A Niagara Catholic School Board trustee who was suspended earlier this year after she was caught on video comparing the Pride flag to the Nazi flag is again calling on the board to drop the banner from its flag raising protocol.
“The rational —adherence to Catholic teaching,” Benoit said when she introduced a notice of motion at the board’s Sept. 24 meeting. She asked that her motion be put on the agenda for consideration at the board’s next meeting, coming Tuesday, Oct. 22.
Benoit, a trustee representing St. Catharines and Niagara-on-the Lake, was suspended in January for five months after an investigation into her conduct by Parker Sim LLP. The investigation came about as the result of a complaint filed in June 2023 by Welland-Pelham trustee Paul Turner. He cited the comments comparing the two flags made by Benoit outside a May 23, 2023, board meeting.
The Parker Sims report found that Benoit had breached the board’s code of conduct when she made the comments. A YouTube video which contained the comments has since been deleted.
She had put forward a similar motion at the May 2023 meeting, but it was defeated.
Six million Jews died during the Holocaust in concentration camps, ghettos, mass shootings and death camps over the years of the Second World War between 1939 and 1945, according to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. At the same time up to 50,000 men were jailed by the Nazis for being gay, with an estimated 10-15,000 sent to concentration camps where many died.
