Supreme Court

By Joel Ceausu
The Suburban

The English Montreal School Board is heading to the Supreme Court over Bill 21.

The school board is asking the country’s highest court to hear an appeal of the Quebec Court of Appeals February judgment that the Act respecting the laicity of the State is constitutional.

The Legault government’s Bill 21 came into force in 2019 and prohibits certain state employees such as police officers, judges and teachers from wearing religious symbols on the job. The EMSB challenged some of its provisions, claiming that they violate minority language education rights guaranteed under Section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as well as gender equality, protected under Section 28.

The Quebec Superior Court had earlier agreed that the law violated section 23 by preventing English-language school boards from hiring teachers wearing religious symbols. That ruling was struck down by the Appeals Court.

“We maintain our original position that Bill 21 conflicts with our values and our mission and with those of all Quebecers as expressed in the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms,” said EMSB Chair Joe Ortona. “Its very adoption was contrary to our societal goal of promoting our peaceful co-existence in a pluralistic Quebec.”

Ortona also said the law prohibits future primary and high school teachers, school principals and vice-principals from wearing religious symbols in the exercise of their functions, while limiting the career advancement of current employees. “It prevents the EMSB from hiring teachers- including French teachers- in the context of a teacher shortage. Most importantly it sends a message of intolerance and exclusion to our students and their families.”

At a special council meeting convened Wednesday night, the elected and unelected members of the board’s council of commissioners voted to mandate the Power Law firm to file an application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.

In February, the board slammed the appeal court ruling, noting the law’s particularly disproportionate effect on “Muslim women with university teaching degrees” and said the ruling tacitly allows “the provincial government to continue chipping away at the last bastion of the English-speaking community’s autonomy in our province.” n