The Western Quebec School Board and other school service centres in the Outaouais are breathing a sigh of relief after receiving news the province has restored $540 million to Quebec’s education budget, from which it had slashed $570 million just a month earlier.
The board has spent the past month crunching numbers to figure out how it was going to trim its share of this slash – $3.6 million – from its 2025-2026 budget, and its director general George Singfield said after meeting with the principals, it was close to finalizing a proposal to do so.
Then last week, after significant pushback from teachers’ associations, opposition parties and parents across the province, Quebec’s Minister of Education Bernard Drainville announced on social media that the CAQ government would be investing most of what was originally cut back into the school network on the condition that all funds “be used to finance direct services to students, not for anything else.”
To receive the funding, board and service centres will also need to show they have made significant efforts to reduce their administrative costs.
Good news for the WQSB is that it has done just that, and is now expecting to have $3.3 million restored to its budget, which will significantly reduce the cuts the board commissioners will have to vote on at their August meeting.
“It’s not the way we would have preferred all of this to happen, but that’s out of our control. [ . . . ] Clearly somebody was listening to the pushback,” Singfield said, citing a petition launched by the Parti Quebecois in the National Assembly calling on the government to reverse the cuts that had received over 158,000 signatures by the time of publication.
“We’re not having a parade, but I think across the province it will relieve some of the stress that was created [ . . . ] How do you cut $570 million, and less than a month later, find $540 million? It’s very interesting.”
The Portage-de-l’Outaouais school service centre (CSSPO) is expecting to get $8,387,053, a number it says the ministry will confirm in the fall. The service centre had previously reported, in an email to parents, it had been asked to cut $11.4 million from its 2025-2026 budget.
The Hauts-Bois-de-l’Outaouais school service centre (CSSHBO) did not respond to THE EQUITY’s request for updated information on budget cuts.
In an emailed comment to THE EQUITY, Ministry of Education spokesperson Bryan St-Louis confirmed the decision to reverse cuts ordered in the spring came after hearing feedback on the original budget constraints.
“Following consultation with the network on the draft budget rules, the Ministry, in conjunction with the government, decided to allocate the sums required to ensure maximum protection of educational success measures, particularly for special needs students (including professionals and direct service support staff),” St-Louis wrote.
What has not changed in the past month is the province’s ongoing hiring freeze.
“We can’t just say, ‘Great, we can hire,’ because we have this hiring target. If we don’t respect the target it will cost us $3.5 million next June,” Singfield explained. Had the board not already respected its staffing allowances for 2024-2025, it would have been forced to cut an additional $3.5 million.
Also unchanged is the province’s restriction of board or service centres from dipping into its accumulated surplus to cover any deficit.
“We have a surplus of about $12 million. Typically each year we can use up to 15 per cent of that, so $1.8 million that we could use towards a deficit,” Signfield explained. “But in this case, government has said we can’t touch it.”
Some are claiming this is unconstitutional, as section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees minority language educational rights, including the right for linguistic minorities to manage and control their schools, and school finances.
The Quebec English School Boards Association, which represents nine boards across the province, is in the midst of a court battle to defend this right from the province’s Bill 40.
The bill, tabled in 2020, seeks to abolish school boards and replace them with school service centres “with much less authority and fewer decision-making powers,” according to QESBA, which successfully obtained an injunction suspending the bill’s application while it challenges it in court.
In relation to the restrictions on surplus use, St-Louis said this was done to limit increased spending in the education sector.
“Since the financial statements of school service centers and school boards are consolidated with those of the government, any deficit incurred by a school organization affects the government’s financial situation,” he wrote.
“For the 2025-2026 school year, the government has decided to review the appropriation rule, in order to limit the increase in spending in the education portfolio, in line with the budgetary context.”
He said the government has no intention of reclaiming the saved surpluses.
