EMAIL: flaggcampaign@gmail.com

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1. Why are you the best candidate for trustee?
First, I meet what should be three mandatory qualifications for serving as trustee: I am a current resident of the Ward, I did not opt my children out of the public school system, and I am not supported by organized labour. Second, I am an independent businessman, who understands what it means to serve customers with respect and integrity. Third, I am a taxpayer who is fed up with the waste, mismanagement, and lack of accountability in spending at all levels of government. I intend to help restore the bonds of trust that have been broken for so long.

2. What changes would you like to see at the school board in the next four years?
Through my tenure on the TDSB, the main change I would like to see is the re-allocation of funding away from bureaucratic, non-educational spending, back to where it is supposed to go – into the schools! Far too much is wasted on consultants, bureaucracy, and in-sourced non-educational functions. Further, I want to ensure that decisions made on the sale and leasing of surplus properties are completely free of political interference, by ensuring that fair market value is the only standard applied at the TDSB’s Toronto Lands Corporation subsidiary.

3. What is your position on the TDSB consolidating under-enrolled schools and selling off closed school properties?
In neighbourhoods where demographics have shifted sharply away from family dwellings, I fully support the sale of surplus school properties and spending the proceeds on much-needed infrastructure improvements elsewhere in the system. However, as a principle, I strongly support the framework of small community K-6 schools as the best way to educate children and form strong, safe local bonds. Therefore, in areas where other factors may be drawing children away from the local community school, I am in favour of competing for the enrolment of local children through the overhaul of failing schools in order to restore neighbourhood trust.

4. Do you support the province’s decision to try to negotiate two-year, no wage increase contracts with the school board’s unionized employees when existing agreements expire?
I do not support the province’s plan. I support the staffing model currently being employed in the DC public school system by Chancellor Michelle Rhee, in which top-rated teachers have received large salary increases, and the worst-performing teachers and administrators have been removed from their positions. In a province where the Bachelor of Education programs are graduating thousands more young men and women than there are job openings, the TDSB would have the luxury of picking from the finest of the crop of the fresh new recruits to supplement the best of the teachers already in our ranks.

5. Please provide personal details on your bio.
Born and raised in North York, I am a product of Toronto’s public school system, graduating from York Mills Collegiate Institute in 1990. I completed my BA (Honours) in History at the University of Western Ontario in 1994, and completed my Master of Business Administration degree at McMaster University in 1997. A self-made entrepreneur, I founded the e-commerce specialty retailer SportsPosterWarehouse.com in 1998, and have successfully and profitably operated this and other businesses ever since. I reside in Ward 5’s Armour Heights neighbourhood with my wife, Beth, and our two young public school boys.