Francophone education councils may face dissolution too, minister says

Education Minister Bill Hogan says he'll insist that three francophone district education councils fall in line on Policy 713 or potentially face the same threat of dissolution as an anglophone council in Moncton.

He issued that warning Wednesday despite acknowledging last year that curtailing minority-language education governance is unconstitutional. 

Hogan suggested Wednesday that he could move to dissolve three francophone education councils who have not yet repealed their gender identity policies, the same action he plans to take against the Anglophone East council.

"They're subject to the Education Act just like everybody else. If they refuse to follow the directive of corrective action that was issued, then we're going to follow the process that's available under the Education Act for all of the DECs," Hogan said in the legislature.

"We're not going to just pick one out."

He added a caveat that Anglophone East is the only district that has so far gone to court to block Hogan from repealing its policy — a move that he argues the education council doesn't have the authority to make and that precipitated his dissolution threat.

None of the francophone councils have taken legal action.

Still, any move against them could run afoul of Section 23 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees minority-language communities in each province the right to manage their own school systems.

Hogan acknowledged that last year when he introduced Bill 46, which would have limited the decision-making powers of anglophone education councils but left them intact for francophone councils.

"There are Charter rights on the francophone side as a minority community in our province, and we're not going to mess around with Charter rights," he said at the time.

The bill was later withdrawn.

On Wednesday Hogan told reporters he understood the implications of Section 23, though he suggested it was part of the 1867 British North America Act and stated, incorrectly, that minority-language education rights are under "federal purview."

In fact, provinces are responsible for complying with Section 23, which became part of the Constitution when the Charter was adopted in 1982. 

He said the section has never been used in New Brunswick in a legal challenge "and we'll see what happens."