Monique LaGrange, the Red Deer Catholic school trustee who compared rainbow pride flags to Nazi swastika banners in a social media post in late August, has been given the bum’s rush by the Red Deer Catholic school board.
In a news release published yesterday afternoon, the Red Deer Catholic Regional Board of Trustees said it had decided to disqualify Ms. LaGrange for “violating sanctions issued on September 26, 2023 and further violations of Board Policy and the Education Act.”
The decision, the release said, was made “with a commitment to maintaining RDCRS’ foundational statements of supporting inclusive learning communities that foster care and compassion for students, families and staff.”
As required in such circumstances by Section 90 the Education Act, Ms. LaGrange resigned immediately as a trustee.
So today’s chapter of this story is fairly cut and dried.
The interesting question, though, is what happens next.
From here it looks as if Ms. LaGrange didn’t give the school board a lot of choice.
Chances are the board would have been happy to let the matter slide if she had said she was sorry about the offensive post, pulled it down, and promised never to do it again.
Instead, speaking through her lawyer in September, she framed her original post as a matter of conscience, described the sensitivity training she was asked to take about such invidious comparisons as “re-education,” and said she believed the Holy Spirit had instructed her to make the comment.
She will now, presumably, have the opportunity to see what the courts have to say about both her sincerity and the limits of her right to vent controversial opinions in public while a member of a board that remains dedicated, in the words yesterday of Board Chair Murray Hollman, “to fostering a safe, secure, caring, respectful and inclusive learning environment for our students, staff and community members.”
Beyond that, though, there are influential people in Alberta who share her views and have a militant commitment to advancing them, who will see an opportunity in this situation to make trouble for the board, attack the rights of LGBTQ people in our society, and generally engage in culture warfare for political reasons.
Remember, former premier Jason Kenney’s friend, John Carpay, notably made exactly the same comparison in 2018 while opposing the introduction of Gay-Straight Alliances in Alberta schools.
Mr. Kenney, who once compared Mr. Carpay to American civil rights hero Rosa Parks, complained about his Nazi-flag/pride-flag commentary, but refused to do anything about it.
More recently, as is well known, Mr. Carpay has been in hot water for other things, and is no longer able to practice law anywhere in Canada for three years after admitting he hired a private gumshoe to follow a judge presiding over a case in which he represented one side.
David Parker, director of the Take Back Alberta faction that now controls the United Conservative Party board, tweeted after Ms. LaGrange’s troubles came to light in September that “the Red Deer County Catholic School Board will be replaced in the next municipal election.”
“Every single trustee will be removed from office, except Monique,” he continued. “Then, we will fire the Superintendent. This will happen in every school board across this province until this woke ideology is eradicated from any decision making role in our schools. If the Minister of Education has a problem with this, we will remove him from office.”
So it’s pretty clear where the man some believe is the de facto leader of the UCP stands.
Mr. Parker appeared not to have commented on this topic on social media last night as this post was put to bed, but we naturally await his input with interest.
Beyond those two, of course, there are others – including some in the UCP Caucus – who share Ms. LaGrange’s opinions.
Readers will recall that voters in the nearby Lacombe-Ponoka Riding chose Jennifer Johnson as their MLA in the May 29 election, despite her having been dropped as the UCP’s candidate by Premier Danielle Smith for being caught comparing transgender children in school to excrement in cookie dough.
When Ms. Johnson recently rose from her Independent seat in the Legislature to ask her first question in Question Period, she was applauded enthusiastically by the UCP benches. She will eventually be welcomed back to the bosom of the Government Caucus, it is predicted here.
Ms. LaGrange, by the way, is but a shirttail relative of Health Minister Adriana LaGrange, a former education minister and Red Deer Catholic school trustee.
“the holy spirit” made her do it. OMG, that is as bad as “the dog ate my homework”. Perhaps she can explain who the holy spirit is and how they caused her to say those things.
comparing any child to excrement is sick and bizarre. How do people even come up with these thoughts, perhaps they might consider the assistance of a mental health expert to over come these thoughts.
some one who is comparing a Nazi flag to a Pride flag needs to study history or perhaps visit a concentration camp, or check out the pictures the americans took when they liberated concentration camps. one could say their comparison is a form of anti semitism. Welcome to Alberta.
Comments and ideas like this Red Deer Clone has spewed are straight out of the Evangelical Christo Fascist playbook. Isn’t it clear the Take Back Alberta Fascists are likely funded by the Koch Oligarchy and its infinite non profit organizations and think tanks? I strongly, intuitively feel sure that Take Back Alberta means; Take Back Alberta from Canada.
Ah- the Holy Spirit instructed her. That should be fairly easy to prove.
Lil Davey Parker sounds drunk with power.
In a back room somewhere they may be deciding on the colour of their uniforms. I wonder if the majority will go with the colour brown. A much smaller contingent may be wearing black.
