Controversial trustee quits ahead of court battle

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This article was published 29/11/2023 (671 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A St. Boniface school trustee who has repeatedly been in trouble for posting sensational content on her personal social media account has resigned.

Francine Champagne was elected to represent Ward 1 residents of the Louis Riel School Division in 2022.

On Tuesday, just over a year after she joined the board of trustees and in the wake of LRSD beginning the process of filing a court application seeking to unseat her, Champagne’s colleagues accepted her letter of resignation.

A special evening board meeting, which was called to address the matter, was told the rookie trustee — who was slated to be suspended without pay until Feb. 17 — submitted the notice on Monday.

The seat has been declared vacant, effective immediately.

“I dread going back to a toxic environment where corruption and perversion are at the core of the agenda,” Champagne said during a recent video meeting organized by Manitoba Stronger Together — a collective of her supporters who call themselves defenders of free speech.

“After the bullying I’ve endured, I have zero trust left towards those who abuse their power and betrayed me. However, I’ll continue to pray and ask God for guidance.”

During the call, which was recorded and obtained by the Free Press, she alleged LRSD was promoting LGBTTQ+ reading material and education on gender diversity in schools as part of a larger global conspiracy theory that has been debunked.

Champagne claimed local schools have become “indoctrination camps,” to push forward an unnamed elite group’s desire to groom children to normalize pedophilia and establish worldwide tyranny. The conspiracy began with the creation of a pandemic, she said.

It was a May 25 post on Facebook, which touted that false information, that prompted her board colleagues to issue an initial three-month suspension in the spring.

The LRSD board disciplined Champagne for breaching its trustee code of conduct on three occasions. She was reprimanded for making anti-LGBTTQ+ and sensationalistic posts, failing to submit paperwork and most recently, using racist language in a Facebook comment.

Champagne appealed to the province to review her initial suspension. It remains unclear whether a private hearing on the matter will move forward in light of her resignation.

Her first penalty drew dozens of her supporters, including well-known COVID-19 freedom fighters, to raise a ruckus and demand answers at a June 20 board meeting.

Tensions escalated after the board sent disruptive attendees no-trespass orders over the summer, but the saga reached a climax last week when the division announced it was requesting the Court of King’s Bench to determine whether Champagne had breached the Public Schools Act.

Citing new evidence, the LRSD board alleged Champagne both violated minimum trustee code-of-conduct requirements laid out in provincial legislation and failed to protect confidential information.

Earlier this month, during the Manitoba Stronger Together event, Champagne revealed details about an internal argument that occurred when she raised questions about the board issuing a statement in support of libraries being stocked with LGBTTQ+ books.

At the time, she told her supporters the suspension issue was bigger than herself and called on them to continue “standing up” for parental rights in schools.

“Last time I checked, freedom of speech is still entrenched in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We can’t afford to lose that right,” she added.

Sandra Krahn of the Manitoba Association for Rights and Liberties noted the rise of social media has created echo chambers, allowed false information to spread rapidly and made it increasingly difficult to have nuanced conversations about difficult subjects.

“Freedom of speech isn’t completely unlimited. There’s an academic, Amy Gutmann, who talks about democracy being a space between freedom of speech and protection against falsehood — and so that’s where, in my work, we live a lot of the time,” the executive director said.

Krahn, who oversees the non-profit established to provide human rights education and advocacy training, said free speech must be balanced with children’s rights to be free from discrimination.

“As adults, our job is to protect children and make sure their rights are supported. That’s part of our responsibilities and we sometimes have conflicting views on how to protect children or how to support children,” she said.

“But if we look at the Manitoba Human Rights Code, there’s a long list of protected groups and that includes individuals from different races and ancestry, it includes people that have different sexual orientations and gender identities.”

LRSD board chairwoman Sandy Nemeth declined to provide comment on Champagne’s video remarks Tuesday.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Maggie Macintosh
Education reporter

Maggie Macintosh reports on education for the Free Press. Originally from Hamilton, Ont., she first reported for the Free Press in 2017. Read more about Maggie.

Funding for the Free Press education reporter comes from the Government of Canada through the Local Journalism Initiative.

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