Mario Santos
Encyclopedia
Mario Jorge Santos is a former public official in Winnipeg
, Manitoba
, Canada
. He was a prominent member of the Winnipeg School Board from 1982 to 2002, and has sought election to the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba
on two occasions.
and moved to Canada in 1968. He has worked as a civil and criminal lawyer, and operated a tax consulting business during his time as a school trustee. Santos is a Roman Catholic, and has served as chairman of the pastoral council at Immaculate Conception Church in Winnipeg. He describes himself as a staunch supporter of public education
.
following the death of Inez Stevenson. He was returned in the 1983 municipal election
, and again in 1986
, 1989
, 1992
, 1995
and 1998
. He did not seek re-election in 2002.
Early years
Santos helped found the Manitoba Association for the Preservation of Ancestral Languages in 1983, to advocate for the teaching of languages other than English and French. He served as school board chairman during his first full term, and defended a controversial pay increase for trustees (which followed a review by Manitoba Appeal Court Judge Charles Huband
). He later supported the removal of mandatory prayer from schools.
Finance chair
Santos chaired the Winnipeg School Board's finance committee for most of the 1990s, and conducted several rounds of funding negotiations with the provincial government
. He became known as a champion of divisional autonomy from provincial control, and often criticized the Gary Filmon
government's approach to education. He oversaw significant spending cuts to the school division's employee budget in 1995, during a period of general economic restructuring in Canada. Santos said that he took no pleasure in the decision, but added that it was necessary to protect classroom programs. He described teacher demands for wage and benefit increases in this period as unreasonable.
Santos was appointed as the school division's vice-chairman following the 1995 election, while also retaining his position as Finance Chairman. He presided over a further round of spending cuts in 1997, again reluctantly, in an attempt to minimize tax increases.
Division chair and after
Santos was selected for a one-year term as division chairman in late 1997. In this capacity, he helped negotiate long-standing salary and human rights disputes with Winnipeg teachers. He also criticized the province's increasing reliance on standardized tests, arguing that they were inappropriate for measuring the needs of at-risk students.
He stood down as chairman after the 1998 election, and was reappointed as finance chairman later in the term. In 2002, he announced that the Winnipeg School Division would freeze school property taxes for the first time in recent memory. He announced his retirement in 2002, after serving for twenty years.
Social issues
In 1994, Santos voted against a motion to study the integration of anti-homophobia
tolerance lessons into Winnipeg classrooms. He argued that his position was not premised in homophobic beliefs, and said that he had previously lobbied to have sexual orientation included as a protected category in the Manitoba Human Rights Code. His position was that anti-discrimination should be taught generally, and not targeted to specific groups.
He later spoke out against the creation of an anti-homophobia education committee, when the subject was revisited in 1999. On this occasion, Santos argued that his objections were with the ad hoc nature of the committee and not with the larger rights issue. He later indicated that anti-homophobia measures would be addressed through the division's policy-program committee, which he himself chaired. The end result was another program that was focused on general anti-discrimination, rather than what Santos described as "the blessing of a lifestyle". He nevertheless gave his cautious support to the introduction of anti-homophobia literature in 2001.
Santos defended his division's affirmative action
policies in 1997, saying that they were achieving real success in hiring women to administrative positions.
Santos was an opponent of video monitoring in schools throughout his career, arguing it would give schools the appearance of prisons. He also opposed student locker searches in 2000.
Other
In 1999, Santos proposed a motion to have professional wrestlers deliver anti-drug and stay-in-school messages to children in the Winnipeg School Division. He also objected to a Winnipeg School Board's recommendation that after-school wrestling programs be moved to a different time slot. Santos indicated that he was not a fan of sports entertainment, but found any government censorship of this sort to be dangerous.
, and ran under its banner in the north-end Winnipeg division of The Maples in the 1977 provincial election
. He left after Charles Huband
resigned as leader, saying the party was moving too far to the right. In a 1996 interview, Santos indicated that he probably would have remained a Liberal if Sharon Carstairs
had directly succeeded Huband. He described himself as a "Trudeau Liberal" in the same interview, and indicated that he was dissatisfied with the direction of the federal party
under Jean Chrétien
.
