This article was first published by TorontoToday, a Village Media publication.
The media got it wrong on a Toronto District School Board field trip, according to a provincial report.
It was authored by a former high-level civil servant who was tasked by Premier Doug Ford’s government with looking into the school board’s policies and procedures after a September field trip became a news sensation.
The excursion in question saw about 535 Toronto students attend the Grassy Narrows’ River Run, an event intended to raise awareness about the mercury contamination of the English-Wabigoon River near Dryden that for decades has caused widespread neurological problems among the nearby First Nations residents.
But in the days following the Sept. 18, 2024, event, news coverage about the First Nations’ concerns was quickly eclipsed by outrage in response to allegations that TDSB teachers had intentionally brought students to a pro-Palestine protest.
In his lengthy report on the field trip, author Patrick Case, a former assistant deputy minister with Ontario’s Ministry of Education, found the emotional safety of some Jewish students in attendance had been compromised by pro-Palestine chants and anti-Zionist stickers they encountered at the rally.
His central conclusion, however, was that news and social media coverage of the event had warped the public’s view of a largely celebratory, educational rally.
“Stressing that I do not minimize the deleterious effect on young minds of hearing chants that troubled them,” Case wrote. “I nonetheless condemn a post-event response that left the world thinking that Toronto children were ‘forced’ to attend an anti-Jewish rally, ‘forced’ to wear T-shirts emblazoned with antisemitic insignia and ‘forced’ to chant Jew-hating slogans in unison.”
After interviews and meetings with 146 teachers, students and other stakeholders, Case concluded that the pro-Palestine chants occurred for about five minutes of the eight-hour event.
Case said the news media’s coverage of the event caused “significant harm to the TDSB’s Indigenous communities” and resulted in some students feeling confused for “having had such a positive experience at an event that has been portrayed so negatively.”
He found the River Run field trip blowback contributed to a decision by the board to cancel a planned student excursion to a subsequent Indigenous learning opportunity later that month.
Chants stoke outrage
Shortly after the River Run concluded, articles published in several outlets suggested students had been “forced” to participate in a rally that had turned into an “anti-Israel protest,” Case wrote.
On Sept. 19, 2024, National Post reporter Tristin Hopper published a story featuring a video shared on social media by a parent showing a moment during the rally when the crowd chanted “from Turtle Island to Palestine, occupation is a crime.”
The story also quoted former MP Kevin Vuong discussing the field trip on a talk radio show.
“TDSB teachers lied; they lied that this would be about Grassy Narrows … they lied that they would be observing and learning – they were made to protest,” the story quoted Vuong saying.
One day later, Toronto Sun reporter Bryan Passifiume published a story with the headline “Students attending protest told to 'wear blue' to mark them as 'colonizers.'”
The story’s opening line said middle-school students were “allegedly asked by teachers to wear blue shirts in order to identify themselves as ‘settlers’ and ‘colonizers.’”
While some students had been encouraged to wear blue to the field trip, the colour was intended to represent clean water, per Case’s report. He said one teacher communicated to parents that “settlers are asked to wear blue, if possible,” using the word “settler” at the request of Grassy Narrows’ organizers.
The “media information was largely misleading” about the blue shirts, Case wrote.
Several additional news and opinion stories followed in the Toronto Sun, Toronto Star, Financial Post, National Post and Post Millennial, which Case cited in his report’s footnotes. He said such media coverage contributed to the idea that students had been forced to participate in an event that became an anti-Israel protest.
“Overall, the coverage of the event focused almost exclusively on these claims rather than on the people of Grassy Narrows and their quest for clean water,” Case wrote.
TorontoToday contacted Passifiume and Hopper for their perspectives on the report, but did not receive a response prior to publication.
What transpired on Sept. 18
In his report, Case concluded that students and teachers “almost universally” did not recognize the event they attended based on how it was depicted on social media or in the news.
The rally began in downtown Toronto’s Grange Park.
After eating lunch, students heard speeches from then-Chief of Grassy Narrows First Nation Rudy Turtle and others about the impact of mercury poisoning on their community.
A 2022 study found an estimated 90 per cent of the population of Grassy Narrows have symptoms of mercury poisoning as a result of the river being used as a dumping ground beginning in the 1960s.
A study last year found ongoing wastewater discharge from the Dryden Paper Mill into the river is combining with existing mercury to produce methylmercury — a substance that presents an even greater risk to humans.
During an open-mic portion of the speeches, someone on stage encouraged the crowd to repeat the chant, “From Turtle Island to Palestine, occupation is a crime.”
Case found students from 14 of the 19 TDSB schools in attendance reported not having heard the chant. Among the classes from the five schools that did, students said the chanting lasted less than one minute.
After the speeches, Case said the crowd was organized to march to Queen’s Park, where Turtle presented Grassy Narrows’ demands to the government, including fair compensation for mercury poisonings, which have left many with tremors, memory loss and motor dysfunction.
Some students stayed for the march to Queen’s Park, while other groups left, based on student fatigue and the need to be home on time, Case wrote.
