Who should you vote for in the CSAP elections?

It’s municipal election season and advance voting has begun. Early online and phone voting is available now until Oct. 16, and two days of advance in-person voting will happen on Oct. 12 and 15, ahead of the paper ballot election day on Oct. 19. Find HRM voting information here.

In Nova Scotia, municipal election season also means it’s time to elect new French school board (or Conseil) trustees. The Conseil scolaire acadien provincial (CSAP) has 13 elected seats this round—down from 18 in 2020—across 10 districts.

The CSAP board will have 13 elected members across 10 districts after this year’s election. Credit: CSAP Candidates Guide

Candidates run to represent their districts while also sitting on a provincial Conseil representing the interests of all CSAP voters, families, and students in Nova Scotia. In this election, only two CSAP districts are contested while the other eight are acclaimed—meaning the number of candidates running is equal to the number of seats available, so no voting is needed.

Halifax is one of those two districts with fewer seats available than the number of people running, so voting here is necessary.

Not sure how to vote for a CSAP candidate? Well, if you’re in either of the two contested districts—Halifax and Pomquet/Antigonish—voting in the CSAP election is as simple as:

Looking up your district here, and, in the HRM, looking up your voting location here
Checking to make sure that you’re on the elector list in the HRM here or calling the Voter Help Line at 902-490-VOTE (8683) or 1-844-301-VOTE (8683) to be added to the list
Making sure you fit the requirements to be an eligible CSAP voter listed here
Requesting a CSAP ballot when you vote (either online, by phone or in person)

Four candidates are running for two seats in the HRM. Three of the four candidates are running for re-election, having served on the CSAP board for the previous four-year term: Jeff Arsenault, Katherine Howlett, and Marc Pinet.

The fourth is Jean-Philippe Bourgeois, a CSAP parent on the peninsula who’s been advocating for an urban school at CSAP meetings and publicly for years.

Arsenault lives on the peninsula, is the father of two CSAP students, is an Acadian, and is an architectural technologist, designer, and urbanist by trade. He co-founded the Action Committee, which pushed for a CSAP school in downtown Halifax and resulted in the opening of école Mer et Monde in 2018.

Howlett lives in downtown Dartmouth and is the mother of four former CSAP students. Originally from Ottawa, she has lived in Dartmouth for 30 years and considers herself an Acadian by adoption. She works for the non-profit organization Conseil de développement économique de la Nouvelle-Écosse (CDÉNÉ), has worked for Nova Scotia Health as a coordinator in French Language Services, and currently works for the federal government.

Pinet is from a small Acadian community on Chaleur Bay in New Brunswick. He has lived in Nova Scotia since 1996 on the Bedford/Sackville side of the HRM. He has two children in CSAP schools, and his wife is a teacher in Halifax. He works as a wealth management advisor.

Bourgeois has lived on the Halifax peninsula since 2009 and has two children at école Mer et Monde. He has campaigned for a CSAP high school on the peninsula, made the case for more school infrastructure at Conseil meetings and presented concerns over HRM representation on the school board at the May UARB meeting. He is a lecturer in economics at Saint Mary’s University and Dalhousie University.

Information about each candidate can be found in French here.

In the spirit of election season, The Coast requested all four HRM candidates answer the same 11-item questionnaire on concerns facing CSAP families. The following has been edited for clarity and concision and contains part of the full Q&A with candidates.

The Coast : This year, voters have a choice between CSAP candidates in the HRM, unlike the last election when all three seats were acclaimed. How does your previous advocacy/work tell voters that you know what matters to them and will act in their best interests if elected? For candidates up for re-election: what did you accomplish in your previous term that shows this?

Arsenault: Anyone who has followed CSAP news, particularly parents, knows I show up at every meeting and speak on CSAP families’ behalf. It’s been challenging to show up with a strong voice in a room full of members who have succumbed to a “Don’t rock the boat” attitude, taking all direction from the CSAP board president and superintendent. What I have accomplished is not yet tangible, but hopefully, it will be soon. I have started steering the ship towards accountability, transparency and a return to democracy.

Bourgeois: I have been engaged for numerous years in the fight for more schools without having to be elected to do so. That work has included meeting parents, the media, the CSAP administration and community groups, as well as presenting to the CSAP to convince the incumbents to support asking for more schools – with success. I’ve organized letter-writing campaigns to the education minister and the CSAP asking for more services and have mobilized hundreds of parents under one voice. I ultimately want my children to want to stay in Nova Scotia and live in French as their first language wherever they are in the province and for people to not think twice about speaking French. That starts with strong communities which need education.

