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victor-brodeur

École Victor-Brodeur

Victoria

École Victor Brodeur has operated on its current site as a public francophone school since 1985. At that time, the “Programme-cadre de Français” program, which had been offered at Uplands Elementary since 1979, and the program for children of francophone military personnel from the Canadian Forces base in Esquimalt, which had been offered since 1973, were amalgamated. The new public school opened in what was previously Harbour View Elementary at 637 Head Road, and welcomed 207 students and 10 teachers under the management of the School District of Victoria.

École Victor-Brodeur offered kindergarten to grade 7 programming when it opened. In 1991, the school was proud to celebrate its first grade 12 graduation ceremony. École Victor-Brodeur is one of two kindergarten to grade 12 public French-language schools on Vancouver Island. It has the second highest enrolment of any CSF school, with a student population of over 680 students.

CLAIM

The CSF and the Fédération des parents francophones’ claim before the Supreme Court of British Columbia:

Obtain two kindergarten to 7 schools, one in Victoria East and one in Victoria West, on sites that are sufficiently large to accommodate future enrolment growth.

Obtain a site in Victoria North in order to build a new school.

Acquire Lampson Elementary rather than continuing to rent it from SD 61 (Greater Victoria).

COURT’S DECISION

Court’s decision:

According to Justice Russell, Francophone parents in Victoria have the right to have their children educated in French at the elementary level in three catchment areas (in Victoria East, Victoria West, and Victoria Centre). According to the judge, once elementary school programs have been established (programs that would likely be established in leased space for approximately 30-50 students) and have grown, parents residing in Victoria East and West will have the right to homogeneous schools within these areas that are able to accommodate more than 250 students each, with facilities that are substantively equivalent to those of the majority. Of course, the CSF already offers an elementary school program in Victoria East with approximately thirty students enrolled. The program was created after the closing of evidence in Court and was therefore largely unknown to Justice Russell when she wrote her decision.

According to Justice Russell, parents residing in Victoria North have the right to have their children educated in French at the elementary level and to have access to the basic facilities needed to offer this education.

Again, according to Justice Russell, Francophone parents in Victoria have the right to have their children educated in French at the secondary level in a homogeneous school that is “proportionate” to the smaller middle schools of the majority in Victoria, as is already the case.

The government must pay the rental costs of the CSF for the spaces it rents in Victoria – the former Lampson and Sundance elementary schools – which the government does not fully do at present.

The implementation of section 23 of the Charter in Victoria will be supported by the order requiring the provincial government to establish a separate long-term funding envelope for the CSF’s capital projects, by the order requiring the provincial government to help the CSF acquire sites to meet the CSF’s needs, and by the order requiring the provincial government to fund the CSF’s leases where a program is offered in leased space. The implementation of section 23 in Victoria may also be aided by the order for damages regarding the decade-long freeze of funding for the CSF’s transportation budget.

The CSF and the Fédération des parents francophones will ask that the Court of Appeal recognize that the francophone community in Victoria has an immediate right to a homogeneous elementary school in Victoria West that is substantively equivalent (and not just “proportionate”) to the competing English-language schools, and has an immediate right to a homogeneous elementary school in Victoria East that is substantively equivalent (and not just “proportionate”) to the competing English-language schools.

Current project

Current project

The CSF continues to search for property, but as Victor-Brodeur is not identified as a priority in Justice Russel’s judgment, it is more difficult to convince the Ministry of Education to fund property here.