Fighting for children’s rights runs in the family

Marilynn Vanderstaay

EMSB school commissioner Ginette Sauvé-Frankel is not satisfied with just championing the rights of children and youth locally. A year into her second term, her efforts are focused on Canada’s compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and creation of a Children’s Commissioner for Canada.

Sauvé-Frankel’s life has been dominated by her passion for children’s rights since she herself was a child. “[As] a grade five student at boarding school I witnessed a little girl who had been tied to a chair by the teachers and was just crying. I couldn’t believe what I saw and I can still see her there sobbing. I don’t know what was worse, seeing her tied to the chair or realizing I had not done anything to try to stop it,” she recounts.

Sauvé-Frankel grew up in a family actively involved in social changes in Quebec, particularly those concerning education. Her grandfather was Arthur Sauvé, MNA for Two Mountains and leader of the Quebec Conservative Party before becoming a federal politician and later Postmaster General and Senator. Her father, former Quebec premier Paul Sauvé, was also the first ever Minister for Social Welfare and Youth, and her mother Luce Pelland was president of the Conservative party in Quebec in the 1960s.

Sauvé-Frankel was studying fine arts at the Ecole des Beaux Arts when she met and fell in love with one of her professors, celebrated photographer Hugh Frankel, 25 years her senior. The two would later marry and raise two sons.

After pursuing a career in the arts and completing an MBA at Concordia, Sauvé-Frankel settled down to run her own graphic design business. What altered her career path was an exhibition in 2003 featuring her family’s heritage of service to the province, which prompted her to think about how she too could make a difference.

Shortly after, longtime School Com­missioner Joan Rothman told Sauvé-Frankel she was retiring, and encouraged her to run for the position.

Sauvé-Frankel ran an effective campaign and won with a strong majority. She spent the first year getting to know the schools and finding out specific needs. As an advocate of literacy, she became particularly involved in trying to increase librarians’ hours. “I didn’t see the sense of pouring money into books in libraries if there wasn’t a trained librarian available at all times to teach the students how to use it.”

Sauve-Frankel has been on the board of the Quebec English School Boards Association for the last five years, and is the commissioner who introduced the inspiring Roots of Empathy program to inner city schools. The Vancouver-born program brings 3- to 4-month-old infants into the classroom in monthly sessions with a trained facilitator, who helps students learn about child development firsthand over a nine-month period. The results are impressive, reducing levels of aggression among students by increasing social competence and empathy skills.

Looking back, Sauvé-Frankel can credit her own unhappy school experience with motivation to help ensure it’s not repeated for others. “I’ve become a fierce defender of children,” she says, “giving them the voice that little girl in the boarding school didn’t have.”