New plaque recognizes Sudbury, Ont. school's defiance of Ontario law that made French education illegal

The Uptown Sudbury Community Action Network and the Ontario Heritage Trust unveiled a new plaque Monday to commemorate the Saint Louis-de-Gonzague School and its early history as a symbol of Franco-Ontarian rights.

When the Sudbury, Ont. school was founded in 1915, Ontario's Regulation 17 made French-language education illegal after Grade 2.

But the school defied that law and secretly taught students in French.

"So as our plaque story tells, between the visits of the education inspector coming to see what was happening, it was a full French school serving a huge and growing francophone community here," said Courtney St-Jean, chair of the Uptown Sudbury Community Action Network.

Regulation 17 was repealed in 1927.

In 2019 the community action network campaigned for the school building to receive a heritage designation. 

At that time, St-Jean said a developer had plans to "wrap the building in stucco."

The next year, she said city council approved their request to grant the building heritage designation, which would protect the exterior façade. 

"What I'm hoping for is that the developer or future owner of this building will follow the heritage designation and at least maintain the exterior façade," St-Jean said,

It has so many original architectural features of interest from the Art Deco era, even just cleaning it up, making sure that everything is at least stable, we would be happy with that."

Now the building's new plaque gives further recognition to its history as a French-language school, until it shuttered its doors in 2000.

David Leonard, a communications and marketing specialist with the Ontario Heritage Trust, said the organization has made efforts in recent years to recognize different perspectives in the province's history.

"Franco-Ontarian history is one of those interpretive priorities," he said.

"And we were really pleased to see this application to commemorate École Saint Louis-de-Gonzague come forward."

Paul de la Riva, a former student at the school, said it was important for him to be at the unveiling ceremony for the plaque.

"I remember this school as being a very strong and vibrant community school that served the francophone population around the downtown core," de la Riva said.