CANADA IS BILINGUAL QUEBEC IS UNILINGUAL

English school board says it will file legal challenge of Quebec language law reform


MONTREAL — The English Montreal School Board says it will launch a legal challenge of Quebec's recently adopted language law reform.

The board said in a news release today that it believes the law, commonly known as Bill 96, violates English-speaking Quebecers' constitutional right to manage and control their own educational institutions.

The language law, adopted on Tuesday, caps enrolment at English-language junior colleges and requires students at those colleges to take three additional classes in French.

The English school board was one of several groups to challenge Quebec's secularism law, which bans teachers, police officers and certain other public sector employees from wearing religious symbols.

Both laws invoke the notwithstanding clause of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to shield them from court challenges.

In April 2021, a Superior Court judge struck down provisions of the religious symbols ban that applied to English school boards but upheld the bulk of it due to the use of the notwithstanding clause.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 27, 2022.

The Canadian Press