Quebec English School Boards Association

New Quebec education cuts are “unacceptable and reckless”

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

By Dan Laxer
The Suburban

The Quebec English School Boards Association is “astounded, outraged and deeply alarmed” by the latest Quebec government cuts to education.

Earlier this month the Coalition Avenir Québec Education Ministry announced another $570 million in cuts, which is in addition to the $200 million it had announced in the fall.

On top of that, school boards and service centres have been told that they are not permitted to use any existing surplus or run a deficit to cover costs.

“This government is expecting us to make these astronomical cuts on the backs of our students, which is completely unacceptable,” said QESBA President Joe Ortona. “These reckless decisions will have devastating and long-term consequences for an entire generation of students,” added Ortona, who is also the Chair of the English Montreal School Board. He describes the cuts, and the way in which the news had been imposed upon schools, as “a direct assault on the viability of our public education system.”

In a statement, the QESBA is,“…calling on all partners in education, parents, and community members to stand united against these cuts. The future of our children and the strength of our democratic institutions depend on a robust, equitable, and properly funded public education system.”

A statement by English Parents’ Committee Association president Katherine Korakakis echoes Ortona’s. Korakakis is asking the public to sign a petition calling on the CAQ government not to proceed with the budget cuts.

Ortona decries the lack of consultation and the negative impact the cuts are likely to have on students. Korakakis says the cuts will “fall hardest on students who rely on speech therapists, psychologists, or special education teachers to help them learn and thrive.” n

New Quebec education cuts are “unacceptable and reckless” Read More »

Quebec taking Bill 40 decision to Supreme Court

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

By Dan Laxer
The Suburban

The Quebec government has announced that it will be taking the legal challenge of Bill 40 to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The decision came just weeks after the Quebec Court of Appeal ruled unanimously in favour of the Quebec English School Boards Association, saying that the law violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Joe Ortona, President of the QESBA said, at the time, that they were “thrilled that our rights have been recognized” by the decision, and expressed the “hope that the government will decide not to take this crystal-clear decision of the Quebec Court of Appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.”

However, the province’s Attorney General – Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette – has decided to do just that.

The April decision of the Quebec Court of Appeal was “another big win in a long line of court decisions on Bill 40,” the QESBA said in a statement. The Bill has been before the courts since 2020.

“At a time when Quebec faces serious financial pressures,” Ortona said, “it is disappointing to see public funds used to continue a legal battle that so clearly infringes on the rights of minority communities.”

The QESBA says it remains committed to defending the rights of English-speaking Quebecers “to manage and control our education system.”

Ortona added “we will continue to stand up for our students, our parents, our staff, and the communities we serve, and we will continue our fundraising efforts to help offset the legal costs of this ongoing fight.” n

Quebec taking Bill 40 decision to Supreme Court Read More »

Petition against education cuts crosses language divide

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Petition against education cuts crosses linguistic divide

Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism 

Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

The Parti Québécois (PQ) and the Quebec English School Boards Association (QESBA) may seem like unlikely allies, but they have joined forces to denounce the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government’s belt-tightening on education funding. Along with former leaders of French-language school boards, unions and parents’ groups on both sides of the linguistic divide, PQ MNA Pascal Bérubé and the school boards’ association, of which the Central Québec School Board (CQSB) is a member, are joining forces to back a National Assembly petition against cuts to education. 

Last month, the Ministry of Education imposed at least $510 million in across-the-board cuts to the public school system; Education Minister Bernard Drainville said at the time that the ministry’s expenses had grown an “unsustainable” seven per cent per year since 2018. Next school year’s increase has been capped at 1.8 per cent – below the rate of inflation – as part of a wider effort to rein in the deficit. Furthermore, autonomous English school boards, which have more control over how funding is allocated than their government-run French-language counterparts, have been told they can’t run deficits or dip into surpluses to cushion the impact of funding cuts. Drainville has encouraged school boards and service centres to “respect the budgets without touching student services … to the extent possible” although school board and union representatives have argued this is impossible. 

The petition on the National Assembly website calls on Drainville to walk back the budgetary restrictions to avoid affecting student services. As of this writing, it has nearly 157,000 signatures.  

Steven Le Sueur is the president of the Quebec Provincial Association of Teachers (QPAT), the union federation representing teachers at English-language public schools. He said the petition was initially drawn up by the Fédération des syndicats de l’enseignement (FSE), the largest federation of teachers’ unions in the province, which encouraged QPAT to get on board. 

“It is important to get the public involved to denounce what’s going on,” he told the QCT. “Our students with special needs and at-risk students will suffer the most. The ‘extra’ services which we may have had in the past will be disappearing. This is not going to attract more teachers to the profession and it may drive some of our younger teachers away.” 

