Public boards seek standing in Sask. school-funding case

Alberta public school boards want their say in a Saskatchewan legal case that could affect how Catholic schools are funded here.

The Public School Boards’ Association of Alberta (PSBAA) is the first to apply for intervener status in the battle of rights playing out in the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal over school funding in the small Saskatchewan village of Theodore.

In April, Saskatchewan Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Donald Layh ruled Catholic schools have no constitutional right to public funding to educate non-Catholic students.

The judge said Saskatchewan is violating the Charter of Rights and Freedoms by paying for nonCatholic students to attend Catholic schools. Saskatchewan’s premier invoked the notwithstanding clause, which delayed potential fallout from the ruling.

If the case makes it to the Supreme Court of Canada, the outcome could affect schools in Alberta, as the two provinces have the same constitutional law governing separate schools, and “materially similar” funding arrangements for public and Catholic schools, the PSBAA said in its Thursday court application.

A quarter of the 42,699 students attending Edmonton Catholic Schools are not Catholic.

The PSBAA was “excited” about Layh’s ruling, and hopes it will be upheld, association president Cathy Hogg said Wednesday.

The system of publicly funded separate schooling enshrined in law in 1905 “may not be the best solution in 2017,” Hogg said.

The Theodore case was sparked by a 2003 effort by parents to keep open a public K-8 school of 42 students. When the school division closed the Theodore school, local families formed a new Catholic school division for the area, which then bought and reopened the school. The majority of students were not Catholic.

The public school district successfully challenged the Catholic school division and the government in court.

The Catholic school division and Saskatchewan government appealed the ruling.