Howlett: I’m thrilled that there’s more interest in people wanting to be involved at the school board level and hopefully more interest in people wanting to contribute in different ways. The school board’s job is to work together to ensure that the CSAP fulfills its mandate to provide a quality French first language education to students across the province. Its governance is not day-to-day. It’s high level, and it’s “big picture.” Accomplishments belong to the Conseil and not to an individual member. I fulfilled my obligations to the best of my ability. I was always prepared for meetings and was actively participating in various committees. I understand where some pressure points are for families and students and in making sure the school board runs smoothly so that kids can take the next steps to reach their goals. Our job as an education system is to ensure kids are well prepared.

I’m a mother of four children who attended CSAP schools, and I can relate to the concerns that many people may experience. I’m in the position where my children have graduated high school, and I can attest that their time with the CSAP was well spent. I live in Dartmouth, and over the years, I’ve volunteered on all kinds of sports teams—soccer, basketball, and volleyball—and was the head of the Dartmouth delegation at the Jeux d’Acadie for three years. I slept on many classroom floors across the province as a chaperone. That’s where you can see the culture’s vitality, where kids recognize each other and feel that sense of community. Seeing all those kids from across the province—nearly 700 speaking French and having fun—had a lasting impact on me.

Pinet: People get to make a choice this election–it’s great. It gives people a choice of who and what they want. Also, competition brings information about who can vote and what sitting on the school board means because even though it’s a municipal election, it’s a little different. You’re on the board, part of the team; you’re not a solo representative for your district. It’s important to realize you represent all the communities in Nova Scotia. You have a fiduciary duty to all the students and programs in the province, not just your local community. Your role is governance of the organization. When you sit at the board table, it’s a discussion as a group.

I’ve personally taken on some motions addressing the school infrastructure process. Infrastructure will always be a challenge. There are a lot of processes and a lot of steps to take until we’re finally there, but we’ve made improvements in how we structure what we can control and what and how we ask for things in terms of the Conseil’s processes—and that was guided by questions and follow-ups. So, infrastructure is always first and foremost. It’s good, it’s not perfect, but I think we as a board have made progress in how we ask for schools, the best we can. It’s an ongoing process that’s not going to go away.

I have had great success in working respectfully with other council members over the last four years. I have friends, connections, and parents in all corners of the HRM, and I’ve shown I have a good ear for listening. I’ve been lucky enough that people have felt comfortable approaching me on different subjects throughout the last four years. I’ve always voted in the best interest of all our communities in Nova Scotia, not only for the HRM.

The Coast: What should be the first order of business at the newly elected school board’s first meeting on Nov. 2? Why?

Arsenault: A self-reflection of who we work for. I’m hoping we all agree that we work for the parents. So far, most of what we do satisfies the provincial government’s wishes.

Bourgeois: The CSAP has commissioned a study to find out where schools should be placed across Nova Scotia to achieve equity. It should have been ready last June. Therefore, the first orders of business should be to:

Make a motion to make the study public. The community needs to know.
Begin thinking of steps towards bringing litigation against the province for real equity. It’s time we get school infrastructure across Nova Scotia.

CSAP is mandated to protect our communities; it’s time they did it.

Howlett: For me, the first order is that board members take an oath to respect the policies of their mandate, including confidentiality. I live by my values: honesty, hard work and transparency, and I model these for my kids.

Pinet: I think it’s really for new board members to know the role of the board and how the board works, which will make us more effective for a longer period of time. This is important because I think people go into this thinking it’s one thing, but it’s not.

You’re a member of the board with different rules and different ways of doing things compared to a city councillor, for example. I think the quicker you can bring up people up to speed on knowing how the Conseil works and how to be effective—to know that we’re a unit and we really have to work with each other to educate everybody about our region and vice versa—then that’s how it’s gonna work best. If you’re a hockey team and half the people haven’t skated, that hockey team isn’t successful.

In our first meeting after the 2020 election, all the board trustees were given some great resources to understand the historical context of the CSAP as well how to properly and effectively work as a board member. And it’s been a continuous education. So, I think the role of a trustee is really about applying yourself and being dedicated to learning what those resources are.

The Coast: In your own words, explain the growth of CSAP communities in the past four years. Is the Conseil doing enough to keep and attract CSAP families and students to their schools?

