The English-Montreal School Board (EMSB) will challenge in court the “reform of Bill 101” adopted this week in Quebec.
The EMSB Board of Commissioners believes that this law, hitherto known as “Bill 96”, violates the constitutional right of English-speaking Quebecers to manage and control their own educational institutions, he said. reported in a press release on Friday.
The “Act respecting the official and common language of Quebec, French”, adopted Tuesday at the National Assembly, limits enrollment in English-language CEGEPs and obliges students in these establishments to take three additional courses in French.
The EMSB was one of many groups to also challenge Quebec’s law on the secularism of the state, which prohibits teachers, police officers and certain other officials in positions of authority from wearing religious symbols at work.
Both laws already invoke the notwithstanding clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to protect them from legal challenges.
In April 2021, a Superior Court judge struck down provisions of the religious symbol ban that applied to English school boards, but upheld the bulk of them due to the use of this notwithstanding provision.
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