AODA Alliance
Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance Update
United for a Barrier-Free Ontario for All People with Disabilities
Website: www.aodaalliance.org
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The More the Ford Government Tries to Justify Banning Live Streaming of Five School Boards’ Special Education Advisory Committee Meetings, The More Unconvincing Are Its Explanations
November 6, 2025
SUMMARY
At the five school boards that the Ford Government has taken over after ousting their elected trustees, most public venues for parents to raise concerns about their children’s needs have been totally shut down. The only venue left in place for parents of students with disabilities/special education need is the Special Education Advisory Committee (SEAC) at each of those boards. As reported in earlier AODA Alliance Updates, the Ford Government quietly decided last month to forbid those boards from live streaming their SEAC meetings. SEAC meetings have been live streamed at various parts of the province for several years with no problem.
The more the Ford Government has been pressed to explain this ban, the more it becomes apparent that these justifications make no sense. Below are two recent publications showing this:
- The October 24, 2025 monthly disability rights column by AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky in the Toronto Star’s Metroland publications around Ontario, and
- A report in the October 21, 2025 Ottawa Citizen.
The public remains free to attend SEAC meetings, which must be held in public. Private individuals in Toronto and Ottawa have themselves commendably live streamed recent meetings. This new Ottawa Citizen report shows that even that simple measure has been thrown into some degree of chaos.
For parents who cannot attend these meetings and don’t know about these private efforts at live streaming, all that they can do is read the minutes of SEAC meetings. Minutes are traditionally posted online. Yet making this situation worse, the Toronto District School Board’s senior staff are now actively trying to reduce the information included in those minutes.
The losers are parents of students with disabilities/special education needs and, of course, their children. The beneficiaries are public officials and provincial politicians who want to curtail public scrutiny of their actions. None of this is good for our kids or for democracy.
While this is going on, the Ford Government is pushing ahead with passage of Bill 33. That bill would give the Ontario Government even more control over school boards across Ontario. The final vote on that bill is now expected to take place during the week of November 17, 2025.
The Ford Government is curtailing further debate on that bill in the Legislature. Weeks ago, the AODA Alliance applied to appear at public hearings. However, there will be no public hearings on the bill..
How You Can Help
- Press the media to cover this issue and to ask tough questions of the Ford Government. This mess will spread to all school boards if the Ford Government decides to take over direct control of all school boards, eliminating all elected school board trustees.
- Learn about the AODA Alliance’s advocacy efforts on behalf of students with disabilities Take a look at the AODA Alliance website’s education page.
- Listen to our new podcast: “Disability Rights and Wrongs – The David Lepodcast” which is available on Apple Music, Spotify and wherever else you get your podcasts!
MORE DETAILS
InsideHalton.com October 24, 2025
Education minister should rethink ban of livestreaming Special Education Advisory Committee meetings, advocate urges
David Lepofsky writes the move to discontinue the live broadcast weakens parents’ voices and hurts students with disabilities.
By David Lepofsky
Friday, October 24, 2025
Education Minister Paul Calandra is now managing five Ontario school boards that the provincial government took over, ousting their elected trustees. This shows what may be in store for all Ontarians, should Premier Doug Ford abolish elected trustees.
Here is an example of a decision that hurts students with disabilities who face far too many disability barriers.
Each Ontario school board must have a special education advisory committee (SEAC) to advise elected trustees and staff on how to improve things for students with disabilities.
I’ve served on Toronto District School Boards SEAC for a decade. I am currently its chair.
This committee advocates for reforms, hears from parents with wrenching stories, and has active exchanges with senior TDSB officials. We discuss tough topics like understaffing, students being told not to come to school, and recurring disability barriers.
Our advocacy is respectful.
For five years, our SEAC meetings have been livestreamed. Earlier this month, the education minister ordered that no board committee meetings be livestreamed at those five school boards (Toronto District School Board, Toronto Catholic District School Board, Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board and Thames Valley District School Board).
This is a slap in the face to students with disabilities, to their parents and to hard-working special education staff who support SEAC meetings.
Parents of students with disabilities are often overburdened and stressed from their ongoing battles with the school system. Many don’t have the time to feed their kids, get them to bed, and rush to TDSB headquarters to watch SEAC meetings. Livestreaming makes it much easier.
Anxious parents of students with disabilities feel isolated and alone as they struggle to advocate for their child. SEAC’s livestream shows they are not alone and that we are pressing for improvements.
Livestreaming lets TDSB staff inform a broader audience about the board’s efforts on behalf of these students.
Livestreaming also helps parents compare what is going on at other school boards.
Livestreaming promotes accountability of senior school board officials who wield power over our children.
Before the province took over TDSB, these parents had several public forums to air their concerns. Now, SEAC is the only forum left for students with disabilities. Banning livestreaming of our meetings further weakens parents’ voices and thereby hurts these students.
One of the reasons behind the move for provincial oversight was concerns around finances. Yet livestreaming costs nothing.
Reporters pressed Calandra for an explanation. Calandra argues SEAC meetings are open for the public to attend. Yet, that is a reason for livestreaming meetings, not for banning livestreaming.
He says the public can read publicly posted meeting agendas and minutes. Yet, those dry documents omit the vast majority of what is said at these meetings.
The minister claims it’s necessary to turn down the temperature at these meetings. He’d discover that the temperature has been just fine, had he visited our meetings. We would welcome him.
SEAC meetings should focus on advancing student achievement, not political commentary, the minister says. Yet, improving things for students with disabilities is all SEAC discusses.
