On March 15, 2019 our provincial government announced several funding cuts to public education in Ontario. Therefore, we were surprised to hear from CityNews on March 20, 2019 that Doug Ford’s government plans to move forward with spending $1-billion to renew Macdonald Block, one of its government office buildings.
When 2-million Ontario students spend their days in school buildings that require $15.9-billion of repairs, we have a hard time understanding how this government is prioritizing spending $1-billion to benefit 3,600 employees.
In fact, using government-issued data on school disrepair, we found that Doug Ford’s government could actually completely repair all publicly funded schools in all six Scarborough ridings with this same $1-billion investment. The key difference? Investing in fixing all Scarborough schools would benefit over 85,000 students, teachers and education workers.
NDP leader Andrea Horwath deplores spending $1 Billion to renovate Queen’s Park offices; she wants the gov’t to have a look at the contract to “see whether some of that billion dollars can’t be used for kids’ schools.” https://t.co/NiXeYsYnCX#onpoli #onted pic.twitter.com/6VdyezAJ0G
— Fix Our Schools (@Fix_Our_Schools) March 25, 2019
We chose Scarborough ridings because the disrepair in these schools coincidentally added up to approximately $1-billion. However, this same “greater good” argument could be applied across the Province. Gives one pause for thought, doesn’t it? How many Ontario students could benefit from an additional $1-billion investment in school infrastructure?
The Fix Our Schools campaign certainly supports investment in infrastructure. We also most certainly agree that all citizens should work in safe, healthy, well-maintained buildings. However, given Doug Ford’s government focus on balancing its books and having to “prioritize” how it spends money, we question our provincial government’s priorities if they are willing to move ahead with an investment of $1-billion that will only benefit 3,600 people when it could use that same money to benefit more than 85,000 people. Twenty-four times more people could be positively impacted by investing in Ontario’s school infrastructure than in moving ahead with investments to Mcdonald Block.
As Liberal Deputy Leader John Fraser says in the CityNews interview above, “I think if we’re going to invest money, and you need it in hospitals and schools, that’s what comes first.”
However, Minister of Government and Consumer Services Bill Walker says his staff, “deserve to be in a safe environment”. We wonder if Bill Walker would agree that Ontario’s children also deserve to be in a safe environment when they are at school?