Supreme Court won’t hear appeal of Sask. school funding case

A legal battle that a judge once called one of the most important in Saskatchewan’s history is over, after the country’s highest court decided against hearing the case about funding non-Catholic students who attend separate schools.

The Supreme Court of Canada on Thursday dismissed a request for a leave to appeal by the Good Spirit School Division against the Saskatchewan government and a Catholic school division.

The issue began in 2003 when the village of Theodore, Sask., had its public kindergarten-to-Grade 8 school closed because of declining enrolment.

Court heard at the time that the closure meant 42 students in the community would have to be bused to another school 17 kilometres away.

After failed attempts to save the school from closing, a minority of Roman Catholic residents pushed the Saskatchewan government for a Catholic separate school.

The St. Theodore Roman Catholic School was created.

The Good Spirit School Division, which operated the original Theodore school but under a different name, brought forward legal action against the province and Catholic division over funding.

It argued the new Catholic division was not created to serve the community’s Catholics, but rather to prevent students from being bused to a neighbouring town.

Fourteen years later, a

Court of Queen’s Bench judged ruled that funding for non-minority faith students attending separate schools infringed on equality rights and religious neutrality.

Justice Donald Layh said at issue was the provincial policy of funding separate schools based solely on student enrolment without regard to students’ religion.

He wrote in his 2017 decision that the case was a flashpoint about the extent of separate school rights.