English public school access denied

BY ANDY BLATCHFORD

andy.blatchford@transcontinental.ca

Farokh Asghar dreams of becoming an engineer, but while most kids are in class, he and his two brothers sit idle inside their small Dollard des Ormeaux apartment.

Farokh and his younger brothers, Usman and Irfan, want to go to school, but this fall, the Pakistani-born teens were denied access to English-language instruction by Quebec’s Ministry of Education.

In October the province ruled that if they choose the public system, the high school students must study in French, a language mostly unfamiliar to them.

The boys’ father, Mohammad Asghar Khan, said his sons meet the criteria outlined in paragraph 73(2) of Quebec’s Charter of the French Language and wants the ruling reversed.

According to the Charter, children of Canadian citizens who received the majority of their primary and secondary instruction in English (in Canada) are not bound to attend French school.

Khan, a Canadian citizen, said his children spent three years in English school compared to one in French since moving to Canada in 2002.

To date, he has had no success in changing the ministry’s verdict.

“Basically it’s a really outrageous situation that’s going on,� said the family’s lawyer Ralph Mastromonaco, a former school board commissioner. “They have every right to be in an English school.�

If the province doesn’t reconsider the case, Mastromonaco will take it to the Tribunal administratif du Québec for reconsideration.

Farokh said that in 2002, the family immigrated to Montreal from Pakistan, where the children studied Urdu — the country’s official language — and English.

The teens enrolled in a French school, in accordance with Quebec’s language law.

In 2003, Khan was laid off and he moved the family to Cornwall, Ont., where he had been offered a new job. For the next three years, the brothers attended English school in their new city. During his time in Cornwall, Khan became a Canadian citizen.

However, soon after establishing themselves in Ontario, their mother, Shehida Tasnin, was diagnosed with hepatitis C. After years of regular and costly travel between Cornwall and Ottawa to see Tasnin’s medical specialist (Cornwall did not have a doctor for her needs, Khan said) he decided to move. He found employment in the West Island and they relocated to Dollard in August, so Tasnin could be closer to a specialized doctor.

When the children tried to apply for English school, they were denied.

The transition to studying in French would set the Asghars back years, Farokh said. “It’s going to be a waste of time to go to French school,� he told The Chronicle. “How can we study in French if we have a background in English?

“When I came here from Pakistan I went to French school and forgot all my English. I couldn’t learn French, so I wasn’t able to communicate very well.�

With only a couple of weeks to go before the Christmas holidays, Farokh, who was supposed to graduate this year, said the school year is quickly slipping away.

“This is my age to study,� he said. “This is a matter of our future.�

In Farokh’s refusal letter, Diane Robillard, the person designated by the minister to analyze his case, wrote that the “elements of context put forward� and the “overall educational experience of sibling Usman� did not meet the requirements of paragraph 73(2) of the Charter.

The ministry analyzes each application with consideration for the March 2005 Supreme Court of Canada ruling of Solski v. Quebec, spokesperson Marie-France Boulay said. The Solski ruling is interpreted and applied in different ways for each case, she said, adding her department does not discuss specific applications.

But according to Lester B. Pearson School Board and Quebec English School Boards Association chairman Marcus Tabachnick, Solski shouldn’t apply in the Asghars’ case.

He said Solski has put the focus on a family’s intent to circumvent the law by leaving Quebec and enrolling their children in English school for a brief period of time - usually less than nine months. Children could spend enough time in an English school to return to Quebec and be eligible to enter an English institution.

But the Asghars were gone for three years and only returned to be close to the health specialist needed by their mother, he said.

“This one appears to me to be a case where the eligibility should be granted,� Tabachnick said. “(The ministry is) taking the Supreme Court ruling and they’re applying it in the strictest terms, and in this one case, I think it’s being applied unfairly. It has become more subjective and that makes it very difficult.�

Tabachnick said Pearson and QESBA have had some “difficult discussions with the government� and made some “good progress� in defining how and in what time period English-access cases are decided.

However, Pearson and the QESBA do not have the finances to fight people’s legal battles for them, he said.

“We can offer moral support, but that’s not what the families need,� he said. “Legal challenges are expensive.�

Mastromonaco criticized the lack of support by Pearson.

“It’s completely ridiculous to expect parents to do all the heavy lifting,� he said. “I think (school boards) have an obligation to assist them in the appeal process. The school boards have to step up to the plate and do a little more if they really care.�

He volunteered to work for the family because they live off a “modest-income.� He said there are no advocacy groups to assist families through the costly appeal process.

“These people basically are having their rights taken away from them and have no way of fighting back,� he said.