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Timestamp: 2019-04-19 20:42:50+00:00

Document:
Coram: McLachlin C.J. and Major, Bastarache, Binnie, LeBel, Deschamps and Fish JJ.
Neutral citation: 2005 SCC 15.
2004: March 22; 2005: March 31.
Civil rights — Equality rights — Language of instruction — Members of French language majority in Quebec not entitled to instruction in English except under certain circumstances — Whether legislation on English instruction in Quebec violating equality rights — Whether equality requires that all children in Quebec be given access to publicly funded English language education — Whether right to equality opposable to s. 23 of Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms — Charter of the French language, R.S.Q., c. C‑11, s. 73 — Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, R.S.Q., c. C‑12, ss. 10, 12.
Schools — Language of instruction — Instruction in English in Quebec — Members of French language majority in Quebec not entitled to instruction in English except under certain circumstances — Whether legislation on English instruction in Quebec violating equality rights — Charter of the French language, R.S.Q., c. C‑11, s. 73 — Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, R.S.Q., c. C‑12, ss. 10, 12 — Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, s. 23 .
Section 73 of the Charter of the French language provides access to English language schools in Quebec only to children who have received or are receiving English language instruction in Canada or whose parents studied in English in Canada at the primary level. The appellant parents, who do not qualify as rights holders under s. 73 or under s. 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms , claim that s. 73 discriminates between children who qualify and the majority of French‑speaking Quebec children who do not, and violates the right to equality guaranteed at ss. 10 and 12 of the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. Equality requires, the appellants argue, that all children in Quebec be given access to publicly funded English language education. Both the Superior Court and the Court of Appeal dismissed their claims.
Applied: Adler v. Ontario,  3 S.C.R. 609; Mahe v. Alberta,  1 S.C.R. 342; referred to: Solski (Tutor of) v. Quebec (Attorney General),  1 S.C.R. 201, 2005 SCC 14; Reference re Use of French in Criminal Proceedings in Saskatchewan (1987), 36 C.C.C. (3d) 353; Québec (Procureure générale) v. Entreprises W.F.H. Ltée,  R.J.Q. 1222; Reference re Bill 30, An Act to amend the Education Act (Ont.),  1 S.C.R. 1148; Arsenault‑Cameron v. Prince Edward Island,  1 S.C.R. 3, 2000 SCC 1; Attorney General of Quebec v. Quebec Association of Protestant School Boards,  2 S.C.R. 66; Ontario Home Builders’ Association v. York Region Board of Education,  2 S.C.R. 929; Reference re Secession of Quebec,  2 S.C.R. 217; Lalonde v. Ontario (Commission de restructuration des services de santé) (2001), 56 O.R. (3d) 505; Abbey v. Essex County Board of Education (1999), 42 O.R. (3d) 481; Lavoie v. Nova Scotia (Attorney-General) (1989), 58 D.L.R. (4th) 293.
Act to promote the French language in Québec, S.Q. 1969, c. 9.
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, ss. 15(1) , 23 , 25 , 27 , 29 .
Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, R.S.Q., c. C-12, ss. 10, 12.
Charter of the French language, R.S.Q., c. C-11, ss. 72, 73, 75.
Constitution Act, 1867, ss. 91(24) , 93 .
Constitution Act, 1982, s. 35 .
Official Language Act, S.Q. 1974, c. 6, s. 41.
Canada. Parliament. Special Joint Committee on the Constitution of Canada. Minutes of Proceedings and Evidence of the Special Joint Committee of the Senate and of the House of Commons on the Constitution of Canada, Issue No. 48, January 29, 1981, p. 108.
APPEAL from a judgment of the Quebec Court of Appeal (Gendreau, Mailhot and Forget JJ.A.),  R.J.Q. 1298,  Q.J. No. 1126 (QL), affirming a decision of Laramée J.,  R.J.Q. 2973,  Q.J. No. 4688 (QL). Appeal dismissed.
Brent D. Tyler and Walter C. Elmore, for the appellants.
Benoît Belleau and Dominique A. Jobin, for the respondents.
François Boileau and Amélie Lavictoire, for the intervener.
