New Brunswick Education Minister Bill Hogan has said he intends to take the unprecedented move of dissolving the Anglophone East District Education Council, in the midst of a tense legal battle over Policy 713.
The government’s controversial changes to the policy require that school staff obtain parental consent when a child under 16 requests to be addressed by a different name or pronoun if that request is related to gender identity.
The district education council (DEC) is proceeding with litigation over these changes, which the council argues are unconstitutional and could be harmful to students. The DEC also believes the mandatory parental consent requirements go against the province’s Human Rights Act.
Instead, the DEC has its own policy, which indicates staff are to use the names and pronounce that students ask them to use.
After a tense back and forth through correspondence, which saw Hogan demand the DEC conform to the province’s policy, Hogan ultimately ordered the DEC to stop paying their lawyers for the lawsuit if the council didn’t conform by Thursday at 5 p.m.
In a letter sent to the minister on Thursday evening, the DEC said they would do this only if he agreed to take no further action to remove or repeal the DEC’s policy.
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Hogan said that left him no option but to undertake the unprecedented move to dissolve the DEC through the courts.
Michel Doucet, retired Université de Moncton law professor with an expertise in constitutional law, told Global News that under the Education Act, if a DEC is not functional or if they don’t “respect” the act, then the minister can indeed apply to have it dissolved.
“It doesn’t mean that he will get it. He will have to establish his case in front of the court, and the court will determine if in this case, he has reached the threshold for the dissolution of the of the DEC,” Doucet said.
He says because these are uncharted waters, it’s unclear if the minister has a strong case.
Doucet also noted, however, it will likely be a lengthy legal process. In the meantime, the DEC would continue operating as usual.
“If the DEC is dissolved, that would mean that the case also would be thrown out,” Doucet added.
A court hearing for an injunction to prevent the minister from pursuing dissolution and other punitive measures will take place June 18-19.
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During a court hearing Friday, Court of King’s Bench Chief Justice Tracey DeWare said “this chaos cannot continue” and that parents need to know “who was calling the shots” before students return to classes in September.
A second and separate legal challenge to the province’s changes to Policy 713 by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association is ongoing.
The province’s three francophone districts have adopted their own policy in which staff use the name and pronouns requested by the students for those in Grade 6 and beyond. For those in kindergarten to Grade 5, staff treat these requests on a case by case basis.
That policy is still displayed online despite minister Hogan’s request they adopt the province’s policy in late April.
— with a file from Global News’ Rebecca Lau
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