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The woman who until recently was Manitoba’s head of teacher misconduct investigations says the premier’s insistence she was fired for working in Florida is “blatantly false,” and the government knew long ago she was spending time in the United States. <\/p>\n
Bobbi Taillefer said she voluntarily offered her resignation on April 8, after realizing her physical whereabouts would become a “political liability to government,” she wrote in a statement to media Tuesday. She said her resignation was accepted by the NDP government.<\/p>\n
The next day, the Winnipeg Free Press, which had been asking questions about Taillefer’s out-of-country working arrangement, reported she had resigned after the province became aware of the situation.<\/p>\n
Education Minister Tracy Schmidt had told the newspaper she learned Taillefer was in Florida “the same time you did.”<\/p>\n
Last Friday, Premier Wab Kinew told media Taillefer’s departure was actually the result of a firing, and that Schmidt gave Taillefer the opportunity to characterize her exit as a resignation.<\/p>\n
However, Taillefer states government officials were aware she would be spending some time in Florida, dating back to initial employment discussions in 2024. She was appointed Manitoba’s first independent education commissioner late that year.<\/a> <\/p>\n Taillefer said her employment contract for the part-time position contained no prohibition around her work location, nor any requirement to attend a physical office.<\/p>\n Two deputy ministers led her to believe that the education ministry and the premier’s office were aware that “from time-to-time,” she was working while in the U.S, she wrote in her statement, adding she performed her duties with the “utmost of integrity and professionalism.” <\/p>\n ‘Substantial damage to my reputation’<\/p>\n She said the premier’s characterization of her departure as a termination suggests her conduct was at fault.<\/p>\n “This implication is blatantly false and has caused substantial damage to my reputation, which I am proud to say heretofore has been exemplary,” Taillefer’s statement said.<\/p>\n While she received positive feedback from government throughout her tenure, “unfortunately, politics have now worked their way into the relationship,” she wrote.<\/p>\n Reached by phone Tuesday, Taillefer declined an interview, saying she received legal advice to rely on her statement.<\/p>\n However, she answered she doesn’t know yet if she will pursue legal action, and confirmed she will honour a new contract, signed last week, to provide transition support for the new commissioner until mid-July.<\/p>\n On Monday, the province announced veteran education bureaucrat David Yeo will serve in the role on an interim basis until a replacement is found.<\/p>\n The position was created to investigate reports of teacher misconduct made by the public, school boards or employers. The commissioner is also tasked with issuing penalties to teachers and producing disciplinary reports that are\u00a0published online.<\/a> <\/p>\n Taillefer previously served as a teacher and school principal before shifting to union leadership, working for the Manitoba Teachers’ Society and Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation before becoming Manitoba’s education commissioner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-604339","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}