L’Observatoire international des droits linguistiques

This decision is part of a long-running legal dispute between the French-Language School Board of British Columbia (CSF) and the Province and the Vancouver Board of Education (VBE). It follows constitutional orders issued in 2016 and upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2020, which recognized the right of Francophones to homogeneous schools in several communities across the province, notably in west and northeast Vancouver, Abbotsford, Whistler, and West Victoria. In December 2020, the CSF filed this action on the grounds that these schools had still not been built.

On the merits, the court confirmed that section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms imposes a positive—but not absolute—obligation on governments to fund and facilitate minority-language education. The scope of this obligation is assessed according to the standard of “all that is practically possible in the circumstances.” Justice Gomery, however, qualifies this formulation by clarifying that while the Province cannot be satisfied with merely exercising due diligence, practical considerations related to land acquisition and school construction remain relevant. Responsibility is shared: the Province must actively support the CSF, while the latter retains exclusive rights of management and control over its schools.

The court concluded that the Province failed to meet several of its obligations. It delayed enacting the legislative mechanisms for the transfer of school sites, notably Bill 22, and refused to disclose to the CSF the funding status of the capital budget established in 2016. For its part, the VBE was found to have violated its constitutional obligations by refusing to negotiate the transfer of the Laurier annex to the CSF and by failing to adequately incorporate the values underlying Section 23 into its decisions regarding surplus school sites.

With regard to remedies, the court orders the transfer of title to the Queen Elizabeth Annex (QEA) site to the CSF within 90 days, as well as the commencement of negotiations regarding the Laurier Annex within 60 days. Most importantly, it ruled that the lack of expropriation authority for the CSF to acquire private land constitutes an unjustified violation of section 23, and ordered the Province to enact legislation to that effect within six months. It also ruled that the VBE is required to reasonably consider and proportionately balance the importance of minority-language education in all its decisions regarding surplus sites. However, the tribunal refuses to retain ongoing oversight jurisdiction over the parties, finding that such a measure would exceed its institutional role, prolong the adversarial climate, and undermine the cooperation necessary for the effective implementation of section 23.