The New Frontiers School Board has quite the task on its hands to get out the vote for the upcoming November 3 election.
All but one position on the council of commissioners were won by acclamation. The NFSB’s sole contested ward is division number 6, which includes 1,312 residents in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Beauharnois, and Saint-Étienne-de-Beauharnois. It is imperative that as many of these individuals as possible find the time to vote.
The NFSB is not alone in acclaiming most of its candidates. All eleven candidates and the chair at the Riverside School Board, the Central Quebec School Board, and the Eastern Townships School board won by acclamation. Along with the NFSB, elections will take place for a handful of positions at the Sir Wilfred Laurier School Board, the Western Quebec School Board, and the Lester B. Pearson School Board.
All the positions available at the English Montreal School Board are up for election, making it the only school board with a full slate of candidates to be voted upon. While election officials won’t be especially busy, the significance of these elections to English-speaking communities can’t be understated.
Andy Riga of the Montreal Gazette recently wrote that the future of English schools is on the ballot for these elections. It sounds dramatic, but it’s also a very apt description of the perilous reality facing English school boards in the province’s crosshairs. Low participation rates will serve only to feed Premier François Legault’s argument that abolishing these democratically elected institutions in favour of government-controlled school service centres makes perfect sense.
Thankfully, the courts seem prepared to shore up minority language educational rights – which has allowed school boards to continue to serve their communities while challenges to Bill 40, among other pieces of legislation, make their way through the system.
As members of the English-speaking population, we must also do our part to defend and protect our school boards and the democratic process that determines how they are governed. School boards are the last English-controlled institutions in a province that is hostile to minority-language education. Our right to vote in such an election is a privilege, and one that the current government is all too eager to eliminate. We must do what we can to preserve our language rights.
Sarah Rennie