New-school tally rises to 50 with announcement
Premier Alison Redford announced Wednesday the provincial government will build a new school in Grande Prairie, marking a major milestone in her costly pledge to build 50 new schools and renovate 70 more during her first four years in office.
The kindergarten to Grade 9 Catholic school is slated to be built in the Royal Oaks community and will create spaces for up to 700 students by 2016, Redford said during the announcement.
“Our priority is to continue to provide flexible, well-designed learning facilities in communities where Alberta families live,” Redford said in a written statement.
The school is in addition to two other kindergarten to Grade 8 schools announced last year that would create spaces for up to 1,650 students in the Grande Prairie area.
Redford made the $2.4-billion pledge in Calgary on April 4, 2012, in the middle of a brutal election battle against Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith. At the time, the province predicted soaring energy revenues would deliver a $950-million surplus in the 2013 fiscal year followed by a whopping $5.2 billion in 2014.
Smith promised to return 20 per cent of those surpluses to Albertans in energy dividends; Redford said she would use the money to build schools
The surpluses never materialized, however, and in 2013 the Redford government posted the province’s sixth consecutive deficit budget.
The budget included $503 million over three years for new schools, a fraction of the $2.4 billon Redford originally promised to spend. Crucially, little is known about how much the schools will cost and how they will be funded, and the provincial government has stopped issuing news releases to major media outlets when some schools are announced.
In a series of unpublicized online advisories last week, the government promised to build five new schools for 4,450 students. The advisories provided no financial details and each contained the same statement from Redford, substituting only the name of the town where each school is to be built.
The schools include two in Red Deer for 1,800 students, a K-9 public school in Fort Saskatchewan for up to 800 children, a K-5 public school in Airdrie for at least 750 children, a K-8 school in Sylvan Lake for at least 500 children and a Catholic K-9 school in Leduc with room for 600 students.
Leduc-Beaumont MLA George Rogers told the Leduc Representative newspaper schools like the one that will be built in his community typically cost between $15 million and $20 million — the only information government has released concerning cost. Earlier this month, Infrastructure Minister Ric McIver said he has a budget, but won’t reveal the figures until after bidding is complete.