Calls for Manitoba to make independent body to investigate teacher misconduct

The Canadian Centre for Child Protection says while schools are generally safe, more should and could be done to protect students. It is a thought echoed by a local group calling for a new independent body to investigate teacher misconduct complaints.

Schools are supposed to be places of safety for students but decades ago, that feeling of security was shattered for Peter Hamer.

"My music teacher sexually abused me over about two and a half years – both verbal as well as physical abuse," Hamer told CTV News.

This happened in the 1980s. The problem has not gone away according to a new study by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection.

It found between 2017 and 2021, 252 current or former school personnel working in Canadian Kindergarten to Grade 12 schools committed or were accused of committing offences of a sexual nature against at least 548 students.

During the same timeframe, another 38 personnel were criminally charged.

"That is alarming, because when this happens to a child, this completely disrupts their lives in a way that changes the course of it," said Noni Classen, the director of education for the Canadian Centre for Child Protection.

If the complaint does not rise to the level of a criminal charge, Classen said it is often the school itself investigating the teacher.

"So it just creates this blind spot and an obvious conflict of interest," Classen said.

That's why Hamer and other survivors from the organization Stop Educator Child Exploitation are calling for provinces to create a fully independent body. They want the body to take complaints from parents, students and school personnel, and have the power to investigate and determine appropriate sanctions.

"We want to make sure that it's looked at even from the perspective of inappropriate behaviour from teachers to students," Hamer said.

The Manitoba government says it is looking for ways to enhance the current framework for addressing and preventing teacher misconduct. An independent body isn't off the table.

"That is definitely one of the options, but we are going to definitely be working with, again, our education partners including the Manitoba Teachers' Society, to make sure that we're getting this right for Manitobans," said Wayne Ewasko, Manitoba's minister of education and early childhood learning.

The province said it's also considering defining teacher professional misconduct which needs to be reported, and updating the processes and composition of the teacher certificate review committee.

The Manitoba Teachers' Society says it has a number of questions before it could offer an opinion on the viability of this outside body.

"I don't know who the outside body would be, how you ensure that level of independence, and where there is stakeholder involvement," said James Bedford, president of the society.

Hamer said the process may be difficult, but with the welfare of children at stake, he said it has to be successful.