Block access to English private schools: PQ
Last Updated: Friday, November 13, 2009 | 9:23 PM ET
CBC News
PQ culture critic Pierre Curzi is calling on the Quebec government to invoke the notwithstanding clause. (CBC)The Parti Québécois is urging the Quebec government to use the Constitution’s notwithstanding clause to limit access to private English schools after the Supreme Court quashed part of the province’s language legislation.
Bill 104 had closed a loophole allowing children not eligible for the English-language public school system to gain access by first spending time in a private English school.
But last month, the loophole was reopened when the country’s highest court ordered Quebec to review and rewrite the law within a year and to review the parents' requests to send their children to English-language schools.
Students can only gain access to English public schools if their parents have received most of their education in Canadian English schools.
PQ culture critic Pierre Curzi said the best response to the quandary presented by the court is to restrict access to English private schools as well.
"It seems to be the only logical solution to the problem," Curzi said during a news conference Friday at the national assembly.
Bill 101, which became Quebec’s main language law, should have gone further to block access to English education when it was initially drawn up, but Bill 104 was the solution, Curzi said.
Culture Minister Christine St-Pierre agreed something must be done.
Culture Minister Christine St-Pierre says the government is studying its options. (CBC)
While the ruling may have quashed part of the law, St-Pierre said the judges also recognized Quebec’s need to control access to English schools.
"The ruling recognizes that some parents use this as a short cut to get into public schools," she said. "This is what we want to stop."
St-Pierre said the government is looking at its options, including the notwithstanding clause.
Use of the notwithstanding clause, which allows a legislature to declare a particular law beyond the reach of the Charter of Rights and a judicial review, has been controversial.
St-Pierre pointed to the government's use of the clause in 1989 to defend Law 178, which regulates the use of English on signs, was contested before the United Nation’s Human Rights Committee, she said.
