Alberta and Saskatchewan
In Alberta and Saskatchewan, the extent of separate school education is more limited, and Protestant separate schools are slightly more present. For example, in Alberta, about 40% of the land area of the province is included in separate school jurisdictions and there are two Protestant Separate School Districts, in the City of St. Albert (St. Albert Protestant Separate School District) and in the Town of St. Paul (Glen Avon Protestant Separate School District). One anomaly of the system is that the town of Morinville, Alberta has only a public Catholic high school (part of the Greater St. Albert Catholic Regional Division), and no secular or Protestant high schools of any kind.
In Alberta and Saskatchewan, there continues to be large areas of the province where separate school education has never been established. In these two provinces, there is a clear and well-known process for determining the wishes of the members of the minority faith.
In Alberta, for example, the geographic basis for separate school establishment is the underlying public school district. At any time, three or more residents, either Protestant or Roman Catholic, who believe that they are members of the minority faith locally, can initiate the process. A census must be conducted to confirm that they are, in fact, the minority faith locally. When the census confirms minority status, a meeting must be widely advertised. The purpose of meeting is to provide a venue at which all of the local members of the minority faith can debate the pros and cons of leaving the public school jurisdiction and creating a separate school district. At the end of the meeting, a vote may be held on the question of establishment.
If the majority of the minority vote in favour of establishment, the establishment becomes a fact. If the majority of the minority vote against establishment, it does not proceed. The process is civil, democratic, and binding on the minority of the minority. A decision at the meeting against establishment precludes a number of the minority faith who may have favoured establishment from continuing for themselves. (At the same time, any decision against establishment has no term: proponents can begin almost immediately to organize a subsequent effort.)
In Alberta, wherever a separate school system exists, individuals who are of the minority faith that established the separate school system must be residents, electors, and ratepayers of the separate school system (the Schmidt decision). There is no way by which they could opt to be supporters of the public school system except by leaving the minority faith. In Saskatchewan and Ontario, members of the minority faith may choose to be supporters of the public school system, notwithstanding their faith.
This system of government for education, characterized by public school jurisdictions with (more or less) corresponding separate school jurisdictions, can be traced to the Battle of the Plains of Abraham and the Treaty of Paris, 1763.
Read more about this topic: Separate School