Jon Liedtke explains to Gene Valaitis on 610CKTB the “Bigotry Tax” – the legal costs paid by taxpayers when school boards appease protesters by removing the Pride flag. He argues inclusion is a statutory requirement, not an optional value, and the flag is a low-cost legal compliance tool. Liedtke urges officials to uphold the law and prevent financial ruin.

Transcript (Gemini Generated):

Gene Valaitis: One of the greatest storytellers on this show is our friend John Liedtke, who joins us on this holiday Monday. Good morning, John.

Jon Liedtke: Good morning, Gene.

Gene Valaitis: Hey listen, I thought the whole debate about pride flags in schools was over and done with, but you sent me some interesting notes over the weekend. You coined the term “bigotry tax.” So what exactly does that mean and why should the average taxpayer care basically about a flag on a pole?

Jon Liedtke: The bigotry tax, Gene, is the cold hard invoice for institutional cowardice. When school boards get spooked out by a loud, large gallery and start ignoring the Human Rights Act or the Charter, they don’t just lose moral high ground, they lose in court. Every single time. These are mid-six-figure settlements, mountain-high legal fees, and they don’t just vanish into the ether; they’re billed directly to you, to me, to taxpayers. And I’m tired of this bigotry tax being tacked onto our property bills just to subsidize a trustee’s lack of a constitutional backbone or a vertebrae.

Gene Valaitis: So, is it settled? Because I know that you’re saying that the pride flag is essentially a low-cost compliance tool. What do you mean?

Jon Liedtke: It is. I mean, I’d love to tell you this is about pure, heart-on-sleeve altruism, but institutions are built on risk management, not romance. The pride flag is a high-visibility, low-cost compliance tool. It’s a signal to the province that the lights are on, the law is being followed. Whether a trustee votes for it because they have a heart of gold or because they’ve seen the legal department’s terrifying budget predictions, well, it won’t change any of the math because the math is the math. It keeps the lawyers at bay—the flag does—and it keeps the funding in the classroom where it belongs, rather than going into lawyers’ pockets, which I’m sure you agree with. They don’t need any more of our money.

Gene Valaitis: No, and I’ve got some pretty bad lawyer jokes I could tell, but I can’t on the air. Now, you mentioned in your blog, this just isn’t an opinion, it’s a base coat for Canada, the entire country. So how do you respond to parents who feel that the Charter should also protect their rights to not have their kids exposed to any of these kind of symbols?

Jon Liedtke: You know, the Charter and the Ontario Human Rights Act aren’t just trigger-free passes for the public square. They protect you from the state, sure, but they also protect the rights of the marginalized to actually exist in public. The system doesn’t owe anyone a moral bubble, Gene, at the expense of its own legal survival. And if someone’s personal worldview is so fragile that a strip of rainbow-colored nylon threatens it, that’s a private pastoral matter, not a valid reason to rewrite public policy.

Gene Valaitis: Hmm. Now you have a pretty unique take on why the pride flag and the Canadian flag actually work in tandem. Explain, Lucy.

Jon Liedtke: You know, one of the arguments that I saw on social media this week was that the only flags that should fly are the country, the province, or the city. And I think there’s merit to that, but we need to remember the maple leaf was not handed down on high on stone tablets at Mount Sinai into Moses’s hand. It was a calculated 1965 PR Lester Pearson flex to define a modern inclusive Canada. And if sovereignty resides with the Canadian flag, the pride flag is the operational mirror—a declaration, if you will, that we actually mean what we say about being a free and democratic society. You can’t fly the maple leaf and then ignore the human rights-based code it’s supposed to represent. But it’s not a cage match either. They’re reinforcing the same Canadian project. And of course, there’s still flag code. The maple leaf always flies at top.

Gene Valaitis: Yeah. Now there have been some protests, once again, and you’re calling it the Trailer Park Boys logic. What do you mean?

Jon Liedtke: I’m not losing sleep, Gene, over alienating people who are trying to dismantle the legal integrity of our school boards and system. This is Trailer Park Boys logic. They want the dopamine hit and high of screaming at a school board meeting, but they really don’t want to do the long, grueling work of actual governance. They don’t want to do the door knocking, the budget audits, the four-hour subcommittee meetings. They want to control the whole public system, so, you know, go do it. In Trailer Park Boys, this was: you like to smoke the weed, you don’t like to grow it and do the hard work. So don’t just show up on harvest day and demand to smoke.

Gene Valaitis: Okay, if you’re a school trustee listening to this little debate this morning, what’s your message? 30-second elevator message.

Jon Liedtke: My advice? Open the legal budget, take a long, hard look, and if you pull that flag down to appease a shouting match in the gallery today, you are signing a blank check to a human rights lawyer tomorrow. The job of a trustee is not to soothe the loudest person in the room because their feelings got hurt; it’s to uphold the law and protect every student and every one of the schools in their jurisdiction. So, my advice: be an adult, keep the flag up, stop the bigotry tax before it bankrupts your board.

Gene Valaitis: Hey listen, I’ve got 60 seconds. We’re going to talk about this more tomorrow morning after Dave Trafford at 9:45. So have a great holiday today. I appreciate you coming on on a holiday and we’ll talk to you tomorrow.

Jon Liedtke: Talk soon, Gene.

Gene Valaitis: All right, there he goes. Jon Liedtke. You never know what he’s going to say, but man, he always has a great day.

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