limit debate on a bill and force the National Assembly to vote on it. It’s the fourth time the ruling CAQ government has used it since it won a majority in October of 2018.

The final vote came just after 3 a.m. and passed by a margin of 60 to 35.

Bill 40 will abolish school boards and replace them with service centres, the makeup of which will differ from English service centres to French ones.

For instance, the English-language service centres will be made up of a combination of eight to 17 parents of students in the service centre’s jurisdiction, four community members and four school staff members.

The parent representatives and the community members on the English-language service centre board members will be elected.

The board of directors for the French-language service centres, on the other hand, will look and function differently.

They will have five parent representatives, five staff members and five members of the community. Additionally, the directors of the French service centres will be appointed.

While the current directors of the English boards will stay on until new ones can be elected – which should be some time in November. Meanwhile, a last-minute amendment to the bill eliminated Commissioners with the French boards with the stroke of a pen.

The government originally agreed to allow the commissioners of the French-language boards to stay on until Feb. 29, they were instead relieved of their duties effective immediately, which Pontiac Liberal MNA André Fortin saw as a move to avoid a legal challenge.

“It’s almost like the government wanted to prevent school board commissioners from mounting a legal challenge by abolishing their positions right then and there,” Fortin said. “A lot of school board commissioners took it as an added slap in the face.”

He also said that the new service centres could have a negative impact for regional representation.

“It’s very possible that, on the board, you’ll find a disproportionate amount of people from the city versus a rural area,” Fortin said. “And in a school board like the Western Quebec School Board (WQSB), you can find yourself with all people from Gatineau and nobody from, say, Abitibi-Temiscamingue or the Pontiac.”

He also pointed out that while current boards always have an elected representative who looks after students who are handicapped or have learning disabilities, service centres will have no such representative.

“If you’re a parent of someone with special needs or a handicap, this new board does nothing to reassure you that your kid will get the proper services from the schools,” Fortin said.

Since debate was limited by the government, MNA’s had just one day to parse the more-than 300 pages of the bill that amended 80 laws.

To make matters worse for the opposition, the CAQ government added 160 last-minute amendments.

“I’m very disappointed that this government decided to cut all debates and discussions and ram through this bill,” said WQSB Chairman, Alain Guy. “It’s not a very good day for democracy.”

Guy’s disappointment not only stems from the way the bill was rushed through, but the limited consultation process as well.

“They ignored the ignored the opposition and the many stakeholders and those that wanted to have a full consultation,” Guy added. “They just refused to listen.”

It was a sentiment shared by Fortin.

“It’s just an unfortunate way to do things,” Fortin said. “You don’t introduce amendments at midnight when you know the bill is going to be adopted four hours later.”

Guy says that while the parent representatives will appear to be the ones in charge of the new service centres, he’s worried about how much of a say parents will have at the end of the day.

“Their voice will be there, but I’m not too sure if they’re going to be taken seriously with any of their concerns because it’s more of them implementing what the government will be asking to do,” Guy said. “It’s going to be top down decisions.”

Several school boards and teacher’s groups have announced plans to take the government to court over the legislation, but Guy said that with so many amendments added at the last minute, the WQSB is still looking at its options.

Fortin said that the government has been called out by teacher’s groups because they say the bill erodes the autonomy of teachers.

“The bill gives the ability to people who are not trained teachers or teachers in other schools to review the grades that a teacher assigns to a student,” Fortin said.

Fortin also pointed to another troubling aspect of the bill that would allow the province to force municipalities to give up property the service centre deems needed for an expansion, instead of the current practice of negotiating a fair price with the municipality.

“In some cases, that land is worth a lot of money,” Fortin said. “A lot of those pieces of land are worth millions.”

He says that this heavy-handed approach could impact municipal taxpayers.

“It means in some cases that municipal taxes might have to go up,” Fortin said. “And it’s just not a proper way of governing.”

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