Action is brought based on s. 23 of the Charter, which governs minority language educational rights
An action has been filed in the Superior Court of Quebec to challenge Bill 40: An Act to amend mainly the Education Act with regard to school organization and governance.
The Quebec English School Boards Association, the Lester B. Pearson School Board and Adam Gordon, chairman of the Sir Wilfrid Laurier School Board Parent Committee, filed the interlocutory injunction and judicial review on May 15.
Bill 40 seeks to introduce changes to the organization and governance of school boards in Quebec and to replace them with school service centres, headed by a board of directors comprising parents, community members and school service centre staff members.
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QESBA, which describes itself as the voice of English public education in Quebec and which acts on behalf of 100,000 students in 340 educational institutions in the province, first announced in February that it would be filing an action to assail the constitutionality of Bill 40 alongside other English-speaking community partners.
Dan Lamoureux, president at QESBA, said a news release that in seeking to safeguard its control and management rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the association had engaged in discussions with Jean-François Roberge, education minister at Quebec.
However, the provincial government “forced Bill 40 through the National Assembly in the early morning of February 8, through closure, despite unanimous opposition to the legislation and in complete disregard for the English-speaking community’s right to manage and control its minority language educational institutions,” said the February news release.
QESBA gained the unanimous approval of its board of directors to file a legal challenge against Bill 40. Lamoureux acknowledged that now might not be the best time to initiate the action, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the approaching deadlines for the legal requirements and logistics of the November school elections make this issue a pressing matter, Lamoureux said.
QESBA and its partner organizations have previously filed with the education minister a written request for the postponement of the elections, but were told that the elections would go ahead.
“We therefore felt that we had no choice but to move forward at this time based on our minority community’s rights to manage and control our institutions as prescribed in Section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” said Lamoureux in the news release.