Santos joined the New Democratic Party
after leaving the Liberals, although his relationship with the party was sometimes difficult. He declined the party's official endorsement in 1995, and chose to run for re-election as an independent. After the election, he indicated that he would not caucus with an NDP group of trustees. He was again re-elected as an independent candidate in 1998. Santos criticized the education reforms introduced by Gary Doer
's New Democratic Party government in 2000, arguing that they gave too much bargaining power to teachers. He also called for the abolition of rent control
s in early 2001, an idea that was quickly rejected by the Doer government. When he retired from the school board in 2002, he acknowledged that he was sometimes regarded as too conservative for his party.
Santos nonetheless remained a member of the New Democratic Party in good standing, and won the party's nomination for the Inkster division in the 2003 provincial election
. He was defeated by Liberal candidate Kevin Lamoureux
. He later sought the NDP nomination for Minto
in a 2004 by-election, but lost to Andrew Swan.
Winnipeg
Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...
, Manitoba
Manitoba
Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. He was a prominent member of the Winnipeg School Board from 1982 to 2002, and has sought election to the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba
Legislative Assembly of Manitoba
The Legislative Assembly of Manitoba and the lieutenant governor form the Legislature of Manitoba, the legislature of the Canadian province of Manitoba. Fifty-seven members are elected to this assembly in provincial general elections, all in single-member constituencies with first-past-the-post...
on two occasions.
Early life and career
Santos was born in PortugalPortugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
and moved to Canada in 1968. He has worked as a civil and criminal lawyer, and operated a tax consulting business during his time as a school trustee. Santos is a Roman Catholic, and has served as chairman of the pastoral council at Immaculate Conception Church in Winnipeg. He describes himself as a staunch supporter of public education
Public education
State schools, also known in the United States and Canada as public schools,In much of the Commonwealth, including Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom, the terms 'public education', 'public school' and 'independent school' are used for private schools, that is, schools...
.
Trustee
Santos was first elected to the Winnipeg School Board's second ward in a by-electionBy-election
A by-election is an election held to fill a political office that has become vacant between regularly scheduled elections....
following the death of Inez Stevenson. He was returned in the 1983 municipal election
Winnipeg municipal election, 1983
The 1983 Winnipeg municipal election was held on October 26, 1983 to elect a mayor, councillors and school trustees in the city of Winnipeg. There were also two referendum questions, on bilingualism and nuclear disarmament....
, and again in 1986
Winnipeg municipal election, 1986
The 1986 Winnipeg municipal election was held on October 22, 1986 to elect a mayor, councillors and school trustees in the city of Winnipeg.Bill Norrie was re-elected to a fourth term as mayor, defeating former Member of the Legislative Assembly Russell Doern and ten other...
, 1989
Winnipeg municipal election, 1989
The 1989 Winnipeg municipal election was held on October 25, 1989 to elect a mayor, councillors and school trustees in the city of Winnipeg.Bill Norrie was re-elected to a fifth term as mayor without serious opposition.-Councillors:...
, 1992
Winnipeg municipal election, 1992
The 1992 Winnipeg municipal election was held on October 28, 1992 to elect a mayor, councillors and school trustees in the city of Winnipeg.Susan Thompson defeated Greg Selinger in the mayoral contest.-Councillors:...
, 1995
Winnipeg municipal election, 1995
The 1995 Winnipeg municipal election was held on October 25, 1995 to elect a mayor, councillors and school trustees in the city of Winnipeg.Susan Thompson defeated Peter Kaufmann and Terry Duguid in the mayoral contest.-Councillors:...
and 1998
Winnipeg municipal election, 1998
The 1998 Winnipeg municipal election was held on October 28, 1998 to elect a mayor, councillors and school trustees in the city of Winnipeg.Centre-left candidate Glen Murray defeated populist right-winger Peter Kaufmann in the mayoral contest.-Councillors:...
