Burlington's public school trustees who run again could face new limits on how they present themselves on the campaign trail. The Halton District School Board votes Tuesday, Nov. 3, on an updated code of conduct that proposes a new restriction on using the title "Trustee" during a school board election campaign.
The change comes from the board's Policy, By-Law and Governance Committee, which reviews the rules elected members govern themselves by. Its report, signed by committee chair Robbie Brydon, asks the full board to approve the updated policy and revoke all earlier versions. The code, which sets out how trustees are expected to behave, was first adopted on Oct. 5, 2016, and last revised in October 2024.
The package also firms up an existing rule. The ban on using board resources during campaigns now sits in an administrative procedure, the operating rules managed by board staff. An amendment would write it into board policy itself, the level of rules trustees vote on directly.
A companion item on the same agenda deals with enforcement. It asks the board to approve an updated Trustee Code of Conduct Governance Procedure, which spells out how complaints are handled. The revised procedure would bring in an Integrity Commissioner, an independent investigator of complaints about elected officials, for formal inquiries, and set out steps up to and including sanctions.
One election-season protection stays. In a municipal and school board election year, a complaint about a trustee seeking re-election can't be brought forward from two months before election day until after the first board meeting of the new term. Board staff call it a well-established practice for municipal and local boards, and the Ombudsman of Ontario, the province's watchdog over public bodies, cites it as a best practice.
If approved, the rules would apply to Burlington's newly elected trustees: Bika Diakoloukas in Wards 1 and 2 and Amy Collard in Ward 5, both acclaimed, along with Xin Yi Zhang in Wards 3 and 6 and Dania Thurman in Ward 4.
