Hours after Pride Toronto first announced the resignation of executive director Mathieu Chantelois, new details have come to light.
Late Wednesday evening, Pride Toronto released a statement on its Facebook page that confirmed the organization had received a letter from staff on July 7 “which detailed serious allegations against the executive director.” The Aug 10 Facebook statement said that the board hired a law firm to conduct a workplace investigation, but that Chantelois had resigned before the investigation was completed.
Global News reported earlier in the afternoon that they had obtained an email from Pride Toronto staff members sent to the organization’s board of directors on July 7 containing the allegations. The identities of the staff members making the allegations against Chantelois have not been made public.
The letter was sent just days after Chantelois had publicly reneged on the commitments he had made to Black Lives Matter Toronto during its Pride parade protest. His handling of the BLMTO protest was cited as one of the alleged reasons the staff members sent the letter to the board.
Chantelois categorically denied all of the allegations to Global News and said he had never seen the letter and didn’t know it existed.
However, in its public statement, Pride Toronto claims that a copy of the letter was shared with Chantelois at the beginning of its investigation.
“We had hoped to resolve this issue in a manner that protected the privacy of our employees,” wrote Pride Toronto in its statement. “However, given recent events, we feel the need to set the record straight.”
(Jamo Best/Daily Xtra)
Chantelois has resigned effective immediately and has rejoined Cineplex Media, where he worked before joining Pride Toronto.
He stated on his Facebook page that he “decided it was time for me to move on” and did not elaborate further on why he resigned.
Chantelois has yet to reply for a request for comment from Daily Xtra made on Twitter.
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