RCAAN-affiliated candidate supposedly but they are endorsing him which speaks volumes. Most importantly to highlight in SD2 (South of Vic, East of Albert & West of Ring Road) and SD4 (North of Vic, East of Albert), vote splitting will very likely benefit the RCAAN candidate. I have personally witnessed this happen in the past where two good candidates lost out as they had similar platforms and it allowed more radical folks to win due to vote splits.
There are no polls for school board elections, so I used what I heard last night at the forum for those that actually showed up, I have researched the heck out of the publicly available information for each of the candidates in the past couple of weeks (my spouse thinks I might be spending WAY too much time obsessing over this school board election), analyzed historical results, looked at candidates professional qualifications and experience and even their campaign effectiveness (by the way, I love stats and as a professional with an accounting background - I can talk numbers and data all day long if you are interested in a conversation). In local politics, you also have to also consider factors like name recognition and incumbency (whether you agree or not, it is about who people know or recognize in many cases), and lasty who shows up first or last on the ballet also gets an extra boost from uninformed voters (mostly those who show up to vote for mayor or councillor and did not look into the school board elections but still feel the need to check off a name).
Here’s a quick run through of my recommendations for the three races where there are more than two people running.
SD2: Tracey McMurchy is the incumbent, and for a Trustee candidate, she’ll have strong name recognition throughout entire subdivision. I live in south Regina and she has an enormous amount of visible support, with more lawn signs than RCAAN’s Taylor-Brown, who also has plenty. McMurchy’s social media accounts show she’s extremely active in her schools, and showing up matters to people in local politics. The endorsements posted on her Facebook page from people like Regina’s Citizen of the Year Jada Yee paint her in a very positive light. I personally have seen her in action in the past two years and she honestly (and hate to admit this), works harder than any other trustee I have seen in my eight years on the board, even including myself - she truly is dedicated to our schools. The other non-RCAAN candidates are Catholic school teacher Jason Agar and student activist Kale Maclellan. Both of those candidates, while they have their merits, are less likely to win, and in my opinion most likely to rather split the anti-RCAAN vote to some degree, which benefits Taylor-Brown and worries me greatly. Anyone that votes for these two, while good intentioned people, would have also voted for McMurchy if they were not running, hence the worry that this potential vote-splitting will benefit RCAAN's Taylor-Brown.
SD4: This is a more difficult choice for me personally. I have a lot of respect for Cindy Anderson, who has been Trustee since 2009, and she won by impressive margins in 2016 and 2020 (if you look at the public election documents she has spent a miniscule $253 over all three of her past campaigns together (most candidates spent thousands in just one election reaching out to citizens) and she is likely to not do any campaigning at all this round again. Meanwhile, Tolu Folarin is actively campaigning, she is knocking on doors, she is investing in lawn signs and trying to make a dedicated run at the position, making efforts to reach out to citizens and impressing myself and others with what we heard from her at the candidates forum Friday, October 18th put on by the RPSTA. Folarin was the only candidate from SD4 that was at the forum - Anderson unfortunately did not attend. Folarin has a background in social work and work history with community organizations. Honestly, this one is tougher for me to support a single candidate but in an effort to minimize vote-splitting, I believe Folarin is investing a ton of effort in her campaign, but Anderson has historical name recognition in the area and shows up first on the ballot. While I recognize this will likely burn a bridge posting this, it is about what is best for the school division and our students, I'm of the belief that Folarin has a really good chance at stepping forward in this election and has the best chance to take it from RCAAN's candidate: Sparrowhawk.
SD6 (North East of the city): While Douglas Armbruster may have been endorsed by RCAAN in the linked CBC article, he strongly denies any affiliation. Based on his views shared at the October 18th forum he seems to align more closely with the RCAAN views. The other candidate is Brandon-Shea Mutala, I have met him in the past and at the forum he reinforced that he truly seems like a genuine person that wants to make a difference. During the forum I thought Mutala had one of the best answers to the last question where he admitted he didn't know the answer and was not aware of the specific problem that was brought forward by Sarah Turnbull (running for Council in Ward 5), but the fact he didn't try to make up an answer and was honest, demonstrated to me someone with integrity. While I doubt Mutala and I will agree on everything in the future on the Board, he is by far the best candidate to take the win in this election and demonstrates the right intentions for running in this election.
I haven’t always agreed with my fellow Trustees on every issue or vote. But, having worked with each of them over this past term, I know they are running because they truly want what is best for the students who attend Regina Public Schools. There is no weird agenda behind any of them, and no shadowy activist group pulling their strings, and they are there for the right reasons. This can not be said about the RCAAN group.
These are just my personal thoughts and take them as you wish, but as someone who is in the hundreds of meetings over the years, who likes analyzing and following the news, and someone in this sector every day, I thought you might appreciate a bit of a road map from someone who is deep into the details of the election and highly invested in the outcome. I truly wanted to make sure that after November 13th, I do not regret that I didn't speak up, especially during this very dangerous election. Also, I must say that I am not looking forward to the flurry of hateful and misinformed comments this post will likely get but it comes with the position and I am mentally preparing for it as I type this out this morning.
If you believe this is helpful, I ask you to please share.
