Quebeckers Protest Against Supreme Court Ruling On English Language Schooling

November 18, 2009 6:06 p.m. EST

Montreal, Quebec (AHN) - About 300 Quebec residents held a rally Monday night in Montreal to protest a recent Supreme Court of Canada decision declaring a law passed by the Quebec National Assembly as invalid.

The protesters, led by Societe St. Jean Baptiste de Montreal President Mario Beaulieu want the Quebec National Assembly to go against the Oct. 22 decision of the court in a bid to have more Quebec youth schooled in the French language than English language.

Beaulieu said the decision threatens the survival of French language in Quebec. Bill 104 made it difficult for Quebec students to have access to English schooling. It was approved as a law by the Quebec National Assembly. However, the court decision mandated the provincial government to revise the law.

The lawsuit stemmed from a petition filed by Quebec parents who enrolled their children for short periods in unsubsidized private schools which offered teaching in English. The parents later asked that their children be declared eligible for instruction in English in public or subsidized public schools.

Quebec's Ministry of Education turned down the requests, citing provisions of the Charter of the French language which required that for children to qualify for English instruction in a public or subsidized private schools in the province, they must have received the bulk of their education in English in Canada.

The Supreme Court, in its decision, explained, "The objectives of the measures adopted by the Quebec legislature are sufficiently important and legitimate to justify the limit on the guaranteed rights, but the means chosen are not proportional to the objectives. The purpose of the measures is to protect and promote the French language in Quebec. Although there is a rational causal connection between the objectives and the 2002 amendments to the CFL, the means chosen by the legislature do not constitute a minimal impairment of the constitutional rights guaranteed by s. 23(2) of the Canadian Charter."