Following their Application for Leave to Appeal filed on October 1, 2018, the Fédération des parents francophones, the Conseil scolaire francophone (CSF), and co-appellant parents are currently waiting for the response from the Supreme Court of Canada. This is the latest chapter in the legal case about French language education in British Columbia.

It should be noted that, given the importance of the conclusions made by the BC Court of Appeal regarding the future of French in this province and the rest of the country, the co-appellants have invited the highest court in Canada to agree to hear an appeal on this issue.

The decision should be announced soon, although it’s not possible to know that date in advance. If the Supreme Court of Canada agrees to hear the appeal, oral submissions before the judges will be made in Ottawa, over the course of a single day.

It should also be noted that numerous gains had been achieved before the BC Supreme Court during the trial about French language education, including the creation of a capital funding envelope reserved for Francophones. These gains remain intact.

The CSF, the FPFCB and the co-plaintiff parents are hopeful that the Supreme Court of Canada will allow an appeal, given the questions of national importance raised, including:

• Substantive equivalence. In her decision, Justice Russell erroneously concluded that, in determining whether a CSF school is equivalent to the competing English-language schools, the court must look only to the English-language schools with similar or identical enrolment and capacity. The Court of Appeal has adopted this analysis without reserve. Such an analysis will almost always disadvantage the linguistic minority. The British Columbia Courts have adopted a “proportionality” approach in comparing CSF schools and those of the majority and in doing so, have completely disregarded the “substantive equivalence” criterion previously set out by the Supreme Court of Canada.
• Section one of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Charter). The appeal questioned Justice Russell’s conclusion that section 1 of the Charter could be successfully invoked by a province as rich as British Columbia to justify an infringement of section 23. According to the Court of Appeal, providing the school infrastructure to which francophones have a right would be too expensive. Prior to this decision, the only time an appellate court, including the Supreme Court of Canada, has “justified” a Charter breach on the basis of costs was in a situation of economic crises.
• Damages for Charter violations. The trial judge concluded that because of decades of systemic underfunding for school transportation, the Province was required to correct the constitutional infringement by paying the CSF six million dollars in damages. The judges of the Court of Appeal overturned this conclusion. As a result of the test as formulated today by the Court of Appeal, damage awards to those whose Charter rights have been infringed will be awarded much more sparingly.

Legal Battles Carried Out by Parents

The legal case about province-wide French language education is not the first action brought before the courts by Francophone parents in British Columbia. Since the creation of the Fédération des parents in 1979, Francophone parents have tirelessly striven to achieve the implementation of their constitutional right to an education in French that is truly equivalent to the education provided for students registered in English language schools, a right guaranteed by the Charter since 1982.

After many political demands and legal claims from parents, the CSF was finally established in 1995. It is the authority responsible for managing Francophone education in BC. In the present case, the CSF and the Fédération des parents have stood together to carry out the legal battle necessary to have schools that are truly equivalent to the English language schools.

Some Important Dates in the Legal Case about French Language Education in BC

The trial about equivalency between French language schools and English language schools began on December 2, 2013, and ended on February 29, 2016. Madam Justice Loryl Russell's decision was made public on September 26, 2016. On October 26, 2016, the CSF, the Fédération des parents, and parents, appealed certain aspects of the decision. The appeal was heard from January 29 to February 2, 2018, and the British Columbia Court of Appeal handed down its decision on July 25, 2018. In October 2018, the co-appellants asked the Supreme Court of Canada to hear their case. They now await the decision from the highest court in the country.

For more information about the legal case, including a summary of what the CSF and the Fédération des parents are claiming in court, please visit causejuridique.csf.bc.ca. (website available in French and English)