Francophone education council votes unanimously to take N.B. government to court

The Francophone Sud School District Education Council (DEC) in New Brunswick has decided to take the province to court over what they say is a lack of action when it comes to building new schools and upgrading or expanding the current ones.

“Back in April we sent a formal letter saying that if you want to avoid legal action we need to have a biding, formal agreement on a 10-year plan that will make sure that all of our projects – our 16 projects that we’re asking – are done within the timeframe,” said education council president Michel Côté.

Côté says the first deadline was July 5, which the government then pushed until the end of August.

“At the end of August, there’s an employee from the Department of Education who contacted one of our employees at the district saying that the plan is not ready and we’re looking at maybe late fall or winter,” he said. “For us, it’s not just the last five months that we’ve been waiting, it’s the last 10-to-12 years that we’ve been waiting for projects.”

The DEC says it’s looking to have seven new schools built and nine of their existing schools upgraded or expanded in order to keep up with the current capacity demands.

Côté says there hasn’t been a new infrastructure announcement for their district in the last six years and they were already overcrowded back then.

“Our staff is doing everything they can to make sure our students get the quality education, but the space is part of the equation,” he said. “We need to have a good learning environment for the kids and when you’re in a trailer, when you have to double the classrooms, it’s just not the best environment for our students.”

Over the last six years, Côté says the district has added 2,747 more students and there are more wanting to join the schools on a regular basis.

“It’s not a matter of, ‘Oh, that would be nice to have,’ we have to do it. If I’m talking Saint John Region as an example, we had a study done in December 2023 that showed us there are 5,623 students that could be in the Francophone system, just in the Saint John [area], the big Saint John Region, but are going to Anglophone schools just because there’s no schools around,” he said.

Côté says if current students cannot attend a Francophone school due to the lack of space or school, they forfeit the ability to send their children to a francophone school down the road.

During a regular meeting on Tuesday night, the council voted unanimously in favour of taking legal action against the Government of New Brunswick.

On Wednesday they gave a notice of action to the province.

“The DSFS DEC is particularly concerned about violations of language and constitutional rights guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the New Brunswick Education Act and the Act Recognizing the Equality of the Two Official Linguistic Communities in New Brunswick,” it said in a media release.

In an email statement, the Department of Education said they will not be commenting on the matter as it is “is subject to pending legal action.”

Côté says the DEC is willing to work with the government to settle this matter as quickly as possible and while they aren’t happy about having to take the government to court, they feel this is the only option.

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