An invoice obtained through a Freedom of Information request reveals a troubling conflict of interest at the heart of Ontario’s education equity agenda. The invoice, dating from 2019, shows that the Durham District School Board paid $22,543.50 to York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School for leadership to attend the Certificate in Human Rights for Education Professionals program.
At the time, Patrick Case was the assistant deputy minister of the Education Equity Secretariat at the Ontario Ministry of Education. He was also listed as program director of the Osgood certificate. The Ministry funded the board, which in turn directed that funding to a program Case led.
Osgoode Hall told True North that Patrick Case wasn’t on York University’s payroll, but the arrangement raises serious ethical concerns. The Ontario’s Public Service of Ontario Act prohibits public servants from engaging in activities where outside interests could conflict with their official duties. Unpaid roles offering reputational gain face the same ethical scrutiny.
True North requested evidence that Case disclosed his dual role to the ministry or recused himself entirely, but York University declined to provide proof.
Case led the ministry’s equity secretariat from 2017 until early 2024, embedding cultural socialist ideology in Ontario’s schools. It has embedded critical race theory into anti-racism programs, anti-oppression training, and created race-based professional development programs in partnership with school boards. In parallel, boards such as the DDSB have shifted large portions of their professional development budgets to fund programs aligned with cultural socialist ideology.
This was not Case’s only role within Ontario’s equity industrial complex. Before joining the ministry, he served as a commissioner for the Ontario Human Rights Commission, a body that increasingly promotes a “human rights-based approach to education.” This terminology reframes radical political programs as legal obligations, treating dissent as a human rights violation.
Case also served for decades as a trustee at the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), having first been elected in the 1970s under the Communist Party of Canada ticket. His decades-long presence in the system spanned policy, governance, legal oversight, and professional development. At each stage, his role has aligned with a single ideological trajectory: the normalization of cultural socialism – conveniently branded “equity” – as a moral and legal obligation.
Case has also been instrumental in institutional crisis containment. On multiple occasions, he has been hired by school boards or the Ministry to investigate the fallout from equity policies.
In 2020, the ministry appointed him to lead the investigation into the Peel District School Board following community backlash over allegations of racism and dysfunction. His report concluded that systemic racism was embedded in the board’s culture and recommended sweeping equity reforms. These recommendations were later used to justify increased provincial oversight and equity program funding.
At the TDSB, Case was brought in to handle internal investigations in the Richard Bilkszto case, the late principal who was publicly humiliated during a 2021 anti-racism training session delivered by the KOJO Institute and tragically committed suicide.
In both instances, Case was leading the Education Equity Secretariat, the very branch responsible for advancing and approving such ideological programming across Ontario school boards. Despite public interest in Richard Bilkszto’s story and multiple FOI attempts by members of the media and the public, the TDSB refuse to release the results of the investigation.
Today Patrick Case has returned to his position at Osgood Hall, but the structures he helped build remain intact. The Education Equity Secretariat continues to operate, and the Human Rights Commission’s influence on school policy has expanded under the language of diversity, equity, and inclusion. This framing shields far left radical politics from criticism by equating criticism with discrimination.
This spring, Education Minister Paul Calandra introduced Bill 33, which proposed reforms to depoliticize school boards and reassert academic achievement as a core priority. While the bill contains language about ending ideological spending and promoting transparency, it fails to mention the source of the politicization: the Education Equity Secretariat.
Equally, it fails to address the role of the Human Rights Commission in using a legal strong arm to impose censorious cultural socialist ideology into school programming, nor does it propose limits on third-party ideological training providers or the procurement of equity-based professional development without oversight.
The Case incident highlights what many suspect: Ontario’s education system is not merely shaped by policy debates, but by entrenched networks of ideologically aligned actors operating across multiple institutions. The revolving door between school boards, legal education, human rights bodies, and provincial ministries has created a feedback loop. Those who set the rules are also training the enforcers, writing the curriculum, and investigating the complaints.
Without transparency and real safeguards against conflicts of interest, the promise of depoliticizing education remains little more than a press release.