The right to minority language public school education as a function of the equality guarantee: a reanalysis of the Gosselin Supreme Court of Canada Charter case

This paper concerns a recent Supreme Court of Canada decision dealing ostensibly with the protection of language minority rights. The case, in fact, however, concerns the Court imposing statutory limits on constitutionally guaranteed equality and liberty rights. The Court in the instant case held as constitutional Quebec legislation permitting access to English language schools only to children who have received, or are receiving the majority of their instruction in English in Canada, or whose parents received the majority of their instruction in English in Canada at the primary school level. The appellants, members of the French majority in Quebec, could not meet those eligibility criteria. Therefore, they were held to have no right to access English language public schools for their children. The ruling, as discussed, is inconsistent with the equality and liberty guarantees as well as the minority language protection clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.