Victory may prove costly
Reinventing role of schools in smaller communities could cost taxpayers a lot of money
Politics is the art of the possible, and Premier Wade MacLauchlan knew he couldn’t possibly win another election after closing schools.
So he did the predictable, he backed down.
It wasn’t pretty. It never is when a politician invests a big bucket load of his own political capital into a project, then has to run for the hills when he realizes it’s not going to work.
And closing schools was not going to work.
Did the idea make sense? Hard numbers suggest probably. There are a number of schools in this province that simply cannot attract enough students to warrant the considerable outlay of public cash needed to keep the doors open.
And the demographics suggest that’s not going to change.
P.E.I. may lag – mercifully – behind other areas of this country when it comes to the tide dragging people away from rural areas into more jobfriendly urban settings. But the Island is not immune to that tide.
Parents were understandably defensive when it came to the future of their schools.
Much of their angst is connected to their concerns about what is best for their children. The small school that’s walking distance down the street looks a lot more welcoming to little Jane or John than a bus ride to a much bigger building miles away.
And if you want people to come to a public meeting, putting pressure on politicians who must come begging for their votes every four years, suggesting something might hurt their children is always a winner.
MacLauchlan looked at the hard numbers, tried to shift some of the decision-making power to an advisory body, and came to what he thought was a logical conclusion. Closing some small schools would result in a more efficient spending of public money, a good thing.
But he miscalculated the power of the emotional argument.
And when the premier saw what was certain to result if he agreed to close any schools – the loss of seats, and perhaps power, in the next election – he blinked.
The ink was barely cold on the recommendations about closing St. Jean and Georgetown when the premier jumped in front of a microphone and said it’s not happening.
Instant celebration by those opposing the closures. They’d won. And they had.
But that was the easy part. Now comes the tricky part. The shift of population from rural to urban is incredibly difficult to defy.
If the province is serious about keeping these schools open long term, it has to make sense financially. Keeping a school open with 50 students inside is a problem. Keeping one open with 40, or 35, is impossible.
Nova Scotia has been experimenting with the idea of turning some schools into community hubs, in essence expanding the role of the building. The hope seems to be this will allow the buildings to stay open and perhaps help rebuild the economic base of the community.
There’s nothing simple about that idea.
It’s an experiment, which means there will be failures. And in government, all failures are expensive. Just ask the P.E.I. government, which just gave away a golf resort. It had to bribe a businessman to take it off their hands.
Reinventing the role of schools in smaller communities could make that experiment look like peanuts in comparison. Voters must be ready to pay, because it’s their money that will be spent.