A lawsuit between the local public and separate school boards, which has been smouldering for nearly a decade, will likely be going to trial.
At the Good Spirit School Division (GSSD) regular board meeting on November 15, Dwayne Reeve, director of education for the public division, reported the results of a Saskatchewan Court of Appeals (COA) decision by Mr. Justice J.A. Cameron that went in GSSD's favour.
"Justice Cameron made it clear that the issue is not to be determined on a preliminary basis, but is properly decided at trial," Reeve wrote.
"What it means is there is the potential to be in court sometime in 2014," he told Yorkton This Week.
At the heart of the suit is the issue of whether the Government of Saskatchewan has the right to provide funding to a catholic school division for non-catholic students.
The government remains silent on the case.
"We're named as a party, so we can't comment because it's still before the courts," said Drew Johnston, director of legislative services and privacy for the Ministry of Education.
Johnston did admit, however, that it is "an important case," that could have "ramifications" for how schools are funded in Saskatchewan.
"It's important to everyone involved," said Reeve. "It's important not only to both public and catholic schools, but to the province as well."
In 2003, prior to the closure of the public school in Theodore, Roman Catholic electors in the Theodore District established the Theodore Roman Catholic Separate School Division, now amalgamated into Christ the Teacher Catholic Separate School Division (CTTS).
Because of the strong desire of parents of non-catholic students in Theodore to have their children attend school locally rather than be bussed to the designated public school in Springside, many opted to send their children to the new St. Theodore School.
Yorkdale School Division-now amalgamated into Good Spirit School Division-launched the lawsuit against the separate division and the Province on the basis that the separate division was operating a public school and it was therefore unconstitutional for it to receive separate school funding.
The separate school division responded with the position that the public division could not invoke the constitution as it deals with individual freedoms leaving the public division with no cause of action on that basis.
Years of legal arguments, pleadings, discovery, applications and amendments ensued. This summer, the case heated up again when, on August 27, Court of Queen's Bench Mr. Justice R.C. Mills turned down a request by CTTS to strike Good Spirit's pleadings on the basis they did not disclose a reasonable cause of action.
Mills decided that while GSSD may or may not have standing to bring suit on some other basis, it did have "public interest standing" because: it raises a serious legal question; public schools have a genuine interest in the resolution of that question and; there is no other reasonable and effective manner in which the question can be brought to court.
Christ the Teacher immediately applied to the COA for a "leave to appeal" Mills' decision on grounds that Mills made several errors of judgment. The Draft Notice of Appeal entered on behalf of CTTS by Collin K. Hirschfeld sought to have the Court of Appeals order that GSSD does not have standing and dismiss the claim.
In a decision dated October 29, 2012, Justice Cameron denied the leave to appeal application. While the judge took issue with some of Mills' reasoning, he dismissed CTTS fears that the Mills decision and a previous ruling by Madam Justice J.L. Pritchard would constitute de facto standing for GSSD should the suit go to trial.
"I cannot imagine the trial judge will do anything but approach the issue of standing objectively and with an open mind, uncluttered in the least by what may have been said or done during these interlocutory stages in the conduct of the action," Cameron wrote. "Indeed, I am sufficiently confident of this to suggest the Separate School Division's fears are unfounded."
