Province ordered to produce all documents related to the school board's dismissal
A group of nine fired B.C. school board trustees in the Victoria area are challenging their dismissal in court, and a judge decided on Wednesday to let the case move forward, finding the group may have a case that the education minister's order to remove them could have been made in "bad faith."
While the case has not yet been tried in court, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Lindsay LeBlanc found there is "some basis" for the allegations, and ordered the government to produce all documents relied on by the minister in the lead-up to the decision, as well as all communications between the minister's office and a list of other agencies and police departments involved.
The suit stems from a decision by the Greater Victoria School District (SD 61) in 2023 not to allow police in the district's schools as part of a liaison program, based on a finding by B.C.'s human rights commissioner that these programs are not proven to help students, particularly those from marginalized communities.
After this decision, parents, school safety interest groups, local First Nations and police all raised concerns about safety and were critical of the board's handling of the situation.
In response, Education Minister Lisa Beare appointed a special advisor, former Abbotsford school district Superintendent Kevin Godden, and ordered the district to create a plan to resolve safety concerns. This order directs the school to ensure the plan involves the police in some way.
Beare found the board failed in this task, and Godden criticized the trustees for not working with him on the plan. In January, she removed the board and appointed a sole trustee to oversee the district.
In March, nine former trustees launched a legal challenge calling for a judicial review of this decision. They seek to overturn both the order firing them and the initial orders to create a safety plan with Godden.
Part of the trustee's argument of bad faith relies on email exchanges between Godden and fired board chair Nicole Duncan.
"These email exchanges demonstrate that Dr. Godden and the Board Chair had different approaches to developing the safety plan; these differences made collaboration futile," the judge wrote.
The trustees argue the minister fired them without notice or an opportunity to respond, that the orders were made for an "improper purpose," and that the provincial government lacked the jurisdiction to make the orders.
They further argue that the minister gave an unreasonable demand for a safety plan to be developed over the holiday period, and that the order was simply an attempt to force a democratically elected body to exercise its discretion in favour of a policy they believed to be "ill-advised."
The government responds that the minister and other officials acted in good faith and within a reasonable interpretation of the School Act. The government also argues that this decision was "legislative in nature" and immune to arguments about procedural fairness.
This is not the first time the government has replaced a school board, but the first time by this government: The B.C. Liberals fired the Vancouver School Board in 2016 for failing to balance the district's budget.
In her decision, the judge finds that the government does generally have the authority to intervene in the affairs of a local school board. But, LeBlanc is unconvinced that the order to remove the board -- made through an order-in-council, which is essentially a cabinet order -- is legislative in nature.
LeBlanc does not make a final determination on this in her decision; it is something that would come out in a full hearing of the case in court. But it could have future implications for the future of these sorts of orders, which the B.C. government has come to rely on extensively to implement its agenda and which it has more authority to use as a result of several fast-tracking laws passed earlier this year.
On the question of whether the minister's decision was made in bad faith, the judge -- again reserving a decision on the merits until after the case is argued in court -- finds the allegations could fall within the bad faith categories of "dishonesty, abuse of power, unfairness, and unreasonableness."