Nadeem Mahmood defeats Charline Grant in Vaughan trustee byelection

Thestar.com
April 29, 2019
Isabel Teotonio

Nadeem Mahmood is the new school board trustee in York Region after beating high-profile parent activist Charline Grant in a byelection.

There were 13 candidates in Vaughan vying for the vacated seat on the York Region District School Board, but Mahmood, an IT professional, was the front-runner and garnered 933 ballots, or 53 per cent of the vote.

Charline Grant, a longtime parent activist and runner-up in the 2018 election, came in second place Thursday in the byelection to become Vaughan’s York Region School Board trustee.

Nadeem Mahmood won Thursday’s byelection to become Vaughan’s York Region School Board trustee.

Grant, an outspoken critic of the scandal-plagued board, came in second with 267 votes or 15 per cent of the vote.

“I’m humbled that the voters have trusted me,” Mahmood told the Star Friday.

He said he has been active in school councils for nearly two decades and welcomes the opportunity to serve a broader community.

“I’m looking forward to being part of the board of trustees where we can work as a team and just focus on what is assigned to us.”

Voter turnout Thursday was 4 per cent, with 1,750 ballots cast among 43,160 eligible voters in Wards 1 and 2. Mahmood is expected to be sworn-in at the next YRDSB board meeting May 7.

Mahmood says more than half the students in his wards come from non-English speaking backgrounds and he believes the board should promote more diversity in curriculum, social events and hiring practices. He says he’d like to work on bolstering student attendance, improving policies so teachers spend less time disciplining students and boosting the quality of professional development for teachers and principals.

Reached by the Star, an “exhausted” and “disappointed” Grant said she was, “glad it’s over” and congratulated Mahmood.
“It’s a lot to do two elections in six months,” said Grant, who was the runner-up in October’s municipal elections. “We shouldn’t have had a byelection. It was a waste of money.”
The board voted to hold a $177,000 byelection after the sudden resignation of Anna DeBartolo in January, a month into the new term, sparking an outcry from the community on the grounds that it was a waste of taxpayer funds.

Many believed the board should have appointed Grant, as she was the runner-up in the October election. DeBartolo, the incumbent, won with 9,801 votes, or 45 per cent of the vote, and Grant placed second, with 2,161 votes, or 22 per cent of ballots cast. But board chair Corrie McBain said a byelection would give residents “a fair process to democratically select their representative.”

On Friday, Grant said, “More people voted for me (in October) than who voted in total in (Thursday’s) byelection …. How is that democracy?”

The decision to hold a byelection prompted Grant to file a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario last month. She accuses trustees of anti-Black discrimination and punishing her for being critical of them in the past. She argues the board deviated from its common practice of appointing a replacement or runner-up to fill a vacated seat. The board has not yet received the complaint from the tribunal and the allegations are unproven.

On Friday, Grant vowed to keep up her fight in the tribunal. Among the orders requested is that she be appointed trustee for Wards 1 and 2 for the rest of the term.

But, if this came to pass, what would happen to Mahmood?

“That will be a decision for the board lawyer, my lawyer and the tribunal,” she told the Star.

In 2016, Grant was largely regarded as the catalyst that prompted change at the board. That’s when she filed another human rights complaint alleging her son faced racial discrimination at school, which prompted others to allege racism and Islamophobia. Also that year, a trustee used a racial slur towards Grant, and, after the public expressed outrage, stepped down.

The board settled the human rights complaint and apologized to Grant and the Black community. It also faced allegations of misspending and staff misbehaviour, which prompted the Ministry of Education to intervene. It released a damning report in 2017 critical of trustees and the then-director, who was later dismissed.