mercredi 5 novembre 2008

You mean we could have been the first family exempted?

Seconde tentative d'une commission scolaire de museler l'avocat de la CLE lors d'une réunion du comité de révision des demandes d'exemption au cours d'ECR.

Nous avions déjà parlé des procédés étranges de la Commission scolaire Riverside. Voici la relation des événements qu'en fait un des parents impliqués.
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Riverside School Board on October 21, 2008 at 6:30 PM

Myself, Gina Petrozza and Maitre Jean-Yves Côté presented ourselves at Riverside School Board. Following a refusal to the exemption form to take my child out of the ethics and religious course, I asked for a revision. I was asked to present my arguments against this decision by the school board.

To make my argument more complete and understandable I invited maître Côté who obviously could explain the legal aspect of my argument much better than I. Maître Côté graciously accepted my invitation.

We entered the building and were told to wait in a meeting room.

Maître Côté was asked who he was and said he was the lawyer who accompanied me. He was told by Ms. Denise Paulsen that the request for the revision was asked for by myself and that only I could attend but that if he wanted to assist and be silent he could. Maître Côté answered back that I have a right to be represented and that the law in Quebec gives me that right. Mrs. Paulsen stated again that this was not so and he could not come in to express himself on my behalf.

Mrs. Paulsen asked us to wait once more and went in the next boardroom to discuss with the assembly of commissioners. After a little while both myself and maître Côté were invited to sit down in the boardroom. Only I was addressed, however, with no acknowledgement of maître Côté. Seeing this I gave maître Côté permission to answer the board when I was addressed to speak so that we could clear the fact that he came to present some of the arguments with me.

The board once more said that he could not represent me as a lawyer.

He was not allowed. Maître Côté asked to provide proof of where it was written in their directives that this was so. No one could come up with any document. The committee stated that it was decided so and so it remained as the procedure they would take.

It was suggested by the spokespeople at the head of the committee that the meeting was to be cancelled and it was motioned in majority that it would not. We were asked to leave. Maître Côté requested their minutes and said that further procedures were to follow.

We were escorted to the first room where maître Côté had left some of his presentation. One commissioner came to ensure that we would leave.

This man said that things could have turned out better if maître Côté were not present. Maitre Cote commented to the man saying something like, did he mean to say that I could actually be the first in the province of Quebec to get my child exempted from the course?
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