Author: The Record
Published March 5, 2024

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

The head of the Eastern Townships School Board (ETSB) education services advisory committee is raising concerns about the capacity of the new regional student ombudswoman’s office to serve the English-speaking community after ombudswoman Caroline Audette responded to English-language questions in French during a presentation to the committee.

“On Feb. 6, the regional ombudswoman came and spoke to us and gave a Powerpoint presentation. She was very professional and very polite, but what concerns me is that while we are an English board and we conduct our meetings in English, her presentation was in French and questions were answered in French,” commissioner Mary-Ellen Kirby told The Record. “That raised red flags for us.”

Student ombudspeople handle complaints from parents and students concerned that a school, school board or school service centre is not meeting its obligations in terms of service provision or protecting student safety. At the beginning of the 2023-2024 school year, national student ombudsman Jean-François Bernier, Audette and 16 other regional student ombudsmen took office after a reform of the ombuds system by the Legault government. Ombudsmen were previously appointed by school boards or regional groups of school boards, Kirby explained, but Bernier, Audette and their counterparts across the province were appointed by Education Minister Bernard Drainville.

“The ombuds office is kind of a last resort for students and parents when things are not going as they perceive they should,” Kirby said. “You don’t go to the ombuds office when everything has been going great. You go there when there has been a trauma, and when there’s a trauma you need to communicate in your mother tongue.”

Audette has previously assured The Record that her office is able to serve English-speaking students and parents in English, and according to Kirby, those assurances were reiterated at the Feb. 6 meeting, but the committee “saw no evidence” that Audette could serve the community in English.

Kirby emphasized that she found Audette personable and professional, and in terms of language skills, she “clearly understood what we were saying.”

“I detected no ill intentions on the part of Mme Audette. She sincerely believed anyone who called her office and spoke English would be served in English, but she couldn’t assure us of that in English. I believe it is because of the dictates of the office,” said Kirby. She said the committee would be “registering our concerns” with Bernier, Audette’s superior.

Via a spokesperson, Bernier told The Record that he and his regional counterparts “are concerned about respecting the Charter of the French Language, and showing exemplary use of the language. Our personnel must express themselves exclusively in French except in certain situations … notably when the principles of health, safety or natural justice require it, or when they are speaking to a person who is eligible for English-language public education.”

“These exceptions allow us to ensure full and real access to our procedure for processing complaints and reports, in a language other than French if necessary,” the spokesperson, Pier-Olivier Fortin, told The Record.  “Moreover, our forms for filing complaints and reports are available online in French and English, as are the posters which were distributed in schools in the English-speaking school boards of Quebec.

He added that bilingualism is part of the selection criteria for regional ombudspeople and their staff  “when required depending on the realities of the region of assignment … in order to be able to speak with non-French-speaking students and parents.”

However, under the French language charter, Fortin said, “communications between administrative bodies, including English-speaking school boards, must be only in French.”

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