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Get involved, sign up to support Alan
About this election
The decision of the Ontario Government to suspend the authority of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board on June 27th, 2025 has made this election of School Trustees one of the most important elections in recent history.
Rather than the infighting, over-spending and the poorly managed Board of the past, the newly elected Board will have to prove itself as a competent, balanced budget minded, and collaborative Board of Trustees who demonstrate good governance, fiscal responsibility and
accountability. Alan Riddell, as a newly elected Trustee for Zone 11, will deliver on these outcomes and ensure the suspension of the Board is lifted by the Minister of Education.
How Alan will deliver
Alan is a bilingual HR lawyer, a former Algonquin College instructor and teacher, an Ottawa school programs activist and a senior partner in a prominent Ottawa law firm.
Alan has the right employment and educational credentials to fulfil the responsibilities of School Trustee and will be an important asset to the newly elected Board and more importantly, to teachers, parents and students. He has appeared as an advocate before multiple different courts and tribunals including as the lead counsel in a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of Canada which defined the privacy rights of federal public servants under Canada's Access to Information Act.
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As your new OCDSB Trustee, Alan will use his professional advocacy skills to ensure Ontario’s Minister of Education restores full authority to Ottawa’s elected trustees so that our Board immediately becomes fully accountable and directly responsive to Ottawa parents rather to public servants in Ontario’s provincial government, as is the case now.​
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Also, as your newly elected Trustee, Alan will restore parental confidence in Ottawa’s public school system by placing greater emphasis on a ‘back to the basics’ approach to education while balancing the education budget without sacrifices affecting teachers, students and parents.
Alan's priorities
Alan's priorities
To restore teacher and parental confidence in Ottawa’s public school system and reverse the steady decline in student enrolment in, and funding for, Ottawa’s public schools;
To place greater emphasis on a ‘back to the basics’ approach to education;
To bring fiscal responsibility and quality education to Ottawa’s public school system
To restore civility and collegiality to Board meetings so that Trustees can discuss matters of relevance in a productive manner.
To advocate for the restoration of the Board’s authority by demonstrating to the Minister of Education that the current suspension needs to be lifted so the Board becomes directly accountable to parents, students and teachers.
About Alan
Alan's background
Alan was born in Ottawa and is himself a proud alumnus of the Ottawa public school system He is a graduate of the University of Toronto (B.A.), the U of T’s Bora Laskin Law School (LLB) and France’s Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris.
Alan is a co-founder and Vice-Chair of Young Voices Can!, a Canadian charity fostering dialogue and understanding amongst high school students with diverse communities.
He also has two pre-school grandchildren, as well as a stepdaughter and son-in-law who are both teachers.
Alan is also the Vice President, and a Board Member, of Samawada, a registered Canadian charity that builds village wells in East Africa so that local villagers, and their school age children, have a safe and secure supply of water, in the face of the increasing desertification brought about by climate change.
Alan practices employment law, human rights law and public law in both English and French.
Why Alan is running
Alan is seeking your vote to improve Ottawa’s public school system by the time his infant grandchildren reach school-age. He would like their educational opportunities to be as good as he had when he was a student in Ottawa.
Alan believes the new Board of Trustees, if given the opportunity, will be able to halt the current exodus of students from Ottawa’s public schools into private and Catholic schools, and the resulting shrinkage in the tax base for funding Ottawa’s public schools. To do so, he wants to restore parental confidence in the public school system, via greater emphasis on a ‘back to the basics’ approach to education. A fiscally responsible Board will be good for teachers, parents, students and the
taxpayers of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board. ​
Alan's commitment
I am seeking to become your school trustee on the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board because I want to earn your trust and improve Ottawa’s public school system by the time my grandchildren reach school-age. I’d like to see them get the same or better educational opportunities in Ottawa’s public school system as I received when I was a student in that same system.
More specifically:
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I want to stop the current shrinkage in the OCDSB’s tax base, that funds vital services and programs in Ottawa’s public schools, by halting the current exodus of students from schools, into private and Catholic schools;
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To do that I believe that we need to restore parental confidence in Ottawa’s public school system;
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And to do that, I believe that we need to place greater emphasis on a ‘back to the basics’ approach to education.
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Finally, and most importantly, I want to use my professional advocacy skills to persuade Ontario’s Minister of Education to restore full authority to Ottawa’s elected trustees so that our Board immediately becomes fully accountable, and directly responsive, to Ottawa’s parents, students and teachers.
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On Monday, October 26th, I hope that I can count on your vote.
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