Trustees at Toronto’s Catholic faculty board are trying to schedule a rogue assembly to get a authorized opinion on their constitutional privileges amid an ongoing tug-of-war with the Ford authorities.
Because the province seems at overhauling Ontario’s 72 faculty boards, Training Minister Paul Calandra mentioned the federal government may remove or severely curtail the elected trustee place and refocus these expenditures into lecture rooms.
Whereas a ultimate determination has but to be made, Calandra instructed International Information that trustees on the province’s 31 English-language public faculty boards may very well be eradicated solely by the tip of the yr.
The trustee function in French-language faculty boards, nevertheless, would stay untouched, he mentioned, whereas the place within the Catholic faculty system could be diminished because of constitutional ensures.
“The Catholic system has a constitutional assure with respect to denominational points inside their board,” Calandra instructed International Information in a sit-down interview.
Calandra added that whereas Catholic faculty board trustees would nonetheless cope with denominational points “it doesn’t matter what we do,” their general scope may very well be narrowed to solely cope with constitutionally-protected issues.
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“There’ll nonetheless at all times be some type of a Catholic trustee,” Calandra mentioned.
Markus de Domenico, the Chair of Toronto’s Catholic Faculty Board, prompt the minister’s place is unrealistic.
“Our residents voted for us to advocate for brand new faculties, get buildings mounted, cope with kids which are being bullied and cope with particular training,” de Domenico mentioned.
The varsity board trustees — who’ve been locked out of their emails and are barred from assembly with dad and mom and contacting employees — are actually banding collectively to make clear precisely what the structure covers.
“That is the place the rubber meets the highway,” de Domenico mentioned. “We intend to carry our personal assembly, to ask for a authorized opinion to say that is the function of the trustee.”
Whereas Part 93 of the Canadian Structure affords legislatures the precise to create and amend provincial training legal guidelines, these governments are prevented from affecting “any proper or privilege with respect to denominational faculties.”
In 2001, the Supreme Court docket of Canada decided that the structure ensures a denominational faculty board a number of key rights. They’re: the precise to honest and equitable funding; management over the denominational facets of their training program; and management over the non-denominational facets essential to ship the denominational components.
Catholic trustees, de Domenico mentioned, are “keen” to know how the Ford authorities interprets the structure. Trustees are trying to carry a gathering on the board’s headquarters to desk and transfer a movement asking for a authorized opinion to outline denominational rights.
Requested whether or not the Ford authorities may face a authorized problem, de Dominico mentioned it’s “fairly” attainable.
“If we get a authorized opinion and we current it to the minister and say, ‘Look, on this case, this case, this case, you’re trampling on our fundamental elementary rights since confederation,” he mentioned.
“It’s going to be attention-grabbing instances.”
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