Mahe v Alberta

Mahé v Alberta
Mahé v Alberta
	Supreme Court of Canada
Hearing: June 14, 1989 ; Judgment: March 15, 1990
Full case name	Jean‑Claude Mahé, Angeline Martel, Paul Dubé and the Association de l'école Georges et Julia Bugnet v Her Majesty The Queen in right of the province of Alberta
Citations	[1990] 1 S.C.R. 342
Ruling	Mahé appeal allowed
Court membership
	Chief Justice: Brian Dickson; Puisne Justices: Antonio Lamer, Bertha Wilson, Gérard La Forest, Claire L'Heureux-Dubé, John Sopinka, Charles Gonthier, Peter Cory, Beverley McLachlin
Reasons given
Unanimous reasons by	Dickson C.J.

Mahé v Alberta, [1990] 1 S.C.R. 342, is a

section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms requires parents of the official-language minority in each province to have the right either to be represented on the school board or to have a school board of their own to provide adequate protection for the education

rights of their children.

Background

Three

school board

.

The Minister of Education told them that it was not its policy to make such arrangements and so it suggested that they try to do so through the public school board. The board rejected them. Mahé and the others brought an action against the Alberta government for violating their right to a Francophone-run education system under section 23 of the Charter.

The questions before the Supreme Court were:

Have the rights of the Francophone population of Edmonton under section 23(2)(b) of the Charter been violated?

Do the rights under section 23 include the right to manage and control the schools? If so, what is the nature and extent of the management and control?

Does the provincial School Act violate section 23? If so, can it be saved under

section 1

of the Charter?

Are the rights affected by section 93 of the
section 29 of the Charter, and section 17 of the Alberta Act
?

Opinion of the Court

The Court held that section 23 guarantees representation on the school board and exclusive control over the children's education with respect to culture, or it can guarantee a separate school board. However, there must be sufficient minority language population to warrant either level of protection. In this particular case, the Court decided representation on an existing school board would be sufficient and held that did not interfere with denominational school rights under section 29 of the Charter since it affected merely language.

The Court's unanimous decision was given by Chief Justice

27

of the Charter.

External links

Full text of Supreme Court of Canada decision at LexUM and CanLII