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La voix des parents de Colombie-Britannique

A Crucial Year for Our Schools!

2013 will be an important year

in the development of Franco-

phone education in British Col-
umbia. In less than eight months, in Oc-
tober, the lawsuit filed against the prov-
incial government by the Fédération des
parents francophones de C.-B., the Con-
seil scolaire francophone, and certain
eligible parents will begin. It will be a trial
about the comparability of Francophone
schools with schools in the Anglophone
system.

This will be the third time that the Fé-
dération des parents (formerly known
as Association des parents) requests the
intervention of the courts to get what
Article 23 of the Canadian Charter of
Rights and Freedoms guarantees in Brit-
ish Columbia: schools where instruction is
given in French as a first language, which
are managed by a Francophone author-
ity, and which are equivalent fo Anglo-
phone schools. The first two legal cases
were led by parents whose objectives
were to set up their own Francophone
schools and school management, which
in turn led to the creation of the Conseil
scolaire francophone de la C.-B. (CSF) as
it is known today.

A Question of Equivalence

For parents, equivalence can be
summed up as follows: when a parent
must choose the school that their child
will be attending, they look at the Anglo-
phone or French immersion school in
their neighbourhood and then compare
it with the Francophone school in their
community. If there is equivalence, the
parent will not have to make a choice
based on the appeal of one school
over another (date of construction, ex-
terior appearance, building capacity,
etc.), travel time to get there, presence
of specialized rooms (gymnasium, music

room, library, etc.), and other “physical”
considerations. If there is equivalence,
the schools will have comparable ap-
peal at this level. The family decision is
then based on the type of instruction in
each school: in English as a first language
(for the Anglophone school), in French
as a second language (for the French
immersion school), or in French as a. first
language (for the Francophone school).
From among these three options, each
family then chooses fhe one that they
believe is the best for their child.

The current legal case is precisely
about this question of equivalence. We
consider that, in 15 communities in British
Columbia, the Francophone school! is not
equivalent to neighbourhood schools
(one of these is Ecole Rose-des-vents -
see the adjacent text box). This fact en-
courages families to base their choice
of school on considerations such as the
distance between their home and the
Francophone school, the fact that the
Francophone school is bursting at the
seams and that there is no space for day-
care services, or the fact that the Franco-
phone school is much less attractive than
the school that welcomes Anglophone

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children in the area. An unfair choice.
And because parents are still too often
faced with such a choice, many families
do not choose the Francophone school.
As a result, their children, in many cases,
assimilate into the Anglophone majority,
and lose their Francophone culture and
their French language.

A Long-term Process

The decision to go in front of the
courts, which dates back to June 2010,
was not faken without first intensifying the
efforts to try to rectify the situation, and
then thoroughly analyzing the issues. Pur-
suing a legal case of this magnitude is not
done ona whim! Since June 2010, the
Fédération des parents and the CSF, who
are assisted by a legal team, parents,
and school staff, have put considerable
effort into advancing the case file.

Several motions were filed before the
Honourable Mr. Justice Willcock, which
slowed our progress. Among other things,
the government challenged the right of
the CSF as well as that of the Fédération
des parents to represent the interests of

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