Battling for access to English education

BY ALBERT KRAMBERGER

editor@transcontinental.ca

Despite criticism levied by some, the Lester B. Pearson School Board did what it could to help some Dollard des Ormeaux teenagers gain access to English public schooling in Quebec, says its chairman.

After a year long legal battle, Mohammad Asghar Khan, who came to Canada from Pakistan, was victorious in getting his sons access to English education last week.

Although victorious, the two lawyers who helped the Kahn family, Ralph Mastromonaco and Brent Tyler, are critical of the Lester B. Pearson School and its chairman Marcus Tabachnick, who is also chairman of the Quebec English School Boards Association (QESBA).

“They did zero,” said Mastromonaco, a former school board commissioner in the West Island. “They passed a lukewarm resolution, that’s all.

“They were really asleep on this,” he added.

Mastromonaco said if the Pearson board or QESBA couldn’t pay for legal costs, they should have lobbied the government with some vigour.

“The school boards have the experience to help parents deal with this, they should play more of a role,” he added.

However, Tabachnick said school board officials have been working behind the scenes in helping parents successfully appeal cases, though their victories don’t make the news.

“I don’t think it’s up to school boards to pay lawyers’ fees,” Tabachnick shot back. “I would take our record, both provincially and locally, working with admission cases over any lawyers’ cases.”

He pointed out that 75 cases, similar to the Khan family’s one, were resolved in 2005 by school board officials working with parents in dealing with education department officials. “We’ve had pretty good success,” he added. “But once they go to court (like in the Khan family’s case), it’s too late for us to do something.”

Meanwhile, Tyler said school boards should intervene more in appeal cases since the final rulings will affect them.

“In the Khan’s cases, they could have made public demands to reconsider the case and to criticize the Education Ministry,” he said.

Tabachnick said the system for families to apply for access needs to be improved and he said while school board officials are doing their part, local MNAs need to stand up to help push for improvements.

“The whole process is wrong,” Tabachnick said. “We need some reasonable and rational discussion on access to English education. We need leadership from our MNAs.

“ We (the English-speaking community) are founding members of Quebec society and are an important part of its culture,” he added. “We need to be treated with respect. But (our schools) have no access to immigrants.”

West Islanders concerned about access and English education in general should take heed of the upcoming school board elections on Nov. 4, Tabachnick advised. The deadline for candidate nominations is Sept. 30.

When Khan’s family immigrated to Montreal from Pakistan in 2002, the brothers had only studied in Urdu and English. In the first year here, the boys struggled through French instruction. In 2003, Khan received a job offer in Cornwall, Ont., and moved the family. The children studied in English for three years. The family then moved to Dollard last year, so the boys’ mother could be closer to a specialized doctor not available in the Ontario city. However, their sons Farokh, Usman and Irfan were denied admission to English-language instruction by Quebec’s Ministry of Education. After their appeal was rejected, they took the matter to the Administraive Tribunal of Quebec, which ruled in their favour last week, overturning a decision made by a Ministry of Education bureaucrat. During Khan’s legal battle, two of his sons, Farokh, 17, and Usman, 16, shared an apartment in Cornwall, where they studied at an English school while the youngest brother, Irfan, 13, studied at a French school in the West Island. The two youngest brothers are now attending Riverdale High School in Pierrefonds. The eldest will continue studying in Cornwall since he has almost completed high school there.

Tyler said he has advised the Khan family to sue the government for mishandling their access request and subsequent appeals. “These are constitutionally protected minority rights that were infringed,” Tyler said, adding they might seek $100,000 in damages.