Arsenault: The growth is steady for the most part, but we should be growing by leaps and bounds. Over and over, we’ve had the experience of] opening a new school that’s either overcrowded immediately or in very short order—except for école secondaire Mosaïque. That is an absolute failure at all levels that I want to undo. Had we opened another school anywhere except Burnside, it would be overcrowded today. Even though our schools are well attended, every single one of them was placed in a location to serve everybody, but what that really means is that it doesn’t serve anyone well. This is very important. Poor service means that many parents choose to send their kids to the, often much closer, English or French immersion schools.

Bourgeois: I believe the CSAP wants to see more growth in the province and in HRM. More francophone education is certainly one of the core pillars of ensuring the Acadian and Francophone communities are not fully assimilated, and it’s clear the CSAP knows this.

However, I do not believe they are doing enough, or they don’t understand how to with the same result: insufficient school infrastructure across all of HRM.

Do not get me wrong, getting more infrastructure requires dealing with the province, which clearly does not understand minority groups; otherwise, we would have equity. Unfortunately for the Francophone community, the CSAP has not been able to make the province understand this in its 25 years of existence.

Howlett: I’ll tell the story through for my family. When my eldest child started preschool, there was one francophone school in HRM: du Carrefour in Dartmouth. It was pre-primary to Grade 12. When she started primary school, there was école Bois-Joli in Dartmouth, and école Beaubassin had opened as an elementary school. By the time she was in Grade 9, école du Sommet had opened. And then after école du Sommet, we saw école des Beaux-Marais in Porter’s Lake, we saw école du Grand-Portage in Lower Sackville and then Mosaïque. So, in those 25 years, we’ve seen expansions in schools and partnerships. Not all the schools were built new—there are different ways schools were acquired—but HRM has grown. I hope that when I have grandchildren, they can attend CSAP schools in their communities as well.

Pinet: It’s hard to explain just by focusing on one district when the Conseil has a province-wide decision-making role. If we bring it back to the HRM, then yes, we have unique needs. Halifax 2024 is different from Halifax 2020. I look at the city’s growth: we all have different stories. This is the Halifax story. The important part is understanding stories from communities across the province—from the southwest, Pomquet, Truro, Cheticamp, etc. We’re experiencing different challenges. You can only understand these by communicating well with the other board members and listening to their stories. Once we collaborate, we can learn together and develop solutions.

The Coast: Finally, what is your primary purpose should you be re-elected? How will you achieve it?

Arsenault: I will continue doing what I have been doing: putting pressure on the board to work harder, understand the issues at hand, and focus on the primary goal of achieving equitable service for all francophones of Nova Scotia. I hope to hold those accountable at all levels of government for their past bad decisions that are preventing us from realizing our full potential.

Bourgeois: If CSAP does not fight for more schools – we won’t get them. And if HRM does not get anything, with such a large deficit in elected seats, it is unlikely that other regions will ever get anything but crumbs (i.e. old anglophone schools). I am here to fight so that when my children grow up and think about settling anywhere in Nova Scotia, they don’t think twice about not doing so because of the lack of school infrastructure.

All regions are important; it’s not a zero-sum game. I’m going to take the time to talk and help people understand that this is a common fight for all Acadian and francophone families across Nova Scotia. It’s not the first time that our community has mobilized to fight. We know how to do it.

Howlett: To serve the members of the Acadian and francophone communities in the province to ensure quality French first language education and promote Acadian and francophone culture. I consider myself to be an Acadian by adoption.

Pinet: I got into this when my youngest was first starting school. I have two girls who attend Beaubassin and Sommet. My primary purpose is to be a role model for them and a leader in the community. I have a passion for this culture and French first language education. My family’s been here since the 1600s, and in terms of being part of what’s called a linguistic minority, it’s hard to keep that language. I think that language goes along with the culture, and the culture is really interesting.

We’ve already talked about the hot topics to address: school infrastructure and for the CSAP to become more successful. Each board member had a hand in developing the CSAP’s strategic plan, and I want to continue being part of something that will improve our communities and French education.

To achieve this, you do need to sacrifice and dedicate your time. I’ve had the pleasure of attending graduations, seeing smiles on students’ faces, and interacting with teachers to discuss their needs. I’ve talked to parents and shared stories. I have the energy and desire to put in the effort to make a difference and lend my voice to the governance of the CSAP.

Read each candidate’s full series of responses at the links below.