Hanes: Bill 40 appeal shows the Legault government has learned nothing

Montreal Gazette

03-06-2025

By
Whenever a new fracas erupts between the government of Premier François Legault and the anglophone community, Eric Girard, the minister responsible for relations with English-speaking Quebecers, is dispatched to try to patch things up.
Recently, he admitted that new directives issued last summer that suggested eligibility certificates for education in English could be used to access health care in English were ' not our finest moment' and that he was 'disappointed' at how the whole saga played out.
Previously, Girard acknowledged that tuition hikes for out-of-province students that disproportionately harmed Quebec's English universities had ruffled feathers, and he vowed to smooth things over.
When he was appointed to the portfolio in 2022 after the angst surrounding the adoption of Bill 96, Quebec's update of protections for the French language, Girard promised to allay fears and 'do better.'
'When I say we need to do better, I mean we need to improve relations,' he told The Gazette back in the early days of his tenure.
But time and again, these prove to be empty promises. Because actions speak louder than words.
And even though it was less than a month ago that Girard called for the latest reset, the Legault government has demonstrated the depth of its contempt for the rights of English-speaking Quebecers anew by announcing its intention to appeal the latest ruling on Bill 40 all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada (if the top court agrees to hear it, that is).
The attempt to abolish English school boards and replace them with service centres was one of the first bones of contention between the anglophone community and the Legault government after it was first elected in 2018.
The Quebec English School Boards Association launched a constitutional challenge of the law immediately after its passage and has since won two resounding victories.
Both Quebec Superior Court and the Quebec Court of Appeals have agreed that Bill 40 is a violation of Section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and affirmed the rights of the English-speaking minority to manage and control its own schools. Both courts have categorically said that transforming school boards into service centres like their francophone counterparts, centralizing many of their decision-making powers in the ministry of education, and axing the elected councils of commissioners run counter to those constitutional guarantees.
But the Legault government is forging ahead trying to defend the discredited law.
At this point, there is no principled reason to drag this out — and no pragmatic imperative, either.
Quebec's English school boards obtained an injunction in 2020, keeping them intact for the duration of the legal proceedings. For five years they have continued to operate as they always have, overseen by elected representatives from the community, alongside French service centres. At this point the government's argument that it can't have two different systems for running French and English schools doesn't really hold water.
In fact, there is growing concern that francophone service centres, administered by parents drawn from local school governing boards, lack transparency and accountability.
And since Bill 40 was adopted five years ago, Education Minister Bernard Drainville has grabbed even more authority from service centres, like the power to appoint their directors general and overturn their decisions.
The English school boards have already proven their management and control rights — twice. But the Legault government just won't let it go. Are they gluttons for punishment? Or is this merely a continuation of the pattern of antagonizing the English-speaking community?
So often over two mandates in office, the premier or his ministers say one thing and do another. Legault claimed nothing would change for anglophones under Bill 96, yet there has been major upheaval.
English colleges now have quotas for francophone and allophone students and new French course requirements, which has left them destabilized. English versions of government and public websites now have warnings about who is allowed to consult the content, which is an insult to intelligence. English court documents and decisions must be accompanied by French translations, which are costly and time-consuming, impeding access to justice. And these are just a few examples.
The rights of anglophones are either complete afterthought or collateral damage. A year ago, when new rules on simultaneous translation of court judgments came into effect, a Quebec Court judge on the verge of presiding over an English criminal trial had to convene representatives of the prosecution service and attorney general's office to get basic information on how this was supposed to work. He was essentially told there was no plan and things were still being figured out. For his efforts, he was the subject of a complaint to the judicial council for overstepping his authority. He was later totally exonerated. His decision declaring the new regulations inoperable for English criminal trials is being appealed, however.
The list of slights goes on and on. Yet concerns are frequently dismissed as the rantings of 'angryphones' acting like the world's most spoiled minority — until the government gets egg on its face over something truly ludicrous.
Whether it's having to intervene on the Go Habs Go fiasco, override a library's decision not to allow an English book club to meet without simultaneous translation or rewriting the confusing health directives, each incident erodes trust.
If Girard was at all serious about wanting to rebuild confidence with English-speaking Quebecers, there was one, simple, concrete gesture the government could have made that would have gone a long way and meant a lot in laying the groundwork for a truce: not appealing the Bill 40 ruling to the Supreme Court.
Instead, the Legault government couldn't resist fighting a losing battle to the bitter end.