1 The Court _ In this appeal, the Court is asked to measure the constitutional right to minority language education against the right to equality. The appellants claim that the Charter of the French language, R.S.Q., c. C‑11, which provides access to English language schools in Quebec only to children who have received or are receiving English language instruction in Canada or whose parents studied in English in Canada at the primary level, discriminates between children who qualify and the majority of French-speaking Quebec children, who do not. The result, the appellants argue, violates the right to equality guaranteed at ss. 10 and 12 of the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, R.S.Q., c. C-12. Equality requires, the appellants argue, that all children in Quebec be given access to publicly funded English language education.
2 If adopted, the practical effect of the appellants’ equality argument would be to read out of the Constitution the carefully crafted compromise contained in s. 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms . This is impermissible. As the Court has stated on numerous occasions, there is no hierarchy amongst constitutional provisions, and equality guarantees cannot therefore be used to invalidate other rights expressly conferred by the Constitution. All parts of the Constitution must be read together. It cannot be said, therefore, that in implementing s. 23 , the Quebec legislature has violated either s. 15(1) of the Canadian Charter or ss. 10 and 12 of the Quebec Charter. The appeal should therefore be dismissed.
3 The appellants are all parents who reside with their school-age children in the province of Quebec. With the exception of Lucille Giordano, they are all Canadian citizens. Furthermore, with the exception of Lucille Giordano and Marie-Irma Cadet, the appellants were all born in Quebec and received their instruction in French in Quebec.
4 Four of the families sought admission for their children to English language schools through the administrative remedies provided under the statute but without success. The other four families acknowledged that their children were not eligible. All eight families initiated proceedings in the Superior Court of Quebec.
6 He therefore dismissed all eight actions.
7 In a unanimous judgment, the Court of Appeal (Gendreau, Mailhot and Forget JJ.A.) dismissed the claims. Relying on Adler v. Ontario,  3 S.C.R. 609, the court said it is not discriminatory under the Charter of the French language to implement s. 23 of the Canadian Charter : [translation] “How could the Quebec legislature’s actions be discriminatory if they are consistent with the Canadian Charter ?” (para. 27). The Court of Appeal also considered s. 10 of the Quebec Charter and found that on that basis, too, s. 73 of the Charter of the French language was not discriminatory.
9 At the outset, we emphasize that the appellant parents do not qualify as rights holders under s. 23 of the Canadian Charter or s. 73 of the Charter of the French language. They did not receive their primary school instruction in Canada in English and their children are receiving or have received all of their instruction in French in Quebec. Their situation, therefore, is fundamentally and constitutionally different from that of the appellants in the companion case, Solski (Tutor of) v. Quebec (Attorney General),  1 S.C.R. 201, 2005 SCC 14 (sub nom. Casimir v. Quebec (Attorney General) (hereinafter Casimir)).
10 The appellants are in a position no different from the majority of Quebec residents who receive or have received their primary and secondary instruction in French. Nonetheless, they claim that the categories of rights holders implemented by the Charter of the French language are discriminatory and should be reformed to permit them to enrol their children in English language instruction in Quebec. As members of the French language majority in Quebec, they seek to use the right to equality to access a right guaranteed in Quebec only to the English language minority.
Nor, in our view, does the presence in the Charter of the language provisions of ss. 16 to 20, or the deletion from an earlier draft of s. 15(1) of the word “language”, have the effect necessarily of excluding from the reach of s. 15 the form of distinction at issue in this case.
In Québec (Procureure générale) v. Entreprises W.F.H. Ltée,  R.J.Q. 1222, at p. 1250, the Quebec Superior Court held that [translation] “maternal language” was an analogous ground. It is not necessary to explore this point further on this appeal because the principal issue is not the content of the equality rights under the Canadian Charter but, assuming the appellants have an arguable case to bring themselves within s. 15(1) of the Canadian Charter , the issue at the root of this appeal is the relationship of equality rights in both the Canadian Charter and the Quebec Charter to the positive language guarantees given to minorities under the Constitution of Canada and the Charter of the French language.
. . . implementing legislation of a constitutional obligation under 23 does not immunize from judicial review an argument based on the Quebec Charter of Rights [for] an equal access to existing public institutions when that is interpreted in the way that we propose.