. He did not seek re-election in 2002.
Early years
Santos helped found the Manitoba Association for the Preservation of Ancestral Languages in 1983, to advocate for the teaching of languages other than English and French. He served as school board chairman during his first full term, and defended a controversial pay increase for trustees (which followed a review by Manitoba Appeal Court Judge Charles Huband
Charles Huband
Charles Huband was a Manitoba politician, who subsequently became a judge. He was the leader of the Manitoba Liberal Party between 1975 and 1978....
). He later supported the removal of mandatory prayer from schools.
Finance chair
Santos chaired the Winnipeg School Board's finance committee for most of the 1990s, and conducted several rounds of funding negotiations with the provincial government
Executive Council of Manitoba
The Executive Council of Manitoba is the cabinet of that Canadian province.Almost always made up of members of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba, the Cabinet is similar in structure and role to the Cabinet of Canada while being smaller in size...
. He became known as a champion of divisional autonomy from provincial control, and often criticized the Gary Filmon
Gary Filmon
Gary Albert Filmon, PC, OC, OM is a Manitoba politician. He was the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba from 1983 to 2000, and served as the 19th Premier from 1988 to 1999.-Early life and municipal career:...
government's approach to education. He oversaw significant spending cuts to the school division's employee budget in 1995, during a period of general economic restructuring in Canada. Santos said that he took no pleasure in the decision, but added that it was necessary to protect classroom programs. He described teacher demands for wage and benefit increases in this period as unreasonable.
Santos was appointed as the school division's vice-chairman following the 1995 election, while also retaining his position as Finance Chairman. He presided over a further round of spending cuts in 1997, again reluctantly, in an attempt to minimize tax increases.
Division chair and after
Santos was selected for a one-year term as division chairman in late 1997. In this capacity, he helped negotiate long-standing salary and human rights disputes with Winnipeg teachers. He also criticized the province's increasing reliance on standardized tests, arguing that they were inappropriate for measuring the needs of at-risk students.
He stood down as chairman after the 1998 election, and was reappointed as finance chairman later in the term. In 2002, he announced that the Winnipeg School Division would freeze school property taxes for the first time in recent memory. He announced his retirement in 2002, after serving for twenty years.
Social issues
In 1994, Santos voted against a motion to study the integration of anti-homophobia
Homophobia
Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...
tolerance lessons into Winnipeg classrooms. He argued that his position was not premised in homophobic beliefs, and said that he had previously lobbied to have sexual orientation included as a protected category in the Manitoba Human Rights Code. His position was that anti-discrimination should be taught generally, and not targeted to specific groups.
He later spoke out against the creation of an anti-homophobia education committee, when the subject was revisited in 1999. On this occasion, Santos argued that his objections were with the ad hoc nature of the committee and not with the larger rights issue. He later indicated that anti-homophobia measures would be addressed through the division's policy-program committee, which he himself chaired. The end result was another program that was focused on general anti-discrimination, rather than what Santos described as "the blessing of a lifestyle". He nevertheless gave his cautious support to the introduction of anti-homophobia literature in 2001.
Santos defended his division's affirmative action
Affirmative action
Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or national origin" into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group, usually as a means to counter the effects of a history of discrimination.-Origins:The term...
policies in 1997, saying that they were achieving real success in hiring women to administrative positions.
Santos was an opponent of video monitoring in schools throughout his career, arguing it would give schools the appearance of prisons. He also opposed student locker searches in 2000.
Other
In 1999, Santos proposed a motion to have professional wrestlers deliver anti-drug and stay-in-school messages to children in the Winnipeg School Division. He also objected to a Winnipeg School Board's recommendation that after-school wrestling programs be moved to a different time slot. Santos indicated that he was not a fan of sports entertainment, but found any government censorship of this sort to be dangerous.
