October 2017 Hon. Mitzie Hunter Minister of Education 22nd Floor, Mowat Block, 900 Bay Street Toronto, Ontario M7A 1L2 Honorable Minister, I have followed the discussions regarding the recent report from the French-Language University Planning Board. These discussions confirm that a new a Francophone post-secondary institution may be constructed on Toronto’s waterfront, east of downtown. It is therefore ironic that, in spite of the repeated requests from the French Language Services Commissioner of Ontario, the French-Language school boards of Toronto, and numerous rights holders under Section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, that your Ministry still refuses to provide a French-language secondary school for the young Francophones in the Toronto-Danforth and Beaches-East York area. The lack of a French-language secondary school equivalent to those in the English-language system forces students to leave the French-language education system, and results in their assimilation in local English-language schools. This constitutes a breach of the rights of Francophones under Section 23 of the Charter. Furthermore, the young Francophone students who leave the French-language system due to a lack of equivalent and accessible French-language secondary education are unlikely to ever pursue their post- secondary studies in French. By refusing to respect their constitutional rights, the Ministry of Education is harming the Province’s own Francophone University project, a project which predicts a few hundred students at a start-up cost of more than $80 million. Meanwhile, there are close to 1,000 French- language elementary students in the Toronto-Danforth and Beaches-East York areas of Toronto. As a parent of a child in the French-language school system, I am asking you to recognize the constitutional rights of these students that guarantees their access to a quality French-language secondary school, and I am asking you to provide this school expeditiously. It is only by supporting French-language education at the secondary level that we can allow these students to realize your government’s vision for French-language education at the post-secondary level. Yours sincerely, Name : Signature : Address : CC : Hon. Kathleen Wynne, Premier of Ontario Hon. Marie-France Lalonde, Minister of Francophone Affairs Hon. Deb Matthews, Minister of Advanced Education and Skills Development Peggy Sattler, MPP Opposition Critic (Education, Advanced Education, Skills and Development) Patrick Brown, MPP Opposition Critic (Education) Lorne Coe, MPP Opposition Critic (Post-secondary Education) François Boileau, French Language Services Commissioner of Ontario Arthur Potts, MPP Beaches-East York Peter Tabuns, MPP Toronto-Danforth Lianne Doucet, Member of la Coalition pour une École Secondaire de Quartier .