14 We do not agree. The linkage is fundamental to an understanding of the constitutional issue. Otherwise, for example, any legislation under s. 91(24) of the Constitution Act, 1867 (“Indians, and Lands reserved for the Indians”) would be vulnerable to attack as race-based inequality, and denominational school legislation could be pried loose from its constitutional base and attacked on the ground of religious discrimination. Such an approach would, in effect, nullify any exercise of the constitutional power: Adler, at para. 39; Reference re Bill 30, An Act to amend the Education Act (Ont.),  1 S.C.R. 1148, at pp. 1197 and 1206.
Section 23 is premised on the fact that substantive equality requires that official language minorities be treated differently, if necessary, according to their particular circumstances and needs, in order to provide them with a standard of education equivalent to that of the official language majority.
16 The appellants misconceive the objective of s. 73 of the Charter of the French language when they submit that “[t]he stated purpose and effect of the provisions of the CFL is to first distinguish and then exclude entire categories of children from a public service” (appellants’ factum, at para. 48 (emphasis in original)). The purpose of s. 73 is not to “exclude” but rather to implement the positive constitutional responsibility incumbent upon all provinces to offer minority language instruction to its minority language community. It is from this perspective that the present appeal must be considered.
17 There was a time in Quebec’s history when parents had “free access” (in law, although not always in practice) to either French or English language instruction for their children. Such access was, of course, subject to availability. In 1969, the Quebec legislature adopted the Act to promote the French language in Québec, S.Q. 1969, c. 9 (Bill 63), which affirmed French as the primary language of instruction and obliged school boards to offer courses in French. However, it also reaffirmed that parents could continue to select the language of instruction of their children.
18 For a variety of reasons related to the protection of the French language and culture, the Quebec legislature, in 1974, revised its policy on access to English language instruction. The Official Language Act, S.Q. 1974, c. 6 (Bill 22), affirmed French as the language of instruction in Quebec. To access English language instruction, a child had to demonstrate “a sufficient knowledge” of the English language (s. 41), which was assessed by language tests administered by the Ministry of Education. Difficulties encountered in the administration of language tests prompted the Quebec legislature again to rethink its policy.
(d) the younger brothers and sisters of a child described in paragraph c.
The constitutional deficiency resulted precisely from the absence of a provincial geographical limitation from s. 23 of the Canadian Charter .
20 Following the successful court challenge to the 1977 Act, s. 23 of the Canadian Charter directly governed access to English instruction in Quebec from 1984 to 1993. However, in 1993, the Quebec legislature re-enacted ss. 72 and 73 of the Charter of the French language in light of this Court’s decision in Quebec Association of Protestant School Boards. In the companion appeal of Casimir, we consider the constitutional challenge to the amended s. 73 of the Charter of the French language.
As noted earlier, s. 23 could also be viewed not as an “exception” to equality guarantees but as their fulfilment in the case of linguistic minorities to make available an education according to their particular circumstances and needs equivalent to the education provided to the majority (Arsenault-Cameron, at para. 31).
22 The appellants in this case are attempting to accomplish precisely that which Mahe said was prohibited, namely the use of equality guarantees to modify the categories of rights holders under s. 23 . The attempt was rejected in Mahe, albeit in different circumstances, and should be rejected again in this appeal.
24 In Adler, the Court held that s. 93(1) had the effect of constitutionally entrenching “a special status for such classes of persons, granting them rights which are denied to others” (para. 25). Section 93 provided a “comprehensive code” of denominational school rights. The equality claim failed “because the funding of Roman Catholic separate schools and public schools is within the contemplation of the terms of s. 93 and is, therefore, immune from Charter scrutiny” (para. 27). Drawing an analogy with s. 23 of the Canadian Charter and the reasoning of the Court in Mahe, Iacobucci J. concluded that “both sections grant special status to particular classes of people” (para. 32).
The argument is that to the extent s. 29 was the foundation of the decision in Adler, and since there is no equivalent clause for minority language instruction, the equality guarantee of the Quebec Charter is to be given paramountcy.
See also Ontario Home Builders’ Association v. York Region Board of Education,  2 S.C.R. 929, at paras. 76-77.
See also Lalonde v. Ontario (Commission de restructuration des services de santé) (2001), 56 O.R. (3d) 505 (C.A.), at para. 101.
28 The purpose of s. 23 is the protection and promotion of the minority language community in each province. Section 23 is of prime importance given “the vital role of education in preserving and encouraging linguistic and cultural vitality. It thus represents a linchpin in this nation’s commitment to the values of bilingualism and biculturalism” (Mahe, at p. 350).
