New court victory for EMSB on Bill 96

By Joel Ceausu
The Suburban

The English Montreal School Board (EMSB) is pleased with two Court of Appeal rulings issued Friday pertaining to Bill 96.

Justice Geneviève Marcotte rejected the government’s challenge to an April Superior Court decision that gave the EMSB a partial stay of Bill 96 and Charter of the French language provisions, which also benefited other English language boards and the Quebec English School Boards Association (QESBA).

In addition, the court also granted the EMSB’s request to appeal the same decision that declared English-language school boards to be “school service centres” like their French counterparts and will be heard once the Superior Court has ruled on the rest of the EMSB’s Bill 96 challenge.

“The fact that the Charter of the French Language requires English school boards to communicate exclusively in French when interacting with other English-speaking community organizations, including the QESBA and the English Parents’ Committee Association of Quebec, never made any sense,” stated EMSB Chair Joe Ortona. “I am pleased to see this injunction remain in place while we await a trial on the merits of the case.”

In the April ruling, the Superior Court concluded that the term “school service centres” in Bill 96 applied to English-language school boards, but school boards are not subject to Bill 40 and therefore are not school service centres. Bill 40, An Act to amend mainly the Education Act with regard to school organization and governance, would have transformed school boards into English-language school service centres but the nine boards were granted a stay from Bill 40 in 2020, confirmed by three Court of Appeal judges. Last August, the Superior Court declared various provisions unconstitutional and an appeal on the merits will likely be heard next year.

“We are English school boards, not school service centres like the French sector,” said Ortona. “It was important to once again make this abundantly clear. Even the Office québécois de la langue française and the Attorney General of Quebec’s lawyer acknowledged that there were legal inaccuracies in the judge’s analysis on the question.”

The EMSB’s constitutional challenge to Bill 96 has been joined with challenges of other parties and is progressing through the court system and expected to be a lengthy process. “This is partly why winning a stay is an important development, in order to avoid suffering irreparable harm while we wait,” said Ortona.

The EMSB is challenging Bill 96 notably on the basis that it violates the English-speaking community’s right to management and control of its educational institutions under s. 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. n

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