The appellants, the sole French-language school board in British Columbia and associated parents' federation and individual rights holders, brought a constitutional challenge alleging systemic underfunding of minority language education and inadequate facilities in numerous communities, contrary to s. 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The majority clarified the sliding-scale framework for situating the number of minority language students so as to determine the level of educational services warranted, introducing a province-wide comparative presumption of pedagogical and cost appropriateness when majority language schools of comparable size exist elsewhere in the province.
The majority further held that substantive equivalence — not proportionality — is the applicable standard for assessing the quality of the educational experience throughout the sliding scale, and that infringements of s. 23 are subject to a particularly stringent justification standard under s. 1, such that the fair and rational allocation of public funds does not constitute a pressing and substantial objective.
The Court held that Mackin immunity from Charter damages does not extend to government policies infringing s. 23, and restored the trial judge's award of $6 million for the transportation funding freeze and ordered $1.1 million in additional damages for the Annual Facilities Grant Rural Factor breach.
Brown and Rowe JJ. dissented in part, rejecting the province-wide presumption as inconsistent with settled jurisprudence and as compressing the middle of the sliding scale, though agreeing on substantive equivalence, the invalidity of a purely financial s. 1 objective, and the appropriateness of Charter damages in the s. 23 context.
