school boards

Government slashes funding to school boards, service centres

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , , , , ,

Government slashes funding to school boards, service centres

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Quebec’s English school boards reacted with alarm and frustration after the Ministry of Education imposed at least $510 million in across-the-board cuts to the public school system. Education Minister Bernard Drainville told reporters last week that the ministry’s expenses have grown by seven per cent per year since 2018, a rate he called “unsustainable.” Next school year’s increase has been capped at 1.8 per cent – below the rate of inflation – as part of a wider effort by the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government to rein in the growing deficit.

“The direction I have given to school service centres is to make this money work better, to be more efficient, to respect budgets without touching student services, or without touching them as much as possible,” Drainville said.

“School boards and service centres across the province were informed [June 12] that a staggering $510 million in additional cuts would be expected throughout the Quebec education system, on top of the $200 million already slashed earlier this school year,” the Quebec English School Boards Association (QESBA) said in a statement. “These new cuts are expected to take effect in July, allowing only one day of consultation for school boards and service centres to react.”

“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. “The government has given school boards just 24 hours to respond to what can only be described as a direct assault on the viability of our public education system. This financial crisis was not created by school boards, and we will not allow our school system’s integrity to be sacrificed to solve this government’s deficit.”

Jean Robert is the chair of the council of commissioners of the Central Québec School Board (CQSB), which oversees English-language public schools in the Quebec City region, Mauricie, Saguenay and parts of northern Quebec. On June 20, he estimated the board would have to cut about $6 million from its budget. That was later revised downward to around $3 million, but the board was told it could not run a deficit or dip into its surplus. Robert said officials were still looking at ways to tackle the problem.

Robert expressed frustration at the ministry’s decision to announce the cuts in mid-June, after school boards had confirmed staff contracts for the coming year. “Because of the collective agreements, we need to do our staffing for September by June 1,” he said. “Had we been given a little more time, we would have been able to make adjustments like having one class of 34 [students] instead of two classes of 17, but we can’t do that at this point. … Why did they decide, at the last minute and without consultation, that they were going to cut?”

Education ministry spokesperson Bryan St-Louis said the board had been asked to “optimize its expenses” by eliminating $2.37 million in spending. He said boards had been informed of the cuts as soon as information was available.

Robert told the QCT boards would normally dip into their surpluses to absorb the impact of the cuts. The CQSB “does have a surplus … and it’s there for unforeseen circumstances, but now we’re being told we can’t use it.” He said the restriction on the use of surplus funds was contrary to the spirit of a recent Superior Court ruling affirming the English-speaking community’s right to govern its own schools. (Last month, the Quebec government announced its intention to apply for leave to appeal that ruling to the Supreme Court of Canada.)

Robert said the ministry could limit the impact of the cuts by allowing boards to use surplus funds or spread the cuts out over several years. “We’re hopeful that the government will see how this will impact student learning, and then we will have to look at whatever options are available.”

The QCT contacted Drainville’s office for comment but did not receive a response before press time.

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Bill 40: Vindication for NFSB after appeals court sides with school boards

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , , , , , , ,

Sarah Rennie – LJI reporter

John Ryan, the chair of the New Frontiers School Board Council of Commissioners, says a recent decision by the Quebec Court of Appeal on Bill 40 is reason to celebrate.

In a ruling issued on April 3, the appeals court upheld a previous Superior Court judgement that found many provisions of Bill 40, which aimed to amend the Education Act regarding school organization and governance, are unconstitutional.

The Quebec English School Boards Association (QESBA), along with the nine school boards including the NFSB, challenged the legislation after it was introduced in 2020. The bill brought profound changes to the way primary and secondary schools are governed in the province, largely by transforming school boards into service centres. QESBA argued that the bill infringed on Section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which gives linguistic minority communities the right to manage and control education services.

QESBA president Joe Ortona says the association is thrilled that the rights of the English-speaking community have once again been recognized. “We truly 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 in Ottawa,” he adds.

The ruling, which was issued by judges Robert M. Mainville, Christine Baudouin, and Judith Harvie, essentially upholds the findings of constitutional invalidity included in the 2023 ruling issued by Superior Court judge Sylvain Lussier.

The case focused on the scope of the rights guaranteed by Section 23 of the charter, and who can exercise these rights. The Court of Appeal agreed that Bill 40 severely limits the abilities of the English-speaking community to choose representatives and to determine how government funding is used. The ruling also broadens the definition of rights holders to include “all individuals comprising the linguistic minority,” after the government argued that only parents of students enrolled in English-language institutions held these rights.

“It is as big, if not bigger than the Lussier judgement we received,” says Ryan, who refers to the ruling as a vindication. “It is a very strong judgement,” he adds, noting that both sides are now reviewing the 86-page document. “We have to dissect it, understand it, internalize it, and then look at our relationship with the government as school boards and how we can work together,” he explains.

“We were told one of the reasons that it worked well was the tremendous amount of work put into the original case,” Ryan says. “The work was very strong, and it was a well-argued case,” he adds, before noting that while they were confident in their arguments, the outcome could have gone the other way.

“It shows the value of citizenship, the value of participating in a democracy, and standing up for things when they are not going right,” says Ryan. “It reinforces the value of truth,” he continues, “and we need that today for obvious reasons.”

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Bill 40 ruling a victory for English school boards

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , , , , , ,

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.”

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