English boards fight Quebec education bill
Association says Ottawa has granted it money to bring province to court
QUEBEC— The association representing Quebec’s Englishlanguage school boards has been granted federal money to challenge a major Quebec education-reform bill, its vice-president says, days after its largest member renounced similar money under criticism from Premier François Legault.
“The decision to actually engage in a court challenge will be taken in the next week or so, after our legal counsel reviews the final stage of the bill,” Noel Burke said in an interview.
Besides being vice-president of the nine-member Quebec English School Boards Association, Burke chairs the Lester B. Pearson School Board, which oversees English-language schools on the western half of the Island of Montreal.
On a 60-35 vote, Bill 40 became the fourth piece of legislation Legault’s Coalition Avenir Quebec has rammed through the legislature using a process known as closure, cutting discussion short and forcing a vote. The legislation transforms school boards across the province into so-called service centres.
It abolishes elections for board commissioners in the French-language system, replacing them with appointed members.
Burke said Saturday his association’s lawyers had already advised that Bill 40 is unconstitutional. But they hadn’t yet reviewed the last-minute amendments included in the final version of the bill, he said.
A last-minute amendment to the bill eliminated a transition period for elected commissioners in the French-language school boards, immediately kicking them out of their posts.
The bill permits elections for members of the newly created service centres covering the English-language schools, in keeping with the minority language and schooling rights outlined in the Constitution.
Challenges to the bill have been the subject of angry debate in the past week.
Besides $125,000 to fight the education-reform bill, the English Montreal School Board has been granted $125,000 to fight Bill 21, Quebec’s secularism law.