Achi news desk-
New Brunswick Education Minister Bill Hogan said he plans to take the unprecedented step of dissolving the Anglophone East District Board of Education, amid a tense legal battle over Policy 713.
The government’s controversial policy changes require school staff to obtain parental consent when a child under 16 requests to be referred to by a different name or nickname if that request is related to gender identity.
The District Board of Education (DEC) continues to litigate these changes, which the board claims are unconstitutional and could harm students. The DEC also believes that mandatory parental consent requirements violate the District’s Human Rights Act.
Instead, DEC has its own policy, which states that staff should use the names and pronunciations that students ask them to use.
After a tense back-and-forth correspondence that saw Hogan demand that the DEC comply with county policy, Hogan ultimately ordered the DEC to stop paying their attorneys for the lawsuit if the board didn’t comply by Thursday at 5 p.m.
In a letter sent to the minister on Thursday evening, the DEC said they would only do so if he agreed not to take further action to remove or rescind the DEC policy.
The email you need for today’s top news from Canada and around the world.
Hogan said that left him no choice but to make the unprecedented move to dissolve the DEC through the courts.
Michel Dost, a retired law professor at the University of Moncton with expertise in constitutional law, told Global News that under the Education Act, if the DEC is not functioning or if they are not “respecting” the act, then the minister can indeed move to dissolve it.
“This does not mean that he will accept it. He will have to establish his case before the court, and the court will determine if in this case, he has reached the threshold of dissolving the committee,” said Dost.
According to him, since these are unknown waters, it is not clear whether the minister has a strong claim.
Dost also noted, however, that this is likely a lengthy legal process. In the meantime, the DEC will continue to operate as normal.
“If the DEC is disbanded, that means the case will also be scanned,” added Dost.
A court hearing on an injunction from the minister to proceed with the liquidation and additional punitive measures will take place between June 18 and 19.
During a court hearing on Friday, Chief Justice of the Court of King’s Bench, Tracy Deaver, said “this chaos cannot continue” and that parents needed to know “who hit” 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 policies whereby staff use the student-requested name and nicknames for those in sixth grade and up. For those in kindergarten through fifth grade, the staff handles these requests on a case-by-case basis.
This policy is still on display online despite Minister Hogan’s request that the District adopt the policy at the end of April.
— with a file from Rebecca Lau of Global News
© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
