Nunavut education bill unconstitutional, lawyers say

PATRICIA D’SOUZA

The Iqaluit-based Francophone Association of Nunavut says it will challenge Bill 1, the proposed Education Act, if it is not amended to recognize the constitutional right of Francophones to manage and control French-language education programs where they are a linguistic minority.

Article 23 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms gives English and French minority language groups the right to direct the funding, administration, recruitment and hiring and education programs in their communities.

But Bill 1 gives this right to the Nunavut education minister.

“We believe very strongly that Bill 1 does not meet the requirements of the Canadian Constitution,” said Paul Landry, president of the association. “I hope Bill 1 doesn’t pass as it is, because it will leave us no option but to resort to the courts.”

The association has retained Iqaluit lawyer Paul Crowley as its representative.

“In my opinion, the bill is deficient and does not meet the constitutional requirements of Section 23 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the subsequent decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada that have interpreted it,” he said in a written examination of the proposed act.

Crowley sought the opinions of three other lawyers, including Dyan Adam, Canada’s commissioner of official languages. “It is my opinion that the draft bill, in its structure and its formation, does not entirely and correctly meet the constitutional requirements of Section 23,” Adam said.

“The bill seems to assume that the language of the majority is English rather than Inuktitut. In my opinion, this erroneous assumption is not only to the detriment of Inuit who want to ensure education in Inuktitut, but also to the Francophone minority who has secured rights under Section 23 of the Charter,” Crowley’s report said.

“In considering Inuktitut as the minority language, the bill relegates French to a third rank behind Inuktitut and English.”

It is this “double-minority” situation in Nunavut that the association is trying to overcome, Landry said.

Landry and Crowley made a presentation in Iqaluit on Tuesday to the legislative assembly’s standing committee reviewing the bill.

It is the responsibility of the committee to hear the views of the public and make recommendations for changes before the bill goes to third reading in the assembly.

However, some members of the committee saw the Francophone association’s presentation as confrontational. “Does that mean you would like to make French the dominant language?” asked an incensed David Iqaqrialu, the MLA for Uqqummiut.

“All we are saying is that for the French-speaking population in Nunavut, and especially here in Iqaluit, we would like to have authority of our schools because we are the best to understand our language and culture,” Landry explained.

“We believe that by doing that, we do not take anything away from Inuit.”

In fact, he continued, Inuit could benefit from strengthening French-language rights in Nunavut by using the same legislation that defines those rights to strengthen Inuktitut. Though Inuktitut is the first language of 80 per cent of Nunavut residents, it is a minority language in the territory’s education system.

Inuit students are educated in their language only until Grade 3. In Grade 4, they make a transition to the dominant English stream. The often traumatic language change is one of the contributors to the low literacy levels in the territory, educators say.

But Iqaqrialu had difficulty letting go of his fears that French would come to dominate Inuktitut in the same way English does.

“You have more rights than the people of Nunavut,” he said. “Your language is already officially recognized, but we are not and you are already talking about taking us to court.”

Taking the government to court is a matter of last resort, Landry said. “I don’t want to go to court. That’s the last thing I want to do,” he said.

The association is part of a working group with representatives of the departments of education and justice and the Francophone District Education Authority.

That group met for the first time on Tuesday with the goal of coming to an agreement that will keep all sides out of court. They hope to reach an agreement by the end of October.