The association representing about 3,000 francophone teachers in New Brunswick is taken the provincial government to court over funding equality.
Louise Landry, spokesperson for the Association for Francophone Teachers of New Brunswick, says the group’s struggle to secure equal funding for the province’s French-language school system is about protecting their language and culture.
"We are being assimilated. We have research, we have proof of this and it's going at a fast pace, even in New Brunswick, even if we have a bilingual province,” Landry said.
She says their battle to secure funding equal to that of their anglophone counterparts has been going on for almost six years, but has now reached an impasse.
Landry says the group’s only option is to take the province to court, and they will be launching legal proceedings this week.
“Every year that we wait, the francophone community, the more irreparable damage that is being done to our language and our culture in New Brunswick,” Landry said.
The association representing francophone teachers has pointed to a 2010 government report that all but demands funding equity with the Anglophone system.
The group says they had been negotiating with the previous Progressive Conservative government, but those talks ended when the Liberals took over.
The current provincial government says it has increased francophone education funding by $1 million this year, but that further comment would be inappropriate with the threat of legal action looming.
Bruce Fitch, interim leader of the Opposition PC Party, says the threatened lawsuit is indicative of how the current government operates.
"This just goes to the management of the government, where they're going from crisis to crisis to crisis, and now you see, because of the cuts to education, they're having a group take them to court,” Fitch said
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Andy Campbell