JE: Personally, I think they will go for green, as in Major Douglas’s Green Shirts. Or that “other KKK,” the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift. I’ll leave it to readers to look it up. DJC
Another reason. You actually know what drove me from Alberta! Well done!
Hmm, interesting tie-in to Social Credit. I wonder, though, if Bill Aberhart’s party ever had a specific colour for a uniform. More important, has Donald Trump trademarked his MAGA hat? If Parker tries to appropriate that for his non-party, maybe we should alert The Donald he’s losing money on ripoff copies.
In Canada it’s been traditionally blue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Unity_Party_of_Canada
Had to look up “shirttail relative”. Did it mean “wrong side of the blanket”, “shotgun wedding”, “marrying a very close relative” or what? Wrong on all counts, Lefty. Well it means a very distant relative like 5th cousin. My education, being complete, shall be updated on LinkedIn and most dating sites! Thanks DJC, and nice photo btw.
David Parker may be the most arrogant person living in this province at this current moment. Still dresses like spirit Halloween Steve Jobs… but I digress. What a clown.
A stunning cruelty, brought to us all by? But of course, the.. thuds will pump. Here are a series of, my thud pumping, the thud pumping is relentless.. first: https://youtu.be/7mV0Kv5SAwI?t=2 second: https://youtu.be/PeMvMNpvB5M third? It’s a painful!
Hello DJC and fellow commenters,
It feels as if am in an alternate reality. Too many undemocratic events going. Not sure how to react.
(sigh) Why am I not surprised? I guess Ms. LaGrange either wouldn’t keep her opinions to herself, or refused to complete the sensitivity training, or whatever, she was ordered to take. Well, she’ll have her day in court.
Now we’ll be subjected to the righteous anger of David Parker, who will hold up his newest martyr to wokeness for all the world to see. Danielle Smith, Parker’s friend and useful idiot, will chime in with statements of support and righteous indignation. The rural-urban split will now be wider and deeper than ever. We will now hear rants about freedom of religion and chants of “It’s a free country, ain’t it?”.
David Parker comes across as either a religious fanatic or a megalomaniac. They’re not mutually exclusive, but I guess one condition will be dominant. His large following among rural Albertans is a warning, though. Like Donald Trump, Parker has probably identified a lot of legitimate complaints among rural Albertans. Also like Donald Trump, Parker is hammering flat the button labeled “We’re victims, and we’re mad as hell.” Unless whatever’s irritating Parker’s flock is dealt with—as fast, and as fairly, as possible—this is only gonna get bigger.
As for John Carpay…I wonder if the JCCF might be violating the terms of its tax-exempt status by all these legal gaffes. I mean, c’mon. Carpay got slapped down for siccing a private eye on a judge. Using his sentencing to (1) plea-bargain while crying crocodile tears and then (2) rage-farm his fellow-travellers to pay his legal bills. Does that sound like it’s covered by regulations for a “charitable organization”?
So , is that why Skippy was wearing the green ” protect hunters ” tshirts, that he’s selling— ala d’rump merchandising…..and speaking of selling: Skippy’s new ‘word’ for his greatest hits list is___ fire ____ as in time to “fire” * JT …….from
—My Comox Valley Now/citizen and Vista Radio .(used at least 3 times) from his rally in Duncan on Monday.
Plus :
“People who voted for the PPC are welcome in the Conservative party ” he said. “We believe in freedom and common sense. That is why so many People’s Party supporters voted for me in the leadership and are going to vote Conservative in the next election.” ITYS !!
Mike— and in the meantime Tamara Leach, on a break from her trial (Convoy) is a guest, via zoom, on a right wing rally? conference? in France– doing the martyr thing. And since they kept referring to her as leader of the convoy, I’m assuming she thinks no one in the judicial system is paying attention.
This could prove to be interesting !
oops…Mike….fwiw….
Press Progress–
“Tamara Lich appears at Global Summit With Leaders of European Far-Right, MAGA Republicans .”_____Freedom convoy leader was a guest speaker……organized by US Republicans and a Hungarian think tank.
Just another case of interesting friends that the CON-servative party people keep meeting up with. I’m going even money on more ‘go-send-me’ for Carpay, Lich and familia; isn’t that what Dani was quoted as saying about if you were in need of medical support, ask family or fund raise ?? I’ll have to look it up in the files , for exact date, but at average of 1 every 2/3 days, this might take awhile.
pOgOO— sign on the beach in PVallarta____”Water is safe to swim in, the only sharks, are on the beach “____ which I always thought was both intriguing and amusing; prairie barracudas are neither.
The Lake of Fire keeps reigniting like the smouldering roots after a wildfire. You have to dig them up and thoroughly douse with water or they’ll just start new conflagrations.
“And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire”
Johnny Cash, 1963
Green shirts, brown shirts, black shirts, or white sheeets, its all the same. It is doubtful any of them have any real fashion sense so we will have to wait and see. Perhaps in the end a lot of them will be wearing orange jumpsuits or something similar.
