Mange INFO-PARENTS Ecce puanianicueron

implement the Task Force recommendation.
As a consequence of the Province’s failure to
act on its earlier promise to establish a
francophone school system in
B.C., the parents and their
representative organiza-tions
instructed their lawyers to
revive their 1989 Court action.
Today, their lawyers appeared in the British
Columbia Supreme Court and amended their
claim to include a compensation in the amount
of $ 4,000,000 for the
Government’ s delay to take

parents of the Greater Vancouver and
Victoria areas returned to Court today

to pursue a claim for management
and control of francophone schools ER AN COPH ON ES

A group representing French Canadian

and education programs.

Twelve years after the proclam-
ation of the Charter, guaranteeing
Minority Language Educational Rights
throughout Canada, British Columbia remains
the only Western Province which has not
enacted legislation providing for the
creation of French Language School

Boards.

In 1989, B.C. parents in the

Vancouver area launched an action
against the Provincial Government
for the right to manage their own
educational programs and schools.
Four years ago, following the
Supreme Court judgement in the
Mahé case, the Court action was
adjourned when the Government
agreed to strike a Task Force to
analyze the matter and make
recommendations for the
implementation of minority
educational rights in British
Columbia. The Task Force was
made up of representatives from all
sectors in the B.C. educational field.
One year later, the Task Force
presented its report to the Govern-
ment, recommending the creation of
three regional school boards to
administer French Language
Educational Programs throughout the
Province. The Task Force also
recommended July 1, 1993 asatarget
date for full implementation of the
francophone system. Later, the

Province accepted a single province-wide
French-language School Board model.

In a news release issued December 22,
1992, the then Minister of Education, Anita
Hagen, stated that establishing a francophone
board for the entire Province met constitutional
obligations and was in the best interests of
taxpayers. She was quoted as saying:

“If we do not implement francophone
governance in British Columbia, it is likely

the Courts will do it for us.”

Nearly two years after this statement, no
steps have been taken by the Province to

AMEND CLAIM

Brent Gawne, Mary Moreau, Marc Gignac, Martine
Galibois-Barss, Denis Tardif (CLO), Stephen Acker
(CLO).

“If we do not
implement
francophone
governance in
British Columbia, it
is likely the Courts
will do it for us.”

action.

The parents are seeking the
creation te a trust fund which
will be used to establish and
operate programs to redress the
cultural and linguistic erosion
suffered by members of the
French Language Minority
Group asa result of the
Province’s refusal to provide
an adequate infrastructure for
the exercise of the educational
rights of the affected children.

Also today, the
Commissioner of Official
Languages, Doctor Victor C.
Goldbloom, was granted leave
to intervene in the Court
proceeding in support of the
parents’ claims. While the
Commissioner has intervened
in other minority language
education cases in other
provinces, this is the first time,
due notably to the delay in
implementing Section 23
Charter Rights, that he will
participate in such a case at the

trial level. Doctor Goldbloom said that “We
want to ensure that francophone students in
British Columbia receive without further delay
the kind of education guaranteed under the
Charter, and already recognized by two decsions
of the Supreme Court of Canada”.

According to Martine Galibois Barss,
President of the Association des parents
francophones dela Colombie-Britannique: “We
have instructed our lawyers to proceed
expeditiously with this action - on behalf of our
children we can no longer afford to wait for the
government to act”.