Ward 18 — Willowdale

Alexander Brown has been the TDSB trustee for Ward 12 since 2014. He was elected Chair of the Toronto District School Board in 2020. In 2022, two weeks before the provincial election, Brown spoke publicly on behalf of the board, advocating for reimbursement and increased funding from the provincial government to make up for the “massive deficit” incurred as a result of the board having to allocate so much of its funds to keep students safe against COVID-19.

While there is limited information online regarding Pancer’s professional background and campaign, he previously ran in the 2018 municipal elections for Ward 8 (Eglinton and Lawrence) where he finished 9th at 134 votes.

In an email to The Local, Pancer claimed he had a naturopathic cure for cancer, and that he was running to share this information with the public.

Weidong Pei describes his current role as owner and principal dentist of Lansing Dental Centre, instructor at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Dentistry, and a father of two. He is interested in developing an action plan to increasing school safety, creating more classrooms to address overcrowding, and promoting healthier schools by improving air-filtration and mental health counselling for students and staff. Pei also wants to improve the service wait times for children with special needs, and improve STEM-related curricula by including realistic case studies for problem solving, such as those regarding climate change and green energy.

According to his website, Gianfranco Cristiano is an active community member with over 22 years of customer service experience. He previously ran for Ward 5 TCDSB trustee in 2018, placing second out of five. As part of his campaign, Cristiano wants to preserve international languages programs, address the lack of school bus drivers, and create a program to address poor Maths and English Testing results. He also says he will advocate for smaller classrooms, increase teachers and staff, and fight for funding for outdoor play spaces and special education. Cristiano has been endorsed by the Toronto & York Region Labour Council.

Phil Hornak has previously participated in the parent council for Loretto Abbey Secondary School, and has authored a letter that criticized of a number of issues within the TCDSB, including the board’s communication with parents, trustees’ conduct on social media, and what he claimed was a lack of accountability and integrity standards around trustee conduct, though he did not list any specific examples. In 2018, Hornak ran for TCDSB trustee in Ward 6, placing third out of three candidates.

Information about this candidate could not be found at time of publication.

Maria Rizzo has been the TCDSB trustee for Ward 5, first elected in 2003. She was elected as a North York Board of Education trustee in 1982 and a North York city councillor in 1991, serving two terms. At different times during her tenure as trustee, she served as chair and vice-chair of the Toronto Catholic District School Board. In 2011, as chair, she helped propel the board’s Equity and Inclusion Education policy and in 2019, she was a vocal supporter of a motion to include the terms ‘gender identity’ and ‘gender expression’ in the board’s code of conduct.

Benoit Fortin is the incumbent trustee for Conseil scolaire Viamonde Ward 2 – Est. He has held office since 2018, and has been elected by acclamation in this year’s election given he was running unopposed. Fortin is the founding member and Vice President of Development in Africa and India of Skypower, which develops, funds and runs utility-scale renewable power projects internationally. He is also vice-president of the Association des conseils scolaires des écoles publiques de l’Ontario board of directors, which represents all French-language public school boards in the province. While there is limited information about his priorities, Fortin has commented publicly as vice-president of the board on the importance of keeping students in the francophone school system until grade 12 and of meeting the specific needs of a growing francophone community following an announcement of funding from the Ontario government to build a new school.

Nathalie Dufour Séguin is the incumbent trustee for MonAvenir Ward 3 – Toronto Ouest and has been re-elected by acclamation for the 2022 term as she is running unopposed. She was first elected trustee by ballot vote in 2006 and received acclamation in 2010. In 2014, she decided to step down to pursue other projects and was re-elected by ballot vote in 2018. Outside of the TCDSB, Dufour Séguin is an Education Community Relationship Manager for Groupe Média TFO, a media company that generates educational and cultural content for the Ontario Francophone community. She is also a former board member and former president of Toronto Francophone Women’s Shelter La Maison d’hébergement francophone de Toronto.

Dufour Séguin is on the MonAvenir School Council, having originally joined in 2006 when she became trustee (when the school was named Conseil scolaire de district catholique Centre-Sud). After serving as vice president for two years, she was elected president in 2012, a role she held until 2014. In 2013, under Dufour Séguin’s leadership, the school council launched a discrimination action against the province as a means of forcing the Ministry of Education to replace one of their Hamilton-based schools with a new, larger building for the expanded student population. An issue Dufour Séguin said people have been advocating for since the 1990’s, the council invoked charter rights by arguing the Francophone school was not being resourced adequately and therefore access to education was not equal to those in Anglophone schools.