By KEVIN DOUGHERTY - A new bill, to answer a Supreme Court of Canada ruling on admissions to English schools in the province, could be a flashpoint for conflicting visions of Quebec.
Last Oct. 22 the Supreme Court ruled Quebec's Bill 104 unconstitutional. That bill was designed to plug a loophole allowing children not qualified under Quebec's Bill 101 to attend public English schools, after first going to a private English school in the province.
The high court gave Quebec one year to find another way to do the same thing, while respecting the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
"This is not just about schools," said Marcus Tabachnick, chairperson of the West Island Lester B. Pearson School Board.
"This is about the future of the anglophone community in Quebec."
But for Mario Beaulieu, who heads the nationalist Montreal section of the Société St. Jean Baptiste, the bill is about the survival of French in the province.
"People are more and more aware that French is in decline," said Beaulieu.
Beaulieu wants the new bill replacing Bill 104, which is expected to be presented in the National Assembly this week, to include the notwithstanding clause, to extend application of Quebec's Charter of the French Language also known as Bill 101 to private unsubsidized English schools.
Without the notwithstanding clause, Beaulieu said, the new bill would be open to a new court challenge.
Beaulieu's proposal would bar children whose parents were francophones or allophone, not educated in English in Canada, from private English schools as well as public English schooling.
Under assembly rules, Language Minister Christine St-Pierre must present her new bill this week for it to be adopted before the assembly adjourns in June.
If she presents it after the May 15 deadline, unanimous consent would be required to adopt it before the adjournment and the Parti Québécois could refuse its consent.
The PQ also wants the notwithstanding clause, a provision in Canada's 1982 constitution that allows an override of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
"Our position is pretty clear," said Pierre Curzi, the PQ language critic, calling the notwithstanding clause the best solution.
St-Pierre and other Charest ministers have not tipped their hand, saying at one point the notwithstanding clause was an option, then backing away from it.
Bill 104 was proposed by a PQ government but was adopted unanimously by assembly in 2002.
Bill 101, adopted in 1977, ended freedom of choice in the language of schooling, with the goal of streaming newcomers into French schools.
The Supreme Court suggested Quebec find a way "to avert a return to the principle of freedom of choice of the language of instruction" with "a more limited impairment of the guaranteed rights."
"A short period of attendance at a minority language school is not indicative of a genuine commitment and cannot on its own be enough for a child's parent to obtain the status of a rights holder under the Canadian Charter," the court said.
It ruled that the limit in Bill 104 on transfers to public English schools was "total and absolute," and "seems excessive," but gave the province a year to find a solution.
Debbie Horrocks, who heads the Quebec English School Boards Association, has met with St-Pierre and doesn't think the new bill will include the notwithstanding clause, noting the minister's assurance that she "shouldn't be too worried."
Horrocks said she could accept some tightening of the rules, but the English boards should be allowed another 500 to 1,000 students a year, offering the boards "some oxygen."
"The notwithstanding clause is not something that we are anticipating for sure," Horrocks said.
The notwithstanding clause cannot be used against Section 23 of the charter, covering minority language educational rights, she explained.
But the PQ has proposed that the notwithstanding clause be invoked against Section 2, abridging fundamental freedoms. The charter allows this.
Horrocks said Quebec's English schools have evolved and now offer "the best second-language teaching in the world."
"We do a really good job in educating our students to have a future here in this province," she said.
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kdougherty@thegazette.canwest.com
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