REGINA – The village of Wood Mountain, Sask. wants to embarrass the province in front of the world.
Wood Mountain mayor Michael Klein is sending a letter to the United Nations human rights commission protesting the closure of the village school two years ago.
“It’s an attempt to embarrass our system more than anything else,” said Klein. “I don’t honestly believe the UN is going to come in and re-open our school.”
A group of Wood Mountain parents has fought a running battle with education and government powers in an attempt to reopen their school.
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Some children now have to spend more than two hours per day on a school bus to get to and from school, something Klein said is unreasonable.
After fighting the division school board’s decision to close the school, the parents’ group asked provincial education minister Pat Atkinson to force the division to send the matter to an independent arbitrator. Atkinson refused, saying division boards had the right to make such decisions themselves.
The group then took the complaint to the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission, which also turned it down. A court injunction to stop the closure failed.
The group then took the matter to court again, arguing the children’s constitutional rights were being breached. It lost that case as well.
The Canadian Human Rights Commission declined the group’s request to look into the school closure because it said education is not a federal responsibility, Klein said.
That leaves only the United Nations, an arena in which the Saskachewan government can be embarrassed because “it is being hypocritical.”
Klein said the government signed a declaration during the UN’s year of the child guaranteeing children education and guaranteeing parents the right to have a say over that education.
Klein doesn’t think Wood Mountain parents had any meaningful input into the decision to close the school. By going to the UN, Klein hopes Atkinson will be pushed into having school closures examined by independent boards.
“Our intent is that the system has to be changed. Those in power have to rethink what’s going on,” he said.
