The Supreme Court of Canada will issue a ruling today on the scope of provincial governments’ obligations to fund French-language education systems.
The case revolves around a claim by some parents and a school board in British Columbia. They accuse the provincial government of denying their charter rights by systematically underfunding French-language schools.
Suzana Straus, who lives in Richmond, B.C., said it takes her Grade 9 son an hour to get to a school where he can take French instruction.
Straus said the provincial government’s policies are an obstacle for francophone parents who want their children to be fluently bilingual.
“It means, for many families, they will choose not to send their children to francophone schools,” said Straus, who is president of the Fédération des parents francophones de Colombie-Britannique.
“They will choose to go to the local school and that means assimilation. And that saddens me tremendously.”
The decision by Canada’s highest court is expected to have ripple effects across the country. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)
Mark Power, a lawyer who works in Ottawa and Vancouver, is representing the parents and the school board — the Conseil scolaire francophone de la Colombie-Britannique. He said the case has implications for governments and minority language school boards across the country.
Minority language rights being tested
The parents and the school board allege the province violated minority language educational rights guaranteed under S. 23 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Power said the Constitution guarantees the right to publicly funded primary and secondary French education in Quebec, and publicly funded primary and secondary French language education elsewhere in Canada — where numbers warrant.
Approximately 64,325 people speak French as their primary language in B.C — a 21 per cent increase over 2006, according to 2016 data from the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages.
Lawyer Mark Power: ‘It’s hard to understand exactly how those minority rights can be ignored by the state.’ (Alex Lamic/Radio-Canada)
The parents and school board want the province to change its funding method for French-language education and compensate the board for inadequate funding.
They also want the B.C. government to address infrastructure issues with French-language schools that force them to divide classrooms to make room for all their students.
The parents and school board won a partial victory at the trial level, where a judge ruled some of the province’s procedures for deciding on minority language education funding unjustifiably breached charter rights.
But the judge also concluded that the high cost of building new francophone schools in some parts of B.C. justified infringing upon the charter right — and suggested that in some cases it would simply delay inevitable linguistic assimilation.
“That’s hard to grasp,” Power said. “It’s hard to understand exactly how those minority rights can be ignored by the state and what reason could justify that.”
The parents and school board appealed the decision. That appeal was dismissed by the B.C. Court of Appeal, which allowed a cross-appeal by the province. The appeal court also set aside the damages awarded by the trial judge.
Contacted by CBC News, a B.C. government representative said the government would not comment on the case until after the ruling.
No matter how the highest court rules, it will be too late for some parents and children who already have gone through the education system.
Still, Straus said she hopes it will make a difference for others.
“It would bring us all tremendous joy if they do rule in our favour,” she said.
“It will mainly be for future generations, for our culture to be able to thrive, for future parents not to make these difficult decisions that we had to make.”
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
