The Sturgeon Falls Education Crisis () was a 1971 language-rights conflict in Ontario centered on the provision of French-language education for the Franco-Ontarian community in Sturgeon Falls, Northern Ontario.
Background
Historically, anglophone governments in Ontario have attempted to suppress the French language, especially in education, such as through the Regulation 17, which outlawed education in the French language in the province. Despite the repeal of Regulation 17 in 1927, it would take until 1968 for the Ontarian government to officially recognise and fund French-language public schools.
The late 1960s also saw a schism form between the francophones in Quebec, and the other francophone communities of Canada, notably the francophones in Ontario. The emergence of a separate québécois identity during the Quiet Revolution; also resulted in the development of a unique Franco-Ontarian identity, with francophones in Ontario forced to re-conceptualize their identities without relying on francophones in Quebec. In 1969, following the advice of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, Ontario's premier John Robarts made French an official language of the Ontario Legislative Assembly in 1970.
Crisis
Despite 80% of the population of Sturgeon Falls being francophone, the Nipissing School Board refused to create a French-language high school in the town after the Ontarian government began allowing French-language public schools in 1968. At the time, the board of administration of the North Bay and District Board of Education was composed of 17 members, of which only three were francophone, and there were 1600 secondary school students in the region, of which 1200 were francophone. The North Bay and District Board of Education argued that it would cost too much money to have a separate school for the only 400 Anglophone students and so the only secondary school in the town would remain Anglophone.
On 1 January 1969, 300 Franco-Ontarians gathered to protest calling for the Board of Education to create a francophone high school. As the demonstration was only loosely-organised, however, the Board of Education ignored it.
In March 1970, a petition with 2277 signatures of parents and Franco-Ontarian students was presented to the school board for the creation of a francophone school, but was denied. After the refusal of the petition, 500 francophone students in the region announced their intentions to launch a strike, and would refuse to enroll at the beginning of the next term. In April, francophone teachers announced their intentions to join the strike, and formed the Association d'éducation de l'Ouest Nipissing (AÉON).
Ahead of the 1970-71 scholastic year, the North Bay and District Board of Education created a compromise mixed-language high school, where one side of the school would be francophone and the other side of the building would be Anglophone, however that school quickly found itself mired in conflict. Throughout the year, various school board meetings and AÉON meetings were held, both in Sturgeon Falls and in nearby towns, such as North Bay, often attended by hundreds of people and with police sometimes forced to sneak the school board administrators away from the unrest. At the end of the school year, the school's principal, Hubert Trudel, resigned, stating that it was the most impossible school to manage in Ontario.
During the summer of 1971, francophone students created the Comité d'action étudiante to continue to fight for a francophone school. That summer, two francophone newspapers, Le Journal and Coup d'oeil, were also formed to report on the crisis, and another petition was launched, collecting the signatures of 75 of the 106 teachers at the mixed-language school. On 2 August, Premier Bill Davis was approached on the subject during a visit to North Bay and refused to get involved, stating that the school board was autonomous.