Calandra’s office suggests livestreaming endangers student privacy. Yet, our SEAC meetings vigilantly avoid anything that could remotely impinge on student privacy.
His team claims it is inappropriate for people who don’t have children with disabilities to watch a livestream of a SEAC meeting. Yet, people with no children with disabilities can attend SEAC meetings. We’d love them to watch our meetings. They’d learn about what schools need to do to meet our kids’ needs.
Finally, Calandra has said he’s willing to reconsider his livestreaming ban. I would applaud if he rescinded it.
David Lepofsky is a retired lawyer who chairs the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance, and is a visiting professor of disability rights at the law schools at Western, Queen’s and the University of Ottawa.
Ottawa Citizen October 21, 2025
Originally posted at https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/ocdsb-meetings-live-stream
OCDSB committee meetings can be recorded — but not live-streamed
School board under supervision previously asked anyone taking recordings to get the ‘express permission’ of all present at public meetings
By Joanne Laucius
Cathy Varrette
Cathy Varrette said Monday she or another parent will continue to live-stream Special Education Advisory Committee meetings. Photo by JULIE OLIVER /Postmedia
Ottawa’s largest school board now is allowing recordings of meetings — but not live-streams.
Under the direction of provincial supervisor Bob Plamondon and in consultation with staff, the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board is “moving forward with an amendment to our policies and procedures to create an exception to the broad prohibition on recording, and to instead allow the recording of public governance meetings,” board spokesperson Diane Pernari said.
“It is important to note that these policies were initially created to ensure the privacy of students and staff in schools. The amendments are being made to clarify this intention and the scope of the application.”
The change does not include live-streams, a matter that has become controversial at school boards under supervision over questions about public access to the decision-making process.
Under supervision, all decision-making is in the hands of the supervisor, not elected trustees. Since Plamondon was named as supervisor of the OCDSB on June 27, he has issued three updates. He has said that giving media interviews is not part of his mandate.
However, certain committees mandated under the Education Act continue to meet. The meetings have been monitored by parents in the hopes of learning more about what changes Plamondon plans to make. He has already announced that he is cancelling boundary changes under the controversial elementary program review.
A Special Education Advisory Committee (SEAC) meeting was halted temporarily on Oct. 8 after a school board employee found that Cathy Varrette, the parent of a student with autism, was live-streaming the meeting using her cellphone. Board staff withdrew to discuss the matter. Varrette was not prevented from recording and live-streamed the entire meeting.
Parent Cathy Varrette caused a temporary halt to the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board’s Special Education Access Committee meeting because she was live-streaming the proceedings with her smartphone. She was eventually allowed to continue.
At a meeting of the parent involvement committee (PIC) on Oct. 14, all those present, including reporters from three media outlets, were asked to sign a form indicating they would not take photos, audio or video recordings, including live-streaming “without the express permission of all present.”
All three media outlets took recordings. Asked if the meeting was public and whether statements made at the meeting could be cited, OCDSB lawyer Jesse Mark replied in the affirmative.
“Recordings were not allowed without consent,” Pernari said in response to a request for clarification about the Oct. 14 meeting.
“Now for public governance meetings consent will not be required. At PIC, no recordings should have happened as there was not consent from all parties on the committee.”
The AODA (Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act) Alliance, a disability advocacy group, is concerned the provincial government wants to contain criticism.
“The board’s position makes absolutely no sense and is completely unjustified,” said AODA Alliance chair David Lepofsky, a retired lawyer and academic who taught freedom of expression law at the University of Toronto.
“If live-streaming was done before the Ford government took over the board, without it requiring consent of all members speaking at the meeting, then the same should continue to take place now,” said Lepofsky, who is the SEAC chair at the Toronto District School Board.
“Anything short of that hurts students with disabilities, their parents and the public. What’s the big secret? The public, students and the school board all benefit when as many members of the public as possible can watch these meetings.”
What’s the big secret? The public, students and the school board all benefit when as many members of the public as possible can watch these meetings
David Lepovsky AODA Alliance chair \
Varrette said Monday she or another parent would continue to live-stream SEAC meetings.
“We’re not going to stop,” she said. “It’s a public space. Everyone has a recording device on them now.”
Anthony Wong, a member of SEAC, said parents shouldn’t have to fight just to follow public meetings.
“It’s troubling that the board refuses to live-stream its meetings — and worse, that it’s not even making recordings accessible. Meetings that are truly private are already in-camera. Calling everything a privacy issue isn’t transparency — it’s avoidance,” he said.
“For parents, this means we’re being shut out of the process. The OCDSB and other boards once live-streamed so families, working parents and those with accessibility needs could follow decisions in real time. Ending that practice doesn’t protect privacy — it protects power,” Wong said.
Transparency isn’t a favour — it’s a right, he said.
“It’s everyone’s responsibility to demand open meetings, open records and open decisions. When a public body turns off the cameras, it’s not just hiding from oversight — it’s hiding from the people it serves.”
When meetings were live-streamed by the board, parents of children with special needs would often watch from home, texting each other when something of interest was mentioned, Varrette said. These “watch parties” would attract between 15 and 50 participants.
When Varrette live-streamed SEAC on Oct. 8, there were 145 participants, she said.
The argument that there is a need for privacy is a “bogus claim,” she said.
“Eventually cuts will be talked about. Changing programs will be talked about. We want information in real time.”
The next SEAC meeting is scheduled for Nov. 5.