Ignoring outcry, CAQ government to force through school board reforms today

A controversial and wide-ranging set of reforms of Quebec's education system is expected to be rammed through the National Assembly later today.

The Coalition Avenir Qubec government called for the unusual Friday sitting of the legislature in order to invoke closure on Bill 40, legislation that will, among other things, abolish school boards anddo away with elections in French-languagedistricts.

Closure is a tool that allows agovernment to short-circuit the usual legislative process and force a vote on a bill. This will be the fourth time the CAQ government has used the measure since itcame to power in 2018.

Tabled lastfall, Bill 40contains more than 300 sections and would modify around 80 existing laws. Along with the changes to school boards, the legislation will changehow students are graded, how teachers are trained and how schools are run.

Education Minister Jean-Franois Robergetabled167 pages of amendments this week, which opposition parties said they needed time to study.

But Roberge and Premier Franois Legaultaccused the opposition of simply wanting to delay the bill's passage.

"I haven't heard any new arguments from the opposition," Legault said Thursday.

The government wants the bill passed as soon as possible, so the changes are in place by the start of the next school year.

Avoiding onelegal fight may spark another

The bill will be passed over opposition from school boards, teachers' unions and English-language lobby groups. They all say the government is rushing ahead with a complicated reform without having consulted widely enough.

In an effort to avoid a constitutional challenge from anglophone rights groups,the government will give English Quebecersthe right to vote for some directors of the new "service centres" which are to replace school boards.

But that has done little to ease the concerns of the Anglo community.APPELE-Qubec, an alliance of English-language public school teachers and parents, worrythe elections won't be fair, and the new service centres won't have any real power.

"In order to meet an ill-considered timetable, Minister Roberge is showing a total disrespect for the democratic process," the group said in a news release.

And if the government was hoping to avoid a court fight by appeasing Anglophone concerns, it might have created another legal tussle.

A federation representing all Quebec school boards, the FCSQ,said Thursday it intends to ask the courts to block the bill's implementation.

Allowing English service centresto continue having electionswhile stripping French service centresof their right to do so is "discriminatory," the federation said.

'Tin-pot dictator'

The CAQ government's repeated use of closure to pass controversial legislation has alarmed and angered opposition critics.

In the spring, theban on religious symbols, Bill 21,and Bill 9, a set of immigration reforms,were passed during a marathon weekendsession at the National Assembly.

In December, the government used closure to pass a law that removed oversight of Hydro-Qubec's energy rates, Bill 34.

"This government seems to consider the power of the legislature to be a nuisance," said Vronique Hivon, the Parti Qubcois's education critic.

"If the minister's time was so precious, why did he bother tabling a bill with more than 300 sections?"

Speaking on the floor of the National Assembly, Qubec Solidaire's parliamentary leader, Manon Mass, compared Legault's leadership style to that of a "tin-pot dictator."

The French term Mass used, boss des bcosses,translates literally to"boss of the backhouse" or"boss of the privy." Masswithdrew her comment after the speaker objected.