The Ottawa Carleton District School Board, the city’s largest board, ended a heated, emergency evening meeting debating a motion to reinstate mask mandates in schools without a vote on Nov. 22.
The motion before the board would require staff and students to wear surgical or N95 masks in all schools, except for musical/performing arts or sports activities when masks cannot be worn.
Parents opposing a return to mandatory masks were present, and videos posted online show a heated debate with shouting and singing. Eventually, some trustees decided to call the police to remove some protesters.
Sue-Ann Levy, reporting for True North News, called the 3.5-hour meeting a “gong show.” Levy said certain trustees were activists and called police to “remove angry parents from the parent room.” The meeting started late and there were two lengthy recesses called.
Four of the trustees at the meeting were not wearing masks. The remaining eight trustees and the director of education were wearing masks.
Singing
Roughly 200 concerned citizens attended the meeting in person, and most were reported to be opposed to reinstating mask mandates in schools. At one point, there was a round of “O Canada” singing. Trustees eventually started to move to the corner of the room as parents in the meeting chanted “freedom.”The crowd booed Raywat Deonandan, a University of Ottawa epidemiologist, who appeared virtually to say a mask mandate was the only solution to the “real and scary” crisis at the children’s hospital. “Kids are going to die unless we slow this,” he said.
One parent of three children, Wade Shanley, said a survey found less than 10 percent of children at the board’s schools are wearing masks, and clearly this shows the majority of parents do not support a return to mandatory masks for school children.
Another father of four, Blake Maguire, said masks harmed his children, causing them to suffer from anxiety and depression.
Board Chair Lyra Evans told the meeting that anyone disruptive would be forced to leave, after some shouting and outbursts from parents. Eventually, the meeting was shut down and a police officer asked everyone to leave. The meeting resumed with a virtual format.
The motion to bring back masks was proposed by a new trustee on the board, family doctor Nili Kaplan-Mryth, who has been vocal about her support for public health orders including masking.
Kaplan-Mryth took to Twitter on Nov. 23 to express her views that schools should implement a mask mandate and suggested parents at the meeting were bullies.
She said: “This behaviour does not represent most Ottawa parents. This is chilling, though, because their express purpose was to intimidate, to shut down discussion. They are emboldened. All this outrage and bullying because of a mask to help children stay healthy.”
Some trustees wanted a mask mandate in place beginning on Nov. 23 until three benchmarks were achieved: that flu season was determined to be over in Ottawa; until the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario pediatric ICU has an occupancy of 85 percent or less for at least two weeks; and until Ottawa Public Health no longer recommends mask wearing indoors.
Other trustees, such as Donna Blackburn, were opposed to another school mask mandate.
