Time to get on the list for School Board elections
By Joel Ceausu
The Suburban
Ready for the November election? Not that one: the one two days earlier, closer to home.
School board elections happen November 3, with nine councils of commissioners in play in the sole exclusive domain of governance for anglophone Quebecers.
To participate, you must be registered on the Elections Québec electoral list to vote in provincial, municipal and school board elections. Most simply, you get on the English list by submitting a form or enrolling a child in an English public school.
“Electors with one or more children enrolled in the English school board serving their area should already be on the list of electors for that school board,” says Elections Québec spokesperson Julie St-Arnaud-Drolet. “We recommend that they check to see if their name appears on the information card they will receive in the mail three weeks before election day.”
In 2006, the Quebec English School Boards Association (QESBA) pressured Quebec City to ensure that parents with children graduating from English schools after June 2007 remain on the English list. Grads from the English system and turning 18 however, are automatically placed on the French list, but get a letter from Elections Québec asking if they want to move to the English one (by submitting a form to their local school board.)
According to a QESBA statement, 15-20% of former English voters remain on the French list, and English graduates continue to be moved there. “It is important to the future of our democratically elected English public school system that these losses be recovered. You can, at any time, be placed on the English voters’ list outside the electoral period by calling your local school board or the Chief Electoral Officer of Quebec.” (If your kid is in a private school, you can get on the list. If in French public, you’re out of luck.)
The good news, says QESBA president Joe Ortona, “is once you’re on the list, you stay on.”
There’s a yearly update after new student registrations, with a final update October 15, midway through the election period, which kicks off on September 20. When that begins, Elections Québec sends lists of registered electors to respective Returning Officers, and changes must be submitted to those boards. Each Returning Officer manages the election, but Elections Québec “offers them support, on demand, and controls political financing,” says St-Arnaud-Drolet, as well as managing the permanent list’s address changes, entries, removals, etc.
The 2020 elections (delayed to 2021 for the few seats not acclaimed) saw 17% voter turnout, renewing debate about whether participation equals legitimacy. “Low turnout happens in small municipalities along with acclamations all the time,” says Ortona, “but I’ve never heard the Minister of Municipal Affairs argue that municipalities should be abolished.” It’s still not okay, he says: “We want turnout to be high.”
So, will Quebec City encourage participation in this democratic exercise? “They won’t,” he says, noting the CAQ government’s continued efforts to abolish boards in favour of service centres. “They will not help, they are not interested in seeing high turnout, and are not interested in cooperating to make it easier to vote.”
The Suburban asked the Secrétariat aux relations avec les Québécois d’expression anglaise if it would promote this election impacting hundreds of thousands of Quebecers. “The SRQEA is not involved in the English-language school elections,” came a terse reply from a spokesperson for Finance Minister Éric Girard, also Minister responsible for relations with English-speaking Quebecers. Premier François Legault’s office did not respond to a similar query.
Official Opposition spokesperson Narjisse Ibnattya-Andaloussi however, told The Suburban “The Quebec Liberal Party has always supported English school boards and will continue to do so. We call on the government to allocate the necessary resources to ensure this November’s election will be successful.”
Are you on the list?
Contact Elections Québec at 1-866-225-4095, info@electionsquebec.qc.ca
For more information, contact QESBA: 514-849-5900 or qesba@qesba.qc.ca
Download the form to choose the English list: https://qesba.qc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Avis-de-choix-Anglais-1.pdf
Contact the school board on your territory.
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