J.D. Potié
QUEBEC CITY Nov. 21, 2019
Last week, the Institut de Recherche et d’Informations Socio-economiques (IRIS) unveiled a report stating that the . . .
Coalition Avenir du Québec should revise Bill 40 – its plan to replace the province’s schoolboards with so-called “service centres.”
Issued on Nov. 21, the report indicates that, while only saving the government around $13 million per year, the proposed legislation would prevent parents from holding positions with school board administrations.
It stated that eliminating elected board commissioners would save around 0.1 per cent of school board’s annual budgets.
Contradictory to the province’s Minister of Education and Higher Learning Jean-Francois Roberge’s insinuations, the bill would remove power from the hands of parents and double their workload, while centralizing their power to the government.
The report explained that the province’s low turnouts to school board elections are caused by the fact that most people aren’t aware of what school board commissioners actually do.
It added that the lack of political debate at the heart of school boards plays a role in the populations’ lack of interest in the system as a whole.
The proposed bill would squash school board elections across the province, with an exception on English institutions who will maintain their right to hold elections for school board representatives.
For the Chair of the Western Quebec Schoolboard (WQSB) Alain Guy, Bill 40 has been a head-scratcher ever since it was first proposed and he’s surprised with how quickly things have proceeded in the last month.
“This is very fast for something that is important in the education system,” he said.
He said that he would’ve preferred if the government had been more transparent as to what kind of impact the new law would have and how it intends on implementing it.
“I’m okay with doing a reform,” he said. “As long as we have proper consultation on it. If they’re serious about this, they should be consulting and looking at the best possible solution to improve the system, not throw us in another chaos.”
While Guy believes that change can be a good thing for Quebec’s education system, he argued that the CAQ is proposing the law for the wrong reasons and that change is not a priority for those working in the education system.
On Oct. 1, the CAQ proposed the law with the intent of deferring the responsibilities of school board commissioners and administrators to committees consisting of eight parents, four community members, four members of school personnel, each elected or selected by their peers.
According to the report, the CAQ estimated that school board reform would save $54 million over four years, by cutting costs on commissioner’s and administrator’s salaries.
Unaware of the impact the law could have, Guy said he would like school board administrators and commissioners to at least be part of the discussion or provided with transparency on the matter.
Guy argued that the current system works just fine, stating that the WQSB’s representatives situated across the entire region are better equipped to serve the population than people in Quebec City.
“Like everything else, there are some issues,” he said. “We have commissioners that are sitting around our school board from the Pontiac all the way to the east near Papineauville, all the way to Temiscaming and Noranda who listen to the stakeholders, the tax-payers and the parent. We know our clientele. We’ve been with them for so many years. We do consulations on a regular basis with them.”
“We’re talking about being close and not being in ivory towers,” he added. “I think this would do the opposite. We’re here to listen to the population and provide the best education system for the success of our children.”
Ultimately, he believes that school board reform would centralize the commissioner’s and administrator’s powers to the provincial government – a decision that could end up being costly for Quebec’s education system’s pockets and to academic performance.
“I don’t need to be a scientist to understand that there’s cost associated to doing this,” he said. “I’m not sure where the money saving is going to be.”
While he’s happy that English schools would retain their right for universal suffrage, he iterated that the law is still murky in his eyes and that school board reform won’t save the government as much money as it’s made everyone out to believe.
“It is good,” he said. “But, in a way, it’s very complicated. I think they’re pulling the wool over the electors’ eyes because the savings that they’ve talked about are very minimal. Three to four per cent of our costs are administration.”
“It’s not clear what they’re saying,” he added.
All in all, Guy doesn’t want the CAQ to implement Bill 40 as it’s composed, because of its complexity and the constant changes it keeps adding to it.
He hopes that representatives from school boards across the province get an opportunity to discuss the matter with the government to find a solution to improve democracy in the education system.
“We have the knowledge, the time and the expertise sitting around the table to help the government, as we’ve done in the past,” he said.
