Colleagues of the Anglophone school commissioner who claimed the REM got into trouble because it was built by Francophones have called a special meeting to demand his immediate resignation.
• Read also: REM troubles: school commissioner Sophie De Vito makes racist anti-Francophone remarks
“It is totally unacceptable that an elected official (or anyone else for that matter) should be allowed to make such derogatory remarks and be able to continue to serve on the school board,” writes the vice president and commissioner. of the English-Montreal School Board, Agostino Cannavino, in an email to our Parliamentary Office.
On August 3, an elected member of this school board, Sophie de Vito, published a controversial message on the X platform (formerly Twitter), in which she maintained that the REM’s problems are explained by the fact that it was built by French speakers.
“Anglos and immigrants would have made it work properly,” she wrote.
The Minister of the French Language, Jean-François Roberge, and the Minister of Justice, Simon Solin-Barrette, had then denounced these remarks and demanded an apology from the commissioner.
Faced with this controversy, Ms. de Vito withdrew her publication, and the school board sent a message of apology to the Journal on her behalf. The commissioner, however, did not share any public message on her social networks to retract.
To demonstrate that “all board members do not think the same way”, Mr. Agostino called a special meeting, with the support of another commissioner, Mr. Joseph Lalla, to demand the “immediate resignation” of Madame de Vito. This meeting will take place on Wednesday.
The proposed resolution calls Ms. Vito’s remarks “unbecoming” of the office of school trustee, and points out that such remarks lead “to an escalation of hatred, prejudice, and injustice in our society”. It is also stated that Ms. Vito’s statement “tarnishes the image of the school board, its council and all its employees”.
“There is a diversity of opinion within the English-speaking community, and it would be unfair to associate the English-speaking community as a bloc endorsing racist comments,” he noted in his email.