We are not determining education for the majority, but for the minorities.
30 The appellants are members of the French language majority in Quebec and, as such, their objective in having their children educated in English simply does not fall within the purpose of s. 23 . The Ontario Court of Appeal in Abbey v. Essex County Board of Education (1999), 42 O.R. (3d) 481, at pp. 488-89, said, with respect to Ontario, that “[a]nglophone parents in Ontario do not have a constitutional right to have their children educated in French as a matter of choice. Their children cannot be admitted to a French language school unless an admissions committee, controlled by members of the minority group, grants them access.” See also Lavoie v. Nova Scotia (Attorney-General) (1989), 58 D.L.R. (4th) 293 (N.S.S.C. (App. Div.)), at pp. 313‑15. And so it is with the parents who belong to the majority language community in Quebec.
31 In rejecting “free access” as the governing principle in s. 23 , the framers of the Canadian Charter were concerned about the consequences of permitting members of the majority language community to send their children to minority language schools. The concern at the time (which the intervener, the Commissioner of Official Languages for Canada, submitted is a continuing concern today) was that at least outside Quebec minority language schools would themselves become centres of assimilation if members of the majority language community swamped students from the minority language community. Within Quebec, the problem has the added dimension that what are intended as schools for the minority language community should not operate to undermine the desire of the majority to protect and enhance French as the majority language in Quebec, knowing that it will remain the minority language in the broader context of Canada as a whole. In the companion appeal Casimir, at paras. 49-50, we examine some of the concerns that would arise if minority language schools become the functional equivalents of immersion programs for the majority language community in Quebec. We also took care in Casimir “to emphasize that the application of s. 23 must take into account the very real differences between the situation of the minority language community in Quebec and the minority language communities in the territories and other provinces” (para. 44). If the problems are different, the solutions will not necessarily be the same.
Furthermore, as the historical context in which s. 23 was enacted suggests, minority language groups cannot always rely upon the majority to take account of all of their linguistic and cultural concerns. Such neglect is not necessarily intentional: the majority cannot be expected to understand and appreciate all of the diverse ways in which educational practices may influence the language and culture of the minority.
A provincial government that provided equal access to all citizens to minority language schools would not be “do[ing] whatever is practically possible to preserve and promote minority language education” (Arsenault-Cameron, at para. 26).
. . . it would be totally incongruous to invoke in aid of the interpretation of a provision which grants special rights to a select group of individuals, the principle of equality intended to be universally applicable to “every individual”.
34 Practical reasons as well as legal principle support the conclusion that s. 23 minority language education rights cannot be subordinated to the equality rights guarantees relied upon by the appellants.
35 For the reasons outlined above, the appellants have no claim to publicly funded English language instruction in Quebec.
36 Their appeal is dismissed with costs (if demanded).
This rule obtains in school bodies within the meaning of the Schedule and in private educational institutions accredited for purposes of subsidies under the Act respecting private education (chapter E‑9.1) with respect to the educational services covered by an accreditation.
Nothing in this section shall preclude instruction in English to foster the learning thereof, in accordance with the formalities and on the conditions prescribed in the basic school regulations established by the Government under section 447 of the Education Act (chapter I‑13.3).
(5) a child whose father or mother was residing in Québec on 26 August 1977 and had received elementary instruction in English outside Québec, provided that that instruction constitutes the major part of the elementary instruction he or she received outside Québec.
However, instruction in English received in Québec in a private educational institution not accredited for the purposes of subsidies by the child for whom the request is made, or by a brother or sister of the child, shall be disregarded. The same applies to instruction in English received in Québec in such an institution after 1 October 2002 by the father or mother of the child.
Instruction in English received pursuant to a special authorization under section 81, 85 or 85.1 shall also be disregarded.
75. The Minister of Education may empower such persons as he may designate to verify and decide on children’s eligibility for instruction in English under any of sections 73, 81, 85 and 86.1.
Solicitor for the appellants: Brent D. Tyler, Montréal.
Solicitors for the respondents: Bernard, Roy & Associés, Montréal; Department of Justice, Montréal.
Solicitor for the intervener: Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages for Canada, Ottawa.

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