MONTREAL — Even with a full year ahead for the Liberal government to redraft Bill 104, the Quebec law on access to English schools struck down last month by the Supreme Court of Canada for being unconstitutional, “it won’t be easy,” Quebec justice minister Kathleen Weil said.
At a recent breakfast at Shaare Zedek Congregation, Weil said her role would be to ensure that any remedial legislative measures her government takes are “legal.”
In late October, the Supreme Court ruled that Bill 104 was contrary to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Passed in 2002, the law attempted to close a loophole in Quebec’s language law (Bill 101) allowing immigrant parents to enrol their children into public English schools by starting them off in non-subsidized private schools.
The notwithstanding clause – allowing legislation to stand despite (notwithstanding) the court’s findings that it is unconstitutional – can’t be invoked in the wake of the court’s ruling, constitutional experts have said.
“It will be a very big challenge for the minister of education to do this,” Weil said, because it might all boil down to bureaucrats trying to assess the “intent” of a person in sending their children initially to a non-subsidized private school.
“Imagine trying to figure out the intent of a person” in that context, she said.
Almost a year into her job as justice minister (and as an elected politician), the bilingual Notre-Dame-de-Grâce MNA spoke enthusiastically about her new responsibilities, and said they were in keeping with her extensive background working for social justice and human rights.
Before running for office, Weil headed the Foundation of Greater Montreal, which sets up permanent endowment funds for charities across Montreal island, and was active in the health and social service sector.
“As minister of justice, individual rights are a very fundamental part of what I do,” she said, as are social justice and equality.
Weil, one of the only anglophones in cabinet, said she stems from a strongly federalist background and believes that “Quebec can grow strongly within Canada.”
While still a neophyte in politics, Weil said that she has learned much about the issues her government deals with.
Although she has since grown accustomed to and even now looks forward to it, Weil initially found handling question period “frightening.”
‘You don’t know what questions will be coming, so you have to read every newspaper,” she said.
“It is open and transparent, but not always pleasant.”
Weil said she feels very comfortable within Quebec society, a healthy democracy in which the rule of law prevails and in which questions related to the “reasonable accommodation” of minorities reflect a healthy examination of the importance of diversity within society.
Weil said access to justice is one of her priorities in her capacity as attorney general of the province. She said there would be “major” legislation in which a key element will be to make the justice system more efficient.
Other justice-related legislation being planned by the government is in the areas of consumer-protection, adoption law, drunk-driving, and “white collar” crime, she said.
The government also plans to appoint a director of public prosecutions, described by Weil as an “independent civil servant” whose task would be to ensure that appropriate arm’s-length distance is maintained between the justice ministry and the criminal justice system.
