Education Minister Bill Hogan is threatening to dissolve the Anglophone East district education council if it doesn’t stop spending money on its legal fight with the province by the end of Thursday.

Hogan says in a new letter to the council chair that he wants it to confirm in writing by 5 p.m. Thursday that it will ask its lawyers to return any money devoted to the case and not spend any more.

“It is my opinion that the Litigation Expenditure is evidence that the resources of the DEC are being expended in an irresponsible manner,” Hogan wrote in the letter to chair Harry Doyle obtained by CBC News.

The district education council has gone to court asking a judge to block Hogan from quashing its policy on sexual orientation and gender identity and to prevent him from dissolving the council.

If the council halted all spending on the case Thursday afternoon, it would in effect stop the case from going forward, before the judge can rule on the merits.