Le Sueur said promoting the petition in both languages is “sending a strong message that the government is hurting the system, both the English and French system.” 

QESBA president Joe Ortona echoed several of Le Sueur’s arguments. “Balancing the budget, with the [funding] the government is giving us, means slashing all sorts of programs that go beyond the bare minimum – music, art, extracurriculars, programs for gifted kids, extra support for kids with special needs, breakfast, tutoring.” 

Ortona, who has served on the English Montreal School Board (EMSB) since 2014, said he has “never seen anything that remotely resembles” the cuts Drainville has told boards to brace for. “The government is claiming the budget is going up, but they aren’t taking into account inflation or the impact of the collective agreements [signed with teachers’ unions after the 2023 strikes]. At the end of the day … we wind up with less than what we had before. We pride ourselves on the quality of education we provide, but if the government doesn’t fund us, there is no way we can provide those services. 

“A decade ago [when the previous Liberal government announced cuts to education] we were in a recession. We are nowhere near that now. We’re in this situation because the government has mismanaged a billion dollars on SAAQClic, Northvolt, $7 million for the L.A. Kings, $10 billion for the third link, and the kids are paying the price,” he argued. He added that the campaign against the planned cuts would be stronger if French-language school boards, which were converted into service centres in 2020, still had the same autonomy as their English counterparts, which have kept their independence through a long and still unresolved court challenge. “The only [school officials] who can speak out publicly are the elected officials on the English side.” 

Le Sueur and Ortona called on parents, graduates and other concerned voters to sign the petition and lobby their MNAs to oppose the looming cuts. “I​ am hopeful [the government] will look at this and try to appease the population and backtrack a little, or a lot – there is an election coming up,” Le Sueur said. 

The QCT asked the Ministry of Education about options available for English school boards to cushion the impact of the cuts, but did not receive a response by press time.

Petition against education cuts crosses language divide Read More »

Quebec applies to appeal Bill 40 decision to Supreme Court

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Quebec applies to appeal Bill 40 decision to Supreme Court

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Quebec’s English-language school boards are preparing to defend their continued existence before the Supreme Court of Canada. On May 30, multiple sources confirmed that the Quebec government planned to request leave to appeal a ruling in support of the school boards to the country’s highest court.

In February 2020, the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government passed Bill 40, which replaced elected school boards in both the francophone and anglophone sectors with government-run service centres overseen by volunteer boards with limited power. At the time, English boards argued the new law infringed on the English- speaking community’s right to control its education system, afforded to official-language minority communities in the federal Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Quebec English School Boards Association (QESBA) took the government to court, obtaining first an injunction which suspended the law’s application to English boards, then a ruling by a Superior Court judge which found the law did infringe on the community’s charter rights. The government appealed that decision, and in April of this year, an appeals court panel essentially upheld the Superior Court ruling. At the time, QESBA and its member boards hoped the government would accept the ruling and lay the groundwork for a new working relationship with school boards. That hasn’t happened.

The association said its members were “deeply disappointed” by the government’s decision to appeal.

“We were hopeful that the government would accept the unanimous ruling of the Court of Appeal and finally respect the rights of the English-speaking community,” said QESBA president Joe Ortona. “At a time when Quebec faces serious financial pressures, it is disappointing to see public funds used to continue a legal battle that so clearly infringes on the rights of minority communities.”

“As I said at the time, [the Appeals Court ruling] was a really wonderful decision for the English boards – there was a recognition that the Constitution gave us the right to govern our schools,” said Jean Robert, chair of the Council of Commissioners of the Central Québec School Board (CQSB), the QESBA member board which oversees English-language public schools in the Quebec City region and on the South Shore as well as in Mauricie, Saguenay and large swaths of northern Quebec. “The environment is such that I wasn’t surprised [an appeal was made] … but we were really hopeful that at the end of the day, the government would see that the decision was clear.

“I don’t know the timeline, but we’re talking about years of time and expenses and uncertainty,” he added. “We are convinced we will win – we have the two judgments in our favour, the last one was unanimous and they supported us on nearly every point.”

Robert told the QCT school boards would have to “rely on the generosity of the community” to continue the court challenge.

“They [the government] have all the legal resources in the world, and in our case, we’ll have to do fundraising for this,” he said. “When you go to the Supreme Court, you’re talking about over $1 million in expenses. The government has a slew of lawyers at their disposal, but we have to hire our own lawyers and do fundraising.”

