Nunavut francophones offer slim support for school board lawsuit

CSFN council of commissioners chair Michel Potvin led a public consultation at École des Trois-Soleils May 21. (PHOTO BY THOMAS ROHNER)

You could say that Nunavut’s French-language school board has support for a legal challenge it launched against the territorial government earlier this year — but you could also argue it doesn’t.

The Commission scolaire francophone du Nunavut hosted a public consultation May 21 on its lawsuit against Government of Nunavut, which seeks the financing to bring its only school — École des Trois-Soleils — up to par with other schools in Iqaluit, in terms of infrastructure and staffing.

But the lawsuit has been controversial, and publicly denounced by a group of parents whose children are enrolled at Trois-Soleils.

The May 21 meeting ended in a vote that school board commissioners hoped would give them a strong mandate to continue on with the lawsuit.

But the vote resulted with a close 17 in favour, and 16 against.

The vote was non-binding, points out Michel Potvin, chair of the council of commissioners, and the school board has not speculated on what it might do in the event that French-language rights holders make clear their opposition to the legal challenge.

But at the request of parents May 21, the CSFN will accept written comments from parents and rights holders until May 26, Potvin told Nunatsiaq News.

The lawsuit, launched in February by both the school board and parent and lawyer Doug Garson, calls on the GN to live up to obligations under Section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms — the section that’s supposed to guarantee minority language educational rights to French-speaking communities outside of Quebec.

The lawsuit asks for more space at Trois-Soleils, in order to house is high school program — currently housed at Iqaluit’s Inuksuk high school — and new space for a science and computer lab, home economics room, an arts room and its own gymnasium (students currently use the gym at nearby Aqsarniit middle school.)

The lawsuit says that an expansion to the current school would be a “reasonable and viable option” for housing those new facilities.

The CSFN has to negotiate the use of other school spaces on a regular basis to maintain its programming, the lawsuit contends — programming which is never guaranteed.

The lawsuit also asks the GN’s education department for money to hire more personnel, including three more teachers, a vice principal and a full-time secretary, along with “exclusive decision-making power” in the hiring of its staff.

Members of Trois-Soleils’ parents group, the Association des parents francophones du Nunavut (APFN), have said they agree that those things are important for the school, but many disagree with the way the school board went about the legal challenge.

APFN member Tim Brown said the school board never sought proper support or a clear mandate from French-language rights holders, nor were they provided with the details of the lawsuit, including cost and timeline.