QESBA

School boards to seek injunction against spending restrictions

Ruby Pratka
Local Journalism initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

The organization representing Quebec’s nine English school boards may take the Quebec govern- ment to court if it doesn’t loosen restrictions on how the boards can allocate funding.

Earlier this summer, the Quebec government announced $570 million in across-the-board cuts to fund- ing for schools. On July 19, amid a growing public outcry, Education Minister Bernard Drainville announced that the government would reallocate $540 million to be distributed among French-language school service centres, English boards and eligible private schools, on the condition that the institutions “show that efforts are being made to reduce administrative costs, and ensure the money goes to student services only.” School boards have been told they cannot dip into surplus funds or run budget deficits in order to further cushion the impact of the cuts.

“It is misleading when the government announces that the cuts are being walked back,” Quebec English School Boards Association (QESBA) president Joe Ortona told the QCT. “They maintained the cuts and then said, ‘We’ll put new money into education, but in order for you to be eligible for this money, there are hurdles in place that are difficult for school boards to meet.’ The government has been clear that we’re not allowed to use our own surplus money which we have accumulated through our own careful management … which is absurd.”

QESBA intends to mandate law firm Power Law to “challenge the validity” of the budgetary restrictions and request an injunction blocking their application. The Central Québec School Board (CQSB) has passed a resolution supporting QESBA’s decision.

QESBA and its nine member boards, including the CQSB, are currently in a drawn-out court battle with the Quebec government over Bill 40, the 2020 law which transformed French-language school boards into government-run service centres; if fully applied to English boards, it would legislate them out of existence. In April of this year, a Quebec appeals court panel upheld an earlier Superior Court ruling that found that abolishing elected school boards and replacing them with service centres would infringe on the English-speaking community’s Charter right to manage its own schools. Ortona and Jean Robert, the chair of the CQSB Council of Commissioners, argue that the legal precedent in that case — over which the Quebec government intends to appeal to the Supreme Court — strengthens the school boards’ case for an injunction blocking spending restrictions.

“If we accept [these restrictions], we are accepting that we don’t have a say in what happens in our schools,” Robert said. “The fact that there were adjustments [to the cuts initially announced] doesn’t change our resolve to say that the Constitution protects us.”

Ortona said there has been no communication or collaboration from Drainville’s office regarding the school boards’ concerns. “We have made it very clear that these cuts with the hurdles and parameters are unconstitutional and a violation of the Bill 40 judgment that says the government cannot micromanage our finances,” said Ortona. “He has not acknowledged these letters – we have received no reply of any kind. Their mind is made up – they have made it clear that they are not allowing us to use surplus money. We have been clear that that is unconstitutional.”

Ortona said the most recent cuts would still require boards to make difficult decisions about “sports programs, music programs, child psychologists, speech therapists, childcare workers, cutting teacher positions and overcrowding classrooms.”

Robert said CQSB personnel are still figuring out how the cuts may affect services. “You could not ask for a worse time for us to redo all of this work,” he said. “If we had access to our surplus, we would say we’ll give ourselves time to make the changes next year, but now we’re being asked to make changes [for a second time] while everyone is on holiday … and that is unreasonable.”

Education Ministry spokesperson Bryan St-Louis said the financial statements of school  school boards and service centres have been consolidated with those of the government. Consequently, “any surplus or deficit incurred by a school board affects the government’s financial position. ”

“The [previous] surplus appropriation rule was intended to allow a service centre or board to run a deficit up to the permitted appropriation limit, without having to apply to the ministry,” he explained. “For the 2025-2026 school year, it was decided to review the appropriation rule in order to limit the increase in education portfolio spending, in line with the budgetary context.”