On January 30, 2025, the Cabinet of British Columbia fired the elected Board of Education of Greater Victoria School District No. 61 (the “Board”). This termination followed a disagreement between the Minister of Education and Child Care (the “Minister”) and the Board as to whether there should be police officers in schools. This program is called a School Police Liaison Officer program (the “SPLO Program”).

The terminated Board members are applying for a judicial review of three related orders by the Minister. After first ordering the Board to create a Safety Plan in collaboration with police forces and noting that the plan submitted did not contain an SPLO program, the Minister then ordered the appointment of a Special Advisor to the Board to revise the plan. The Minister did not accept any of the three revised safety plan options, despite one of the revised safety plans including an SPLO program. In the final order, the Lieutenant Governor in Council issued an order in council terminating the Board, replacing the elected Board members with an appointed special trustee (the “Termination Order”).

The Board argues that the Termination Order was procedurally unfair, and that both the Termination Order and the order to re-draft the safety plan were made in bad faith, and were ultra vires, i.e., beyond the legal authority of the Minister and Cabinet because it was not in the “public interest” to do so.

BCCLA makes two arguments. First, the court should interpret section 172 of the School Act—the legislation that the Minister and Cabinet say gave them the authority to make the Termination Order—bearing in mind democratic principles. The School Act sets out the democratic and independent nature of school boards with policy-making and decision-making powers and is tasked with representing its constituents. Section 172 must be interpreted in a way that respects the intent that school boards are democratically-elected and independent in its policy-making functions.

Second, Charter values inform the interpretation of “public interest” in section 168.03 of the School Act—the legislation that enables the government to issue an administrative direction to the Board. The record, including the correspondence with the BC Human Rights Commissioner regarding policing in schools, demonstrates that the equality rights of marginalized students in the district were implicated by the decision to implement a SPLO Program. The values of equality and non-discrimination and the impact of the SPLO Program on marginalized students ought to be considered when interpreting what “public interest” means in the context of issuing an administrative direction or terminating a democratically elected school board and appointing a trustee.