Robert said representatives of QESBA member boards would meet on June 2 to plan next steps. “We will be looking at potential donors in the community, parents and graduates who are ready to donate,” he said. “We always said we didn’t want to use money that has been set aside for services to students. There have been some generous donors for the last Bill 40 case, but we can’t always [turn] to the same people … and the money has to come from somewhere.”

In the coming weeks, “our role will be to inform people on what this really means – it is about being the master of what we do,” Robert said. “It is a slippery slope to having our schools potentially become wings of the francophone system … we will continue to fight this with everything we can.”

The Quebec government does not generally comment on ongoing court cases.

Quebec applies to appeal Bill 40 decision to Supreme Court Read More »

Bill 40 ruling a victory for English school boards

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Bill 40 ruling a victory for English school boards

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Quebec’s English-language school boards are celebrating a major victory after the Quebec Court of Appeal largely upheld an earlier Superior Court ruling on the English- speaking community’s right to oversee its own school system as guaranteed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In practice, advocates say, the ruling means Bill 40 – the reform passed by the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government in 2020 which replaced elected school boards with government-run service centres overseen by unelected volunteer boards with limited power – cannot be applied to English school boards. English boards, they say, will continue to function as they have since 1998, when language-based school boards replaced sectarian ones.

“We’ve been functioning as if Bill 40 didn’t exist, and we plan to continue functioning that way,” said Joe Ortona, president of the Quebec English School Boards Association (QESBA), which brought the case along with Montreal’s Lester B. Pearson School Board and a concerned parent.

When Bill 40 was being debated, its backers argued that it would increase efficiency and remove the need for costly school board elections that relatively few people vote in. However, QESBA and its member boards saw an attempt to deprive Quebec’s English- speaking communities of their charter right to control their education system. Several months after the bill passed, a court suspended its application to English-language school boards while the case progressed. In August 2023, Superior Court Judge Sylvain Lussier struck down large parts of the law as it applied to English boards, in line with QESBA’s argument that the law limited the Charter rights of official language minority communities. In September of that year, the government appealed the ruling.

On April 3, the Court of Appeal essentially upheld Lussier’s original verdict. Judges Robert M. Mainville, Christine Baudouin and Judith Harvie found that the school governance scheme set out in Bill 40 infringed on the community’s right to control its education system and disincentivized parent and community involvement. The community is “entitled to independent school boards that must, at a minimum, allow minority language representatives to exercise exclusive authority relating to minority-language education and facilities,” they wrote, in a ruling that extensively cited jurisprudence involving francophone school districts in English Canada. “The court cannot accept the argument that the linguistic minority is represented through the staff hired by a service centre.”

“This is more than we could have hoped for,” Jean Robert, chair of the Central Québec School Board (CQSB) Council of Commissioners, told the QCT. “The major thing is that the ruling recognizes that Bill 40 was infringing on our rights under the Charter, which is the basis of all our arguments.”

“We have local elected representatives who are account- able to the English-speaking community, and that is how it should be,” Ortona said in an interview. “It means the community has a voice, because elected representatives [on] boards managed and controlled by commissioners are accountable to the community, rather than accountable to the minister elected by all Quebecers. Now, we get to cater to the will of the community when it comes to management. The French sector doesn’t have that.”

Eva Ludvig is the president of the Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN), which was granted intervenor status in the case. “The QCGN had reminded the court that although Quebec has broad authority over education, that authority is not limitless,” she said in a statement. “If a law interferes with minority- language rights, the burden is on the province to justify it … and that is a high bar to meet. This is why today’s ruling is such a landmark win for our community.”

Katherine Korakakis, president of the English Parents’ Committee Association, said the parents’ group was “thrilled” with the “historic victory.” She called the deci- sion “a powerful reminder that our voices matter, and our right to govern our schools is non- negotiable.”

“We will be able to choose our own destiny, and the population will have the opportunity to choose their commissioners and their chairperson,” Robert said. “It will continue what we believe is a very successful way of governing our school system. … We can move ahead knowing the courts have clearly decided we have that right protected.”

The Quebec government has 60 days from the date of the ruling to apply for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice declined to comment on the ruling “out of respect for the judicial process.”

Ortona and Robert said they hoped the government would not appeal, and would instead use the ruling as the basis for a new working relationship with English school boards. “We want to sit down with the government and say, ‘Let’s accept it and move on and see what’s best for the students,’” said Robert. “They may decide otherwise, but we are hopeful that [because] the decision was so clear, the government will accept it and we can work together.”

Bill 40 ruling a victory for English school boards Read More »

Time to get on the list for School Board elections

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , , ,

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.

Time to get on the list for School Board elections Read More »

New court victory for EMSB on Bill 96

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , , , ,

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

New court victory for EMSB on Bill 96 Read More »

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