Alberta Catholic School Trustee Loses Position Over LGBT-Related Social Media Post

An elementary school classroom in Orange, Calif., on March 11, 2021. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

An Alberta Catholic School Board trustee has been forced to resign after being voted off the board following her post on social media comparing school children waving Nazi flags to their counterparts waving LGBT flags in a classroom.

Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools (RDCRS) Trustee Monique LaGrange on Aug. 30 posted a photo of children waving Nazi flags beside another image of children waving LGBT flags. The caption said, “brainwashing is brainwashing.”

Although LaGrange took the post down, RDCRS voted to apply several sanctions on her at a Sept. 26 meeting, including that she does not sit on any board committees, cannot speak on behalf of the board, and was not permitted to participate in events such as graduation ceremonies, her lawyer James Kitchen previously told The Epoch Times.

In a Nov. 14 news release, RDCRS said Ms. LaGrange was not qualified to remain as a trustee because she violated some of the sanctions.

Ms. LaGrange told The Epoch Times the action came after she did a media interview 10 days before the discipline hearing.

“I did an interview with [television host] Laura-Lynn Thompson 10 days before the first hearing. And they said that I violated sanctions as if I was on the interview representing Red Deer Catholic, which I was not,” she said.

She said that one of the sanctions issued against her in the Sept. 26 hearing was not to speak about the LGBT+ community.

“Community means people, and I don’t speak about the people because everybody’s God’s child,“ she said. ”So I don’t speak negatively about people but about ideologies and agendas—I definitely have an opinion about that.”

In the RDCRS release, board chair Murray Hollman said he affirmed the board’s “unwavering dedication to fostering a safe, secure, caring, respectful, and inclusive learning environment for our students, staff, and community members.”

“Regrettably, as a result of Trustee LaGrange’s violation of the sanctions placed on her on Sept. 26, 2023, as well as her additional violations of Board Policy and the Education Act, the Board made the challenging decision to disqualify Trustee LaGrange.”

The Epoch Times reached out to RDCRS for further comment but did not hear back by publication time.

Ms. LaGrange said her lawyer has already started work on a judicial review of the sanctions.

“I thought freedom was being able to elect who we wanted in these positions,” she said. “But apparently, if the elected has the wrong idea, you can get rid of them now.”

‘Wake-Up Call’

She said she hoped her case was a “wake-up call” to Canadians.

“The woke crowd knows what they’re doing and they know what it takes to get control of everything and they want control of everything. But we, the majority, need to start stepping up into these positions,” said Ms. LaGrange.

The social media post also cost Ms. LaGrange her role as director of the Alberta Catholic School Trustee Association (ACSTA). The organization posted a statement on X that confirmed she was removed from her position for the rest of her term.

“Removing a representative from our board is not a decision we take lightly,” the Sept. 7 statement said. “Given the manner in which the previous director’s post has the potential to undermine the charitable learning environment offered by Alberta’s Catholic school system, we consider this to be the most appropriate response.”

The Alberta Teacher’s Association (ATA) also criticized Ms. LaGrange’s post on its website.

“Trustee LaGrange’s social media post undermines the trust and care that school trustees are supposed to foster for all students and staff in our public schools,” ATA president Jason Schilling said in a Sept. 25 post. “Instead of promoting acceptance and diversity in our schools, she is promoting discrimination and bullying—this is not what we want for our students and each other in schools.”

Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools serves more than 10,650 students in 21 schools in Red Deer, Blackfalds, Sylvan Lake, Rocky Mountain House, Innisfail, and Olds, the release said. It also oversees 850 students in the home education program.