Lawyer
In 2000, Santos represented an employee at the Winnipeg firm Standard Aero Ltd. who, along with several other workers, was asked to renounce his dual citizenship and take an oath of allegiance to Canada in order to improve the firm's odds of winning a lucrative contract with another country's government. The employee indicated that he was concerned about losing his job if he refused to comply. Santos strongly criticized the company's request, describing it as discrimination based on nationality. After intense public criticism, the company indicated that employees would not be fired in they retained dual citizenship.Provincial and federal politics
Santos entered politics a member of the Manitoba Liberal PartyManitoba Liberal Party
The Manitoba Liberal Party is a political party in Manitoba, Canada. Its roots can be traced to the late nineteenth-century, following the province's creation in 1870.-Origins and early development :...
, and ran under its banner in the north-end Winnipeg division of The Maples in the 1977 provincial election
Manitoba general election, 1977
The Manitoba general election of October 11, 1977 was held to elect Members of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Manitoba, Canada. It was won by the Progressive Conservative Party, which took 33 seats out of 57...
. He left after Charles Huband
Charles Huband
Charles Huband was a Manitoba politician, who subsequently became a judge. He was the leader of the Manitoba Liberal Party between 1975 and 1978....
resigned as leader, saying the party was moving too far to the right. In a 1996 interview, Santos indicated that he probably would have remained a Liberal if Sharon Carstairs
Sharon Carstairs
Sharon Carstairs, PC is a Canadian politician and former Senator.-Early life:Carstairs was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the daughter of former Nova Scotia Premier Harold Connolly and his wife Vivian...
had directly succeeded Huband. He described himself as a "Trudeau Liberal" in the same interview, and indicated that he was dissatisfied with the direction of the federal party
Liberal Party of Canada
The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...
under Jean Chrétien
Jean Chrétien
Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien , known commonly as Jean Chrétien is a former Canadian politician who was the 20th Prime Minister of Canada. He served in the position for over ten years, from November 4, 1993 to December 12, 2003....
.
Santos joined the New Democratic Party
New Democratic Party of Manitoba
The New Democratic Party of Manitoba is a social-democratic political party in Manitoba, Canada. It is the provincial wing of the federal New Democratic Party, and is a successor to the Manitoba Co-operative Commonwealth Federation...
after leaving the Liberals, although his relationship with the party was sometimes difficult. He declined the party's official endorsement in 1995, and chose to run for re-election as an independent. After the election, he indicated that he would not caucus with an NDP group of trustees. He was again re-elected as an independent candidate in 1998. Santos criticized the education reforms introduced by Gary Doer
Gary Doer
Gary Albert Doer, OM is a Canadian diplomat and politician from Manitoba, Canada. Since October 19, 2009, he has served as Canada's Ambassador to the United States...
's New Democratic Party government in 2000, arguing that they gave too much bargaining power to teachers. He also called for the abolition of rent control
Rent control
Rent control refers to laws or ordinances that set price controls on the renting of residential housing. It functions as a price ceiling.Rent control exists in approximately 40 countries around the world...
s in early 2001, an idea that was quickly rejected by the Doer government. When he retired from the school board in 2002, he acknowledged that he was sometimes regarded as too conservative for his party.
Santos nonetheless remained a member of the New Democratic Party in good standing, and won the party's nomination for the Inkster division in the 2003 provincial election
Manitoba general election, 2003
The Manitoba general election held on June 3, 2003 was held to elect Members of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Manitoba, Canada. It was won by the New Democratic Party, which won 35 seats out of 57. The Progressive Conservative Party finished second with twenty seats...
. He was defeated by Liberal candidate Kevin Lamoureux
Kevin Lamoureux
Kevin Lamoureux, MP is a politician in Manitoba, Canada. On November 29, 2010, he was elected to the Canadian House of Commons for the constituency of Winnipeg North in a by-election. He was re-elected during the 2011 election by 44 votes...
. He later sought the NDP nomination for Minto
Minto (electoral district)
Minto is a provincial electoral division in the Canadian province of Manitoba. It was created by redistribution in 1999, and has formally existed since the provincial election of 1999. The riding is located in the centre of the City of Winnipeg....
in a 2004 by-election, but lost to Andrew Swan.