Cutting school repair fund makes no sense, says Falls MPP Gates
Local students shouldn’t be unable to concentrate because of how hot it is in their classrooms during the warmer months, nor should they have to wear jackets and gloves in the winter, says Niagara Falls MPP Wayne Gates.
These are realities he has heard are taking place in Niagara schools — reasons he feels the move by Ontario’s Tory government to eliminate a $100million school repair fund generated through the Liberals’ carbon gas tax is a dangerous one that will be a detriment to young minds and their learning environments.
“Cutting it makes absolutely no sense from a perspective of what our schools have been going through for the last number of years,” said Gates, who noted a recent visit he made to Garrison Road Public School in Fort Erie after receiving several letters from students who said high temperatures in their classrooms affected their ability to focus on tests.
The New Democrat MPP for Niagara Falls, Fort Erie and Niagara-onthe-Lake also claims the water quality in school fountains is low.
“When your kids go to school, they should at least be able to drink water,” he said.
The fund had no direct impact on a $15-billion backlog of work that needs to be done in Ontario’s publicly-funded schools, according to Gates, but should remain available to also prevent things from getting worse.
“You have to do preventative maintenance to make sure the backlog doesn’t get so bad you can never catch up,” said Gates. “Cancelling it is a big mistake.”
John Crocco, director of education for Niagara Catholic District School Board, said the $1.2 million his board has received in the past two years allowed certain projects to be moved up the to-do list.
“It provided us to accelerate the replacement, renewal and installation of some of the things in our capital plan,” he said.
Niagara Catholic has a plan that encompasses the next three years that also takes from funding allocated by the Ministry of Education for school condition improvements, facility renewal and prohibitive-to-repair projects.
Without the more than $1 million in funding incorporated into the budget,
it will cause the board to take a second look at what work needs to be done first.
“We’ll have to re-prioritize the items that need to be completed in a particular time period,” Crocco said.
The board’s capital budget for the 2018-19 academic year is more than $13 million.
Meanwhile, District School Board of Niagara claims it isn’t showing signs of concern over the Conservatives’ decision to scrap the repair fund, largely in part due to cost savings that have resulted from the closure of aging and underpopulated buildings in recent years. Board chair Dale Robinson said DSBN, through a series of amalgamations, has reduced its number of facilities to 98 from 120 over the past decade.
“We’ve been able to use that money to maintain and upgrade
“You have to do preventative maintenance to make sure the backlog doesn’t get so bad you can never catch up.” WAYNE GATES Niagara Falls NDP MPP
the buildings we do have. We’re in good shape,” she said.
About $1 million in heating and ventilation projects will be undertaken as a result of the repair fund because the money was allocated before July 3 — the deadline given by the province under the direction of Premier Doug Ford.
“We’re ahead of a lot of other boards in terms of getting those things in place,” Robinson said.
“They haven’t been as good with consolidating schools. They’re going to find themselves in some difficulty.”
Robinson said DSBN’s schools are in “fantastic shape.”
Kim Yielding, manager of communications and public relations for DSBN, said there is no immediate, short-term impact as a result of the cut.
Yielding said DSBN has “shifted from a repair-when-broken to a more proactive” approach when keeping schools up to date.
Niagara West MPP Sam Oosterhoff, parliamentary assistant to Education Minister Lisa Thompson, declined a phone interview, but provided a statement on the recent decision made by his party.
“The Ontario PCs were elected on a commitment to cancel the cap-and-trade Liberal carbon tax, and that is exactly what we are doing,” he said.
“We are committed to putting money back in the pockets of hardworking Ontarians, and we will be consulting with front-line educators and school boards to ensure funds are being allocated in the most cost-effective ways possible,” Oosterhoff said.