CKNW Editorial
for September 22, 2000

There were no winners in the Surrey School Board Case though the Christian Right is claiming victory. And I suppose if having your intolerance blasted from coast to coast is winning, they’re right.

It’s important to know what the law case was all about. At issue was the interpretation of section 76 of the School Act with reads as follows

(1) All schools must be conducted on strictly secular and non sectarian principles

(2) The highest morality must be inculcated, but no religious dogma is to be taught in a school …

The essential question was whether the Surrey School Board, in refusing to sanction three books as part of the curriculum for K1were in contravention of the foregoing.

The British Columbia Court of Appeal, in a strong bench, decided that they were not. In so doing the court, in essence, held that the school board did not violate this section by listening to parents views on morality and giving expression to them by way of board decision. The decision makes, incidentally, very interesting reading if you’re interested in the history of this section which predates BC’s entry into Confederation.

In fact, no one covered themselves with any glory here. Then Education Minister Paul Ramsey, spoke vigorously against what he saw as pandering to homophobia by the school board but lacked the intestinal fortitude to take the decision himself as he clearly had the right to do. Then, after leaving he decision to the school board the Ministry, now under Penny Priddy, complains that the school board should have not spent the money defending itself but should not have banned the books.

The plaintiffs – and this I think is a clear inference from the judgment - practiced "in your face" politics and are disingenuous in suggesting that they only had the interests of the children at heart. Clearly they were trying to make a point on behalf of the homosexual community.

The School Board is also disingenuous in the extreme in pretending that they didn’t treat this issue at least in part as one of "them versus us", them being the homosexual community.

The parents – that is to say those who were so vocal on the gay issue – saw themselves painted as homophobes which in many cases they were.

The most interesting passage in the judgment comes near the end where Mr Justice MacKenzie says "Ultimately this legislation has a certain Alice in Wonderland quality. Like the Cheshire Cat, the issues slowly vanish on close examination." They vanish because at the end of the day, the three books remain in the school library and there is nothing preventing any teacher of K1 from taking any or all of the books out and using them as classroom tools. This is because the provincial government controls the libraries.

It seems to me that what the provincial government ought to do now is repeal subsection 2 which, I remind you, says "the highest morality must be inculcated but no religious dogma or creed is to be taught in a school …". I would replace the section with the following. "It shall be the obligation of school districts to take all reasonable steps to prevent discrimination based on race, colour, creed, sex or sexual preference and to have in place, starting at the beginning, classroom programs to give effect to this. In the event of any difficulty in implementing or maintaining such a program the matter may be referred, by a teacher, pupil or parent in the district, to the minister for final jurisdiction."

I believe that parents should have a say but that it should be on a province wide basis, not local option as this judgment would have it. Let the buck go to and stop at the minister’s desk.

Finally, this decision will no doubt have further ramifications. As the Cheshire Cat fades, the issues of very substantial court costs and political forfeits remain. One doubts that the B.C. Teachers Federation and the College will take this lying down. The parents, after squandering nearly a million dollars of their education budget only to find that, in practice, nothing has changed, will find that this must be felt at the teacher/student level. The Minister, Penny Priddy, must decide how she will explain to her constituents just why the decision wasn’t taken by her government thus saving the School Board all that money. And the rest of us will continue to be bewildered how books which can be taken from the school library and used in the classroom have been the subject matter of such a protracted and costly exercise, the only benefit of which accrues to the lawyers involved. We outside the problem might also spare a thought for the children whose mommies and daddies, and teachers, of whatever sex or sexual persuasion, and the politicians who represent them at both levels, have wasted so much time and energy and so raised the level of ill will in their communities.

Well indeed might one say, somewhat misquoting the Bard, "a plague on all their houses."