During the procession, which the report described as having a “celebratory atmosphere,” police encouraged groups walking beside the march to merge with the main group in the centre of the street, confusing the distinction between who was observing the march and who was participating, Case said.
A woman who was not associated with the organizers of the rally shouted a chant on a megaphone, Case said. Classes from five schools heard the woman shout the same chant as some students heard in the park, he found.
Case said it appears one class was urged to repeat the chant, which he said was unethical. In addition to these two instances, Case found that one student he spoke with believed they heard the chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
In addition to these chants, Case said several dozen people at the rally wore keffiyehs, pro-Palestinian watermelon insignia or stickers, and buttons with messages such as “Free Palestine” and “I’m a proud anti-Zionist.”
He said students from two schools reported seeing a button that stated “Zionism Kills,” which the investigator said they viewed as expressing antisemitism.
Aside from these instances, the investigator said the eight-hour event was “uneventful” with respect to Israel-Palestine. He said participants described the event as “safe,” “positive” and “enjoyable.”
While some parents had been very concerned about their children having attended the event, Case found that “by far the largest majority of parents” believed the excursion to have been of great educational value for their kids.
Case noted that when students are out in public, unexpected things can happen.
“Whether they are at a rally, on the street or going into a museum, the reality is that there are things beyond one’s control,” he said.
Public outrage and provincial response
In the 48 hours after the rally, the National Post and Toronto Sun stories and related social media posts circulated heavily online and the TDSB received a number of complaints.
On Sept. 20, the school board issued a statement apologizing for the harm some students “may have experienced” while on the field trip and said it was investigating the matter.
In his report, Case said it was unfortunate that rather than seeking facts prior to publishing a statement, the TDSB “added fuel to the fire” by apologizing for “behaviours that were either exaggerated in social media or that did not in fact take place.”
He said trustees and senior leaders relied on news articles and social media posts in drawing their conclusions. “They did not do their due diligence and in that regard, failed their students and families,” Case said.
On Sept. 23, Premier Ford said it was “disgraceful” students had been at the event.
Students “should be in the classroom learning about reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic … but instead, the TDSB and these teachers want to bring them down to a rally, a Palestinian rally, and it’s ridiculous,” Ford said.
The next day, the province told media outlets it would investigate the field trip.
Around this time, TDSB senior leaders cancelled a separate planned excursion that had been planned for Sept. 30 to honour residential school survivors and their families, Case wrote.
In his report, the investigator found schools didn’t properly consult with superintendents about the Grassy Narrows field trip, but that by and large, most policies were followed, and teachers took great care with the excursion.
“It is clear to me that this excursion was not only directly linked to provincial and board curriculum, but, for many students, it provided enhanced learning in a way that cannot be realized in the classroom,” Case wrote.
‘Journalistic malpractice’: media critic
In his interviews and meetings, the investigator said many students and parents noted the role played by the news media and social media to “fan the flames of outrage.”
Reporter, writer and media critic Jan Wong called the coverage of the River Run “journalistic malpractice.”
She acknowledged that it's common for journalists to focus coverage on the perspectives of a minority of aggrieved individuals, but said it was improper for reporters to have blown up the concerns raised by just a few parents in this case.
“When you are reporting that there was some chanting happening … and a few students heard it, and you make this the story, then that’s not accurate,” she said. “We’re talking about public space in a huge city of millions.”
Wong said she also disagreed with the underlying premise of the articles — that students should be protected from hearing a diversity of viewpoints on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
She said it’s true young people can sometimes be hurt by what is said, but argued students should not be kept inside a “bubble.”
“This is a democracy, and people have the right to shout slogans,” she said.
Sonya Fatah, associate chair of the Toronto Metropolitan University’s School of Journalism, said the coverage showed a “lack of editorial judgement in the newsroom.”
She said it appears social media drove the direction journalists took in their coverage.
“It does seem like there was a failure to assess what actually went down … before jumping on the viral social media campaigns and that becoming the story,” she said.
Not all agreed with the report’s conclusions, however.
In a press release, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs said Case’s report “blatantly” dismissed the lived experience of Jewish students, families and educators.
“There can be no moral ambiguity here. No excuses, no political hedging, and no shameful attempts to ‘both-sides,’" the organization said.
“Jewish students felt threatened, unsafe, and abandoned — and that should have been the focus of this investigation.”
Grassy grandmother demands action
In a press release on Wednesday, the provincial government announced it has appointed a federal investigator to assess the TDSB’s current financial situation and recommend whether “control and charge” of the board should be “vested in the ministry.”
As part of that announcement, the Ministry of Education released Case’s report, which it said revealed “a lack of judgment and poor planning for student emotional safety” on the part of the TDSB.
On Thursday, Grassy Narrows First Nation’s grandmother and activist Judy Da Silva reiterated the demands raised during the River Run event.
“Premier Ford has not responded to the fact that his government is continuing to allow the Dryden paper mill to make our poisoning worse every day by releasing their effluent into our life-giving river,” she said in a written statement to TorontoToday.
“This was a powerful event for our community to raise our voices together to end the ongoing poisoning of our people,” she said of the River Run.
“We call on Premier Ford to have a heart and end the poisoning of our people."
