To the Editor:
The Court of Queen’s Bench ruling in the Wade Oberg case has overwhelmingly determined that the decisions of the Southeast Cornerstone Public School Division board and the Senior Leadership Team were most unfair and “substantively unreasonable.” Due diligence and procedural fairness did not occur.
As a result, Justice McCreary, in her ruling, has made the following order:
1. The board’s process was procedurally unfair and, as a result, the decisions are void;
2. The penalty of demotion imposed by the board, as recommended by the SLT, does not fall within a range of reasonable outcomes. As a result, the decisions are quashed as unreasonable. And,
3. Mr. Oberg is reinstated to principal duties. The matter is not remitted to the board.
At the time, I stated numerous times, as did many others, that the decisions appeared most unfair and unreasonable. I urged board members and the SLT to ensure “fairness prevailed”. This, of course, fell on deaf ears.
It became ever more evident that the SLT and the board were exhibiting thoughts and beliefs of being omniscient and omnipotent. In their opinion, they were “beyond reproach.”
Their entire process was not only flawed, rather, the following descriptors are much more accurate: egregious, blatant, appalling, grievous, unethical, and the list goes on.
Both groups mentioned above are responsible for significant lapses in judgment, failure to follow their own investigation manual’s procedures, and breaching procedural fairness, which constitutes a failure to act in good faith.
They, the board and its SLT, need only to look in the mirror if they want to know who is responsible for the damage done to the school division’s reputation.
This entire affair speaks to the ineptness of those responsible for such an injustice to an individual and his family.
I echo Dave Edgerton’s call for the removal of the individuals responsible for this “travesty”, specifically, the resignation of all board members who voted in favour of said decision, as well as the termination of those responsible for the botched and unethical investigation, namely Lynn Little, Keith Keating and Gord Husband.
Denis Tremblay, Weyburn