The next thing I’m waiting for is: will they start talking about public school students wearing uniforms.
You have to admit, though, that Hugo Boss designed a chic and directional uniform.
Words such as delusional, pitiable, and pathetic come to mind. Apparently the important lesson was never learned, as it seems to be the case for the mass of humanity. HINT:
“Golden Rule, precept in the Gospel of Matthew (7:12): “In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you. . . .” This rule of conduct is a summary of the Christian’s duty to his neighbour and states a fundamental ethical principle. In its negative form, “Do not do to others what you would not like done to yourselves,” it occurs in the 2nd-century documents Didachē and the Apology of Aristides and may well have formed part of an early catechism. It recalls the command to “love the stranger (sojourner)” as found in Deuteronomy. It is not, however, peculiar to Christianity. Its negative form is to be found in Tob. 4:15, in the writings of the two great Jewish scholars Hillel (1st century BC) and Philo of Alexandria (1st centuries BC and AD), and in the Analects of Confucius (6th and 5th centuries BC). It also appears in one form or another in the writings of Plato, Aristotle, Isocrates, and Seneca.”
Yes David, you are correct when you say that cultural wars are our collective reality. We are living through a time when Putin and his many allies are destroying the world as we know it. This narrative will continue as is has always done, the only difference isn that now with the rise one the Fourth Reich and their many supporters, we may well end up living in complete hell. This international phenomenon is taking place right now.
Upon reading Alberta Views and Susan on the Soapbox (suggestions from you, thank you) I am left knowing that while many people express their dismay about Alberta, too many say nothing. Indeed, humans are oppressed by the powers that want them to play their roles and they are successful in doing so – Any protests or movements toward plurality are quickly silenced, think the Main stream media, fascist messaging by controlling social media and everything you think, say and do.
Where is the hope for people when they experience insecurity? Most people do not work for the betterment of human kind, but attach themselves to indentured distraction ( I am referring to Distracting Ourselves to Death, a read of note).
I note with pleasure that most of your readers seem to understand our common plight. Still, we are in the wilderness of a human race bent on its own self destruction. Ideas regarding global warming, the realities of economics, species extinction and so on are now being undermined at every turn.
Alberta is one place of many whereby it “sucks to be you”, “suck it up buttercup”, “that is not my experience” is there mantra by many people who are just trying to “get on with things”. A cruel world whereby only the few thrive. This is the now and the future reality.
The UCP has ushered in a dictatorship, that has been in the making for generations. There is nothing anyone can imagine that cannot happen and that is the way the fascist visionaries want things – a world in which everyone lives within their silo, not thinking about others – a world of greed, suffering for the many and complete contempt. Think about the future whereby you are completely insignificant, nothing – the reality of our current dystopian world of cognizant dissonance. And so I post once again, a voice that is quickly ignored like many who try to shine a light upon human plight, too quickly silenced.
Maybe pump the brakes on the hyperbole a bit. The UCP may have a top down framework but they’re still a democratic organization on paper: we still live in Alberta, with a large and fairly well organized opposition, in Canada, a broadly liberal society with again, a democratically elected government. Sure our society is flawed as hell but no, Chicken Little, the sky remains where it is and we do not live under a dictatorship.
Danielle Smith doesn’t have a military, she doesn’t even have a private police force, a hobby horse they appear to be ignoring in favour of stealing a broad percentage of Canadians pensions. How she would even assume the power of a dictator is a really good question.
What are the odds? God – the Alpha and the Omega, the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth from nothing, Creator of Light from the Darkness, actually took time out of his/her busy day to look into how the Red Deer Catholic School Board was getting along and decided that Trustee LaGrange should post a photo comparing children waving Nazi flags along with children waving rainbow flags.
I wonder why our relatives in other provinces think we are the dumbest people on the planet? As a lawyer friend used to say “not only do we have to fight these damn Reformers we have to fight the idiots who are dumb enough to support them and they outnumber us two to one”. When you compare Norway and Alaska’s huge savings accounts to Alberta’s pathetic one considering what we produce in oil compared to the two of them it’s sickening.
I can just see TBA rearing its hideous head and demanding, “What about FreeDUMB?! Why should we give a platform to those who want to be identified by their weird sex lifestyle?” Then, David Parker will go off on some rant about how homosexuals ruined the Roman Empire, and when was the last time two women had a family together? Well, it’s likely the former was a more involved failure of Rome. As for the latter, it happens a lot, Parker. All. The. Time.
In any case, I expect John Carpay to launch a nuisance lawsuit against the school board and so on. And likely, Danielle Smith will be goaded into publicly defending the person, because Carpay and Parker told (ordered) her to.
Alberta’s dark comedy rolls along.
The Holy Spirit made her do it?
Flip Wilson’s version is funnier—and more accurate, too.