Erika Sherk
Northern News Services
Friday, February 9, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - A government lawyer told a courtroom Wednesday that there is no law barring non-Catholics from running in Catholic school board elections.

Lawyer Martin Goldney summed up the territorial government's case in NWT Supreme Court Wednesday, asking Justice Ted Richard to reject Yellowknife Catholic Schools' (YCS) argument that only Catholics should be allowed to serve on its board of trustees.

Over a day and a half, Richard heard arguments from YCS lawyers and the NWT attorney general's lawyer, representing Debbie Euchner, Yellowknife's returning officer.

Richard reserved his decision at the end of the hearing.

Lawyers presented the judge with a staggering amount of historical legislation to review.

At the beginning of the hearing, Richard complimented the lawyers on the documents they had created outlining their arguments and on that note, suggested that the spoken presentations be as brief as possible.

"They're quite comprehensive," he said of the documents. "I simply ask that you keep that in mind."

In his introduction, YCS lawyer Kevin Feehan summed up the main point of YCS' presentation.

The Local Authorities Elections Act states that to be a school board trustee, one must be a resident of the board's school district.

According to YCS' argument, "residence" goes beyond the definition of simply living somewhere and includes having denominational residence - in this case, Catholic.

It's necessary to have Catholic trustees because YCS is part of the larger Catholic community, said Feehan.

"Trustees have to provide an example to the community by personal participation in the Catholic world," he said.

On Wednesday, Goldney said the issue is "not a straightforward matter."

He pointed to 12 volumes of material with around 120 authorities the lawyers were using, to illustrate that point.

"No one is saying that Catholic schools in the Northwest Territories cannot deliver a faith-based education," Goldney said. "But to protect these rights they need to be constitutionally entrenched."

That a Catholic school board be able to bar non-Catholics from their school board is not written in law anywhere, he said.

Letting non-Catholics on the board does not necessarily mean that it would lead to a board completely devoid of Catholics, he continued in court.

"The attorney general is not saying that Catholics cannot serve as captains of the ship," he said.

Barring non-Catholics from a Catholic school board would be different if it was the only school system available, said Feehan, responding to Goldney's submission.

"Would it be unfair if there was no public system? It would," said Feehan. "But this is a separation from the public system."

YCS chair Shannon Gullberg said after the hearing that the trusteeship issue is just one small part of the bigger picture for YCS.

"This wasn't about an individual," she said, of the fact that the court action was launched shortly after an election where Amy Hacala, a non-Catholic trustee, was re-elected.

"This is really about the value of Catholic education," said Gullberg.

The constitutional rights of the Catholic school board in the NWT became a real issue for YCS over school space, according to Gullberg.

"It just so happened that we were in an election year," she said, "but we were going this direction anyway."

Regardless of the decision on trusteeship from Richard, Gullberg said that the issue goes far beyond trustees.

"This affects the whole future of Catholic education," she said.

Gullberg would not say how much the court challenge is costing YCS, saying it was subject to "solicitor-client privilege."