More consultations into Bill 40 are needed: Commission Scholaire de la Pointe-de-l’Île

There must be more consultations about the bill scrapping school boards before it becomes a law.

That’s one of the messages sent to the government by several school boards from the Montreal and Laval area who presented their opinions during Bill 40 hearings at Quebec’s National Assembly.

The chair of the Commission Scholaire de la Pointe-de-l’Île, Miville Boudreault says the government is rushing the bill.

“It will have a huge impact in our schools, in Montreal, in the francophone, in the anglophone school boards,” Boudreault said.

“We must have a debate much larger than the debate we have right now.”

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Boudreault wants the government to spend more time looking into what the impact of this bill will be on students on parents and the community as a whole. He says they’re hoping the government will make changes to the bill before its passed, because the bill is taking away people’s democratic rights.

Bill 40 proposes scrapping school boards and replacing them with service centres. It will also eliminate school board elections but only for francophone boards.

2:20 Quebec education reform hearings kick off

Boudreault says by eliminating commissioners, the government is also eliminating an important link with key players at all levels of government.

“In the population, there is a misunderstanding in the role of school board trustees,” Boudreault said.

“As a president, as a chairman of the CSPI, I must talk to municipal mayors, I must talk to all the parties involved in the territory and in the new project, we will loose all that.”

READ MORE: Francophones shouldn’t lose their right to vote in school board elections, argue English-language advocates

Hearings on Bill 40 wrap up Wednesday at the National Assembly.