WATCH ABOVE: With the Quebec government working to cut its deficit, the QFHSA says it’s against a possible plan to eliminate school board elections. Global’s Billy Shields has more.
MONTREAL – The Quebec Federation of Home and School Associations has come out saying it is strongly against a possible plan to eliminate school board elections.
“There is a constitutional guarantee of linguistic representation in education,” said Lawrence DePoe, the QFHSA’s president.
“When it becomes a government appointment, you wonder – where is the representation?”
Plans are still not entirely clear.
Last week, Premier Philippe Couillard said school board elections were expensive in relation to participation.
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He and the province’s Education Minister, Francois Blais, are considering an appointment system of some kind for school boards to save money.
Quebec Immigration Minister Kathleen Weil was the keynote speaker at QFHSA event Saturday, and she downplayed the talk about school boards.
READ MORE: The fight for Quebec’s school boards
“There’s no formal announcement yet,” she said.
“The minister has said he’s in discussions with the school boards, including the English school boards.”
But members of the QFHSA, like Joyce Shanks, worry that eliminating school board elections will have a deeper, derogatory effect on Anglophones.
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“If we don’t deal with the language issues in this province, we are discriminating against a very core part of our population,” she said.
“There is a giant elephant in the room, and that’s language issues in this province.”
The government has yet to issue a formal proposal concerning the school boards.
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