Toronto District School Board in Ward 8 · Toronto 2026
Dewitt Lee III
Candidate for Toronto District School Board in Ward 8 (Don Valley West and Don Valley East), who ran for trustee in the old Ward 8 in 2022.
Dewitt Lee III is on the City of Toronto’s list of certified candidates for Toronto District School Board in Ward 8, with a nomination filed on August 21, 2026. The City Clerk’s results for October 24, 2022 list a Dewitt Lee fourth among 7 candidates in the old Ward 8 with 1,900 votes, an entry that The Local’s 2022 profile and his own Linktree page tie to the founder of Emancipation Month. His Know Your Vote T.O. page marks all four questions “Awaiting submission”.
Dewitt Lee III appears on the City of Toronto’s list of certified candidates for Toronto District School Board in Ward 8. A certified candidate is one whose nomination the City Clerk has accepted. The list shows the nomination date as August 21, 2026. Ward 8 covers Don Valley West and Don Valley East.
His Linktree page says he founded Emancipation Month in Ontario and is chairman of the Canadian Kwanzaa Association, and lists a Toronto mayoral candidacy and a Scarborough-Rouge River candidacy among his political involvement. Those are his own statements and voche.me has not checked them with the bodies named. The Local’s 2022 profile, which attributes details to him, says he was previously a Liberal MPP nominee for Scarborough-Rouge River and placed twelfth of 40 candidates in the 2010 mayoral election and twentieth of 75 in 2014, and that he wanted every student to have a quality education and to get to and from school safely. Those figures are The Local’s, and voche.me did not check them against the City’s results.
Evidence reviewed on October 4, 2026: the City of Toronto’s list of certified candidates, his Know Your Vote T.O. page, his Linktree page, The Local’s 2022 profile, the Green Party of Ontario’s news item of December 9, 2021, the City Clerk’s 2022 declaration of results, the TDSB’s 2018 to 2022 trustee list, the TDSB’s trustee wards page and the board and City records listed below. His Linktree page is his own statement and the Green Party of Ontario’s page is a party’s own statement, so the claims taken from them are attributed in the sentences that carry them.
The 2022 result belongs to the old Ward 8 (Eglinton-Lawrence and Toronto-St. Paul’s), which is a different area from the new Ward 8. The City Clerk’s entry reads “Dewitt Lee”. A named source ties it to him in this way: The Local’s profile of a Dewitt Lee in that race says he founded Emancipation Month, and his Linktree page lists Emancipation Month under the name Dewitt Lee III. Neither page states the link in one sentence, so voche.me records the tie as drawn from those two pages. TDSB wards changed for 2026. Ward 8 covers City wards 15 and 16, which the City’s list names Don Valley West and Don Valley East. The TDSB’s 2018 to 2022 trustee list names the old Ward 11 as Don Valley West and the old Ward 14 as Don Valley East. The City Clerk’s 2022 results show Rachel Chernos Lin elected in the old Ward 11 and Farzana Rajwani elected in the old Ward 14. A by-election is a vote held to fill a vacant seat between regular elections. Trustees voted in December 2024 to hold one for the vacant old Ward 11 seat, the City Clerk declared Stacey Cline elected on March 3, 2025, and the TDSB says she took office on March 18, 2025. A TDSB notice dated November 28, 2024 names Farzana Rajwani as trustee for the old Ward 14, Don Valley East. Those seats belong to the old wards and are not treated as seats in the new Ward 8. The TDSB’s trustee wards page says that during provincial supervision the powers of trustees rest with the provincially appointed Supervisor, that trustees have no official duties with the board at this time, and that this also applies to trustees elected in October 2026. The TDSB’s news item of March 18, 2025 says the board’s current term ends on November 14, 2026.
Gaps. The City’s list gives no campaign website and his Know Your Vote T.O. page lists none, and its four questions are marked “Awaiting submission”. A Facebook page found by search returned no readable text. The Local’s figures for his 2010 and 2014 mayoral placings and his MPP nomination were not checked against official records. The questionnaire has not been sent.
Candidate for Toronto District School Board trustee, old Ward 8 (Eglinton-Lawrence and Toronto-St. Paul’s)
The City Clerk’s results list an entry named Dewitt Lee fourth among 7 candidates with 1,900 votes. Shelley Laskin was elected with 19,779 votes. voche.me attributes the entry to him because The Local’s profile of a candidate named Dewitt Lee in that race describes the founder of Emancipation Month, and his own Linktree page lists founding Emancipation Month. That result belongs to the old Ward 8 and is not a result for the new Ward 8.
Founder of Emancipation Month Canada, by his own account
His Linktree page says he spearheaded Ontario Bill 75, which made August Emancipation Month. A Green Party of Ontario news item dated December 9, 2021 quotes MPP Mike Schreiner thanking Dewitt Lee, the founder of Emancipation Month Canada, for bringing him the idea for the bill. That page does not say that this is the same person as the 2026 candidate.
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05 / About this page
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Is this an official page for Dewitt Lee III?
No. This page is researched by voche.me from public sources, listed below, and is separate from Dewitt Lee III's own campaign.
Does Dewitt Lee III currently hold public office?
Not according to this profile. voche.me has not listed a current public office for Dewitt Lee III.
How many sources does this Dewitt Lee III profile cite?
This profile lists 11 sourced references, each with the date voche.me checked it, in the Sources section below.
Why do some questions on Dewitt Lee III's page show no answer?
The "Questions & answers" section on this page lists questions voche.me would put to Dewitt Lee III in a future interview. They have not been sent yet, so the page says plainly that no answer has been supplied instead of leaving the section blank.
When is the election Dewitt Lee III is running in?
The 2026 Toronto municipal election, including the Toronto District School Board race, is decided on October 26, 2026.
06 / Candidate contributions
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