Rights of francophone students in Vancouver violated, judge rules
The rights of francophone students in Vancouver’s west side have been violated because the lone, overcrowded French elementary school in the area is inferior to nearby English-speaking schools, a B.C. judge has ruled in a case that could have implications throughout the province.
A B.C. Supreme Court judgment released Thursday says the disparity violates the minority language rights enshrined in the Charter, but it does not spell out just what should be done to correct the imbalance. The ruling could influence a larger case involving 14 other francophone schools across B.C. that has yet to be heard.
The case was launched in 2010 by a group of parents living in Vancouver’s westside. The area’s franco phone students are served by one elementary school, l’ecole Rose-des-vents, which is physically connected to the area’s only francophone secondary school, l’ecole secondaire Jules Verne.
The parents argued the facility is inadequate for the roughly 350 elementary-level students that attend, and said the school’s conditions have caused some francophone parents to withdraw their children and prompted others not to enrol in the first place.
The B.C. government pleaded poverty, arguing it must balance the needs of schools throughout the province with scarce resources. The court rejected that argument, concluding economic considerations should not trump minority rights.
“I am satisfied, weighing all the evidence of the facilities made available to francophone students in comparison with the facilities made available to anglophone students, that the former are not equivalent to the latter,” wrote Judge Peter Willcock in a judgment posted on the court’s website.
He said there is evidence to suggest there are between 700 and 1,000 elementary-aged francophone students in the area that have the Charter-protected right to French education.
A spokesman for the province’s Education Ministry, Scott Sutherland, could not say what the judgment will mean for francophone children in Vancouver or elsewhere in the province. The ruling is under review, he said.