An Anishinaabe candidate in the Mountain View School Division’s upcoming byelection is calling for systemic change so on-reserve residents have a say in choosing the people making decisions about the public schools their children attend.
Scott Lynxleg said he was shocked and saddened to learn that members of Tootinaowaziibeeng First Nation, located about 100 kilometres northwest of Dauphin, are ineligible to nominate or vote for local school board candidates.
“It just feels wrong,” said Lynxleg, a father and grandfather of public school students who splits his time between Tootinaowaziibeeng and his main residence in Dauphin.
Scott Lynxleg
Lynxleg is seeking a vacant seat in Ward 2 of his division’s embattled board of trustees.
A byelection to fill four vacancies in Mountain View is scheduled for Oct. 30.
The Dauphin-based board has been in turmoil since Ward 2 trustee Paul Coffey decried anti-racism efforts and defended residential schools during a presentation on April 22.
Three trustees resigned from the nine-seat board amid the fallout of that meeting and the firing of the superintendent. A fourth seat was declared vacant last winter.
The province appointed a three-member oversight panel at the end of the 2023-24 school year. Panelists walked out of a board meeting in protest of remaining trustees’ interference in their work on Sept. 23.
The following day, after submitting his nomination paperwork, Lynxleg said he was told many of the signatures he’d collected were invalid because they belonged to residents of Tootinaowaziibeeng.
“It was very emotional,” he said, adding he was able to meet the 25-signature minimum because he collected roughly double the required endorsements as a precautionary measure.
Manitoba’s Public Schools Act does not allow residents of First Nations to vote in board elections.
“First Nations are provided discretion as to how their students are educated — the alternatives being to administer their own school or to enter into an agreement with a local division to administer an on-community school,” a provincial spokesperson said in a statement.
Manitoba legislation states the education minister can establish a reserve as a separate ward if a band council has entered into an agreement with a school board.
Rolling River, Park West, Fort La Bosse and Lord Selkirk school divisions have each established governance agreements with local First Nations.
Mountain View does not have one in place.
Chairman Jason Gryba said in an email Thursday that this is not the first time the concern has been raised, and he would look into the board’s previous work on the file to find out what came of previous discussions.
Lynxleg said the inability to seek support from his community is one of many barriers to running for the school board that educates Indigenous students from Tootinaowaziibeeng and elsewhere.
His First Nation’s elementary school goes up to Grade 7. Graduates are bused to Grandview School, a K-9 building operated by Mountain View.
Mother Shayle Catagas called the status quo governance model a “very ironic” example of systemic racism that contradicts both an orange poster and treaty acknowledgement on the division’s website.
“I’m trusting the school with my child and the division with the education of my child — I should have some say in that,” Catagas said.
Her five-year-old son attends Gilbert Plains Elementary School because his father lives in the catchment area; the kindergartner’s parents share custody.
“The comments that (Coffey) made, they were gross, but also nobody in that room stood up to stop him. That was my concern,” said Catagas, a granddaughter of residential school survivors who were forced to attend an institution in Pine Creek.
She added she is hopeful voting eligibility will change so she can participate — if not in this month’s byelection, then in the 2026 elections.
Tootinaowaziibeeng Chief Barry McKay did not provide comment before deadline Thursday. Neither did Mountain View acting superintendent Suzanne Cottyn.
Education Minister Nello Altomare’s press secretary told the Free Press his office is looking into the issue.
Seven of nine trustee seats in Mountain View were acclaimed in the 2022 elections.
maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca
Maggie Macintosh
Education reporter
Maggie Macintosh reports on education for the Free Press. Originally from Hamilton, Ont., Maggie was an intern at the Free Press twice while earning her degree at Ryerson’s School of Journalism (now Toronto Metropolitan University) before joining the newsroom as a reporter in 2019. Read more about Maggie.
Funding for the Free Press education reporter comes from the Government of Canada through the Local Journalism Initiative.
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