The Alberta Court of Appeal has upheld the disqualification of a former Catholic school trustee over social media posts about gender issues, while overturning a requirement that she issue a public apology.
The Red Deer Catholic Regional School Board sanctioned Monique LaGrange on Sept. 26, 2023, after she posted an image depicting children waving Pride flags below a photo of children waving Nazi flags, with the caption “brainwashing is brainwashing.”
The sanctions included sensitivity training, a ban on making public statements or speaking with the media, and a prohibition on representing the board in any official capacity.
LaGrange was disqualified in November 2023 after the board found she had failed to comply with the sanctions regarding her social media posts. She then resigned in protest.
Court of King’s Bench Justice Cheryl Arcand-Kootenay upheld most of the board’s position in November 2024, but overturned the sensitivity-training requirement, finding it appeared redundant.
LaGrange appealed, with the Court of Appeal hearing the matter on April 17, and issuing its ruling on Sept. 2.
She argued the lower court erred in upholding the board’s decisions as reasonable, including its handling of Catholic values, procedural fairness, the apology requirement, and the finding that she breached sanctions imposed by the board.
The board argued the appeals should be dismissed as moot because LaGrange resigned and was seeking neither reinstatement nor her position back.
The judges agreed her resignation made the appeals moot because their outcome could not affect her right to hold the position. However, they said judicial review was still appropriate because LaGrange sought “declaratory relief, not reinstatement.”
The panel also found no need to determine whether her original post contravened Roman Catholic values because “no error has been identified” in the board’s handling of that issue.
“For the reasons below, the first appeal is allowed in part, with respect to the Board’s imposition of a sanction requiring Ms. LaGrange to issue a public apology,” the judges wrote. “The second appeal, regarding the Board’s decision to disqualify Ms. LaGrange, is dismissed.”
Procedural Fairness
LaGrange argued the first board hearing was procedurally unfair because other trustees had prejudged the issue. She pointed to a letter they sent to the education minister asking for help “to have the Trustee dismissed” as evidence they had already formed an opinion.
The judges acknowledged the board had made a “false start” by passing a motion to ask the minister for help “to have the Trustee dismissed,” but said it ultimately followed the proper procedure before issuing its decision.
The panel said the letter was sent within a week of LaGrange’s post and before the board had consulted legal counsel, but found the record did not show the board had settled on an “intractable position.”
“Rather, the record as a whole indicates that the Board acted quickly in the first instance, but moving forward, they resolved to follow the process set out in the applicable Board policy,” the judges wrote.
The court concluded that LaGrange received the degree of procedural fairness to which she was entitled.
Apology Requirement
One of the sanctions required LaGrange to provide “a sincere public letter of apology” acknowledging “the inappropriateness of the Trustee’s actions” and stating that she was “deeply sorry.”
LaGrange argued the requirement was an unreasonable exercise of the board’s authority, saying she did not believe she had done anything wrong and would make the same post again.
The Court of King’s Bench judge had previously struck the word “sincere” from the sanction, finding that sincerity was “not measurable by any objective standard” and that it was not feasible for the board “to prescribe an individual’s personally held feelings.”
The Court of Appeal went further, striking down the entire apology sanction.
“In the circumstances of this case, we agree with Ms. LaGrange that the entirety of the apology sanction should be struck on administrative law grounds,” the ruling said.
The judges noted a significant difference between the sanction imposed by the board and how it was later characterized in the board’s written reasons. The reasons suggested LaGrange was required to acknowledge that members of the school division had found the meme offensive. However, the actual sanction required her to state that she was “deeply sorry” for causing that offence.
The court considered that distinction significant because LaGrange had already acknowledged that people had been offended by the post. It found that requiring her to say she was “deeply sorry” raised concerns similar to those created by requiring a “sincere” apology, because it sought to prescribe her personal feelings.
The Court of Appeal therefore concluded that the apology sanction was unreasonable and should be struck. However, it rejected LaGrange’s argument that the apology requirement “taints the second Board decision” imposing her disqualification.
Disqualification Upheld
The court upheld the board’s finding that LaGrange had breached two sanctions imposed in its first decision.
One prohibited her from representing the board or school division in an official capacity, including speaking with news or media outlets. The other prohibited her from making public statements “in areas touching upon or relating to the 2SLGBTQ+ community.”
The board found that LaGrange breached both sanctions through media interviews and subsequent social media posts.
LaGrange argued that the board had conflated her speaking publicly as an individual with representing the board and had improperly treated her comments about transgender ideology as comments relating to the LGBT community.
“She says the board ‘conflated representing herself with representing the Board; personal capacity with official capacity; and ideology with community,’” the ruling said.
The court rejected the argument, finding that the board’s reasoning “adds up.” LaGrange was identified as a school board trustee during the media interviews, which addressed educational issues, her role as a trustee and the proceedings involving her social media post.
The board therefore reasonably concluded that people hearing or reading the comments would not necessarily understand that she was speaking solely in her personal capacity, without a specific declaration to that effect, the judges said.
The court also upheld the board’s finding that LaGrange’s comments about what she described as “transgender ideology” fell within the sanction prohibiting public statements relating to the LGBT community.
The judges cited the board’s reasoning that “A critical feature of the 2SLGBTQ+ community is the gender and sexual orientation of its individual members ... To separate those individuals from that core understanding of their own identity is artificial.”
The court found it reasonable for the board to apply the sanction to LaGrange’s comments about transgender ideology and upheld its finding that she breached it.
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