Quebec seeks power to veto decisions, appoint school service centre directors in latest education reform

Seeking more power over the province's education system, the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government has tabled a bill that, if passed, would allow it to appoint a director for each school service centre and veto some of their decisions.

Education Minister Bernard Drainville tabled Bill 23 at the National Assembly on Thursday morning.

The proposed legislation would also force service centres to strike annual "management and accountability" agreements with the education minister. Education objectives would be outlined in those agreements.

The law would give the minister the discretion to overturn decisions made by the school service centre "and to make one that, in their opinion, should've been made in the first place" in light of the objectives, the bill states.

During a news conference on Thursday, Drainville said the changes would help ensure that data about what is going on schools would be more readily available and accessible and help make school service centres more accountable to students and parents.

"It's not normal that the minister is not able to get numbers as important as the number of teachers that are missing in a school service centre," Drainville said.

The bill would also allow the provincial government to fill vacancies on service centre administrative boards if no one has filled the position "within a reasonable delay." 

If passed, the bill would also lead to the creation of the Institut national d'excellence en éducation, an education institute with the mission of promoting excellence in school services at the preschool, elementary and high school levels. 

Bill 23 represents the CAQ's second major education reform in three years.

In February 2020, Bill 40 became law, effectively abolishing the school board system.

At the time that bill was adopted, many critics expressed concerns that the law marked a step toward the provincial government's centralization of power in the education system.

Despite the creation of school service centres, English school boards still exist due to an ongoing legal challenge.The Quebec Court of Appeal upheld a ruling by the Quebec Superior Court which suspends Bill 40's application to English school boards.

On Thursday, Drainville said the government could enforce the powers included in the bill on English school boards, even with the legal case over Bill 40 still unresolved.

'Not a good day for the rights of the English-speaking community'

Russell Copeman, the executive director of the Quebec English School Boards Association (QESBA), described the bill as "worse than we thought it might be."

"It's quite an egregious additional infringement on the control and management rights of the English-speaking community," Copeman said.

"It's not a good day for the rights of the English-speaking community to control and manage our school system."

He also said the CAQ government's decision to include English school boards in its latest reform is a "violation of the spirit" of the decisions rendered by the Quebec courts regarding Bill 40.

According to Copeman, Bill 23 aims to fix problems that were created by Bill 40.

"Frankly, for our community, it's just made it that much worse," he said.

'Unprecedented' centralization of power, PQ decries

In his first reaction to Bill 23, Pascal Bérubé, an MNA with the Parti Québécois (PQ), mockingly referred to the CAQ in French as "Centralisation Avenir Québec."

"This is an unprecedented centralization [of power]," said Berubé, who is his party's education critic.

He described Drainville as a "monarch" at the head of an education network without any checks on his power.

When Bill 40 was passed, Jean-François Roberge, the education minister at the time, said the law would put more decision-making power into the hands of parents.

According to Ruba Ghazal, an MNA and education critic for Québec Solidaire, Bill 23 "really contradicts what Mr. Roberge said."

Ghazal and Liberal MNA Marwah Rizqy both said the bill does nothing to address the teacher shortage.

"No parent has ever asked me for an institute of excellence," said Rizqy. "Here's what parents have told me: 'We need more services for our children. We need more speech therapists.'"

Minister downplays concerns about independence

Drainville was asked several times Tuesday if the proposed law would essentially make service centres mouthpieces from the government, stripping them of their independence.

The minister said the goal is to make sure the government and the service centres are on the same page. He also implied that having agreements between the province and service centres is better than what the current law provides.

"It could happen at one point that there is a decision [by a service centre] that is completely unacceptable — a decision that very clearly goes against the government's guidelines," the minister said.

"Now, the only tool that I have with the current law is trusteeship. If I don't agree, it's trusteeship. Honestly, that kind of power is extraordinary."

With Bill 23, the education minister could stress to the service centre that a decision it made violates its agreement with the government, and urge it to change it, Drainville said.