N.B. plans to dissolve education council

The province of New Brunswick will attempt to dissolve an education council over litigation fees.

Education Minister Bill Hogan sent a strongly-worded letter to Harry Doyle, the chair of the Anglophone East School District Education Council (DEC), on Tuesday.

The DEC is in the process of taking the province to court over changes it made to Policy 713 — which refers to sexual orientation and gender in schools — last summer.

In the letter, Hogan said as of April 16 the DEC has expended $279,917 on litigation fees.

On Thursday, Hogan said he’s made it clear the leadership of the DEC is using funds in what he called an irresponsible manner.

“They are diverting almost $300,000 from classrooms to Ontario-based lawyers to file a motion to fight the rights of parents to be informed about their kids under 16,” said Hogan in a statement released by the province at 6 p.m. on Thursday.

Hogan said he laid out clear actions the DEC could take to bring the situation to a resolution, but his deadline of 5 p.m. on Thursday came and went without a satisfactory response.

“They (DEC) have left me no options but to commence the process for dissolution of the Anglophone East DEC. Since dissolution under the Education Act requires application to the court, I won't comment further,” said Hogan.

In his letter to Doyle, Hogan said it was his opinion the litigation expenditure does not comply with any of permissible categories of expenditures identified in the province’s Education Act and is a “misappropriation of public funds.”

"These are funds that were meant to support public education and is a missed opportunity to support improved educational outcomes in your district and schools,” wrote Hogan in the letter.

He went on to say the litigation expenditure is evidence that the DEC are expending resources irresponsibly.

In the event of non-compliance, the minister told Doyle he intended to dissolve the DEC in accordance to the Education Act.

Constitutional lawyer Lyle Skinner was asked if the minister could do that.

“Yes and no. What the Education Act says is that the minister can make a request to a judge to dissolve. So there's a little bit of a buffer,” said Skinner. “The maximum the minister can do on his own accord is make a request to the court.”

Skinner said the determination of whether or not a DEC can be dissolved is in the hands of a judge and not the minister.

Megan Mitton, the Green MLA for Tantramar-Memramcook, called Hogan’s letter disturbing.

“This is a locally-elected school board that we're talking about. The Minister of Education is threatening to dissolve it. That is completely unacceptable. And so we see Higgs and Hogan attacking democratic institutions in New Brunswick.”

The province announced changes to Policy 713 last June.

Under the changes, students 16 years old or younger who are exploring their gender identity must have parental consent before teachers can use their preferred first names or pronouns at school.

Two months later, the Progressive Conservative government clarified their changes, saying psychologists, social workers and those in informal settings are permitted to use children's preferred names and pronouns without the consent of their parents.

Many youth and LGBTQ+ advocates in the province have said the changes make the policy more discriminatory.

Mitton thinks the changes are harmful.

“What they did was they took a policy that had been written by experts and people in the LGBTQ+ community and they changed it so that it no longer served that community. And it violates the rights of non-binary and trans students,” said Mitton.

The Anglophone East School District and its education council declined to comment.

For more New Brunswick news visit our dedicated provincial page.