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Colleges looking to federal Liberals for increased funding

November 19, 2015

Our new federal government’s commitment to increased infrastructure investment in the coming years has piqued interest in many sectors.

We’re certainly calling on the Ontario provincial government to increase capital funding to public school boards, based on the promise of new federal infrastructure money. It seems that colleges across the country are making a direct call upon the new federal government for increased funding.

The November 11, 2015 article entitled, “Colleges to Liberals: we don’t have enough buildings for students”, features the college sector’s requests of the federal government. Aging infrastructure and buildings bursting at the seams are but a few issues mentioned, which require money to address.

Colleges, like public schools, are traditionally under provincial jurisdiction. However, colleges, like public schools, need funding beyond what the provinces are allocating in order to meet the needs of students.  Hopeful the new federal government will provide assistance!

$498-million investment in new schools and renovations – not enough!

November 16, 2015

On November 9, 2015, Kathleen Wynne’s government announced that $498-million would go towards:

  • 30 new schools
  • 26 major additions and renovations
  • 122 safe, high-quality licensed child care rooms, resulting in 2,135 new licensed spaces for infants, toddlers and pre-schoolers.

In the 2014 budget, the provincial government committed $11-billion in capital grants to school boards over 10 years. This $498-million investment is a part of that $11-billion commitment and is certainly great news for the communities who will benefit.

However, with $15-billion of disrepair in Ontario’s public schools, this recent announcement is really just a drop in a very large bucket. With this level of investment, the disrepair in our children’s schools will continue to worsen and the urgency of repair items will increase.

The Province must commit to ensuring that public schools benefit from the promised new federal infrastructure funding. If you agree, send this letter to Premier Wynne and your local MPP.

Send a letter to the Province that you want schools prioritized as key infrastructure!

November 10, 2015

On November 10, Fix Our Schools is launching a province-wide letter-writing campaign to our provincial government to let them know that we expect them to prioritize the repair and rebuilding of schools. We want Premier Wynne to “do more and do it faster” … and we want her to include public schools on the list of important infrastructure to be funded!

To send this letter, click here and be sure to include your local MPP and add your name and mailing address at the end of the letter.

You can also simply copy and paste the following letter into an email.

Dear Premier Wynne, Minister Sandals, Deputy Minister Zegarac & Ontario Ombudsman

All 72 school boards in Ontario have a capital repair backlog, for a total of $15 billion of disrepair in our province’s public schools.

The 2 million students who attend Ontario public schools deserve better, as do the countless children who attend childcare/early learning programs in these same schools; the adults who work every day in these buildings; and the community members who rely upon these buildings as important community hubs.

On October 19, Canadians voted for change. We gave the Federal Liberals a mandate to deliver on their promise to increase investment in infrastructure, even if this means running a deficit. In reaction to the majority win by the Federal Liberals, Premier Wynne said:

Now that we have a federal partner with the same priority, we can do more and we can do it faster.         

As a citizen of Ontario, I urge Kathleen Wynne’s government to apply this sentiment to quickly addressing the $15 billion of disrepair in our province’s school buildings. The current commitment of $11 billion in capital grants to school boards over 10 years is insufficient. More public schools in this province must be repaired and rebuilt – and we must do it faster.

So, as those with power over the funding of public schools in this province:

Will you increase capital grants to school boards to repair and rebuild Ontario’s public schools now?

Public schools are a key component of our society’s infrastructure – and must be funded as such. I look forward to hearing back from you with an answer to the question above.

Kind regards,

YOUR NAME

YOUR MAILING ADDRESS

Thanks for helping to fix our schools!

If you believe your child’s school is in good shape…you may be surprised

November 9, 2015

Many parents we’ve spoken with over the past 18 months have said that their children’s school is in “pretty good shape” except for maybe needing a new coat of paint. Fix Our Schools wants to emphasize that much of the disrepair reflected in the $15-billion repair backlog in Ontario’s schools is invisible. Parents, teachers and students would have no way of knowing about much of the disrepair until there was a system failure. For instance, until classes are cancelled at a school because there is no heat, people would presume the boiler was in good shape.

The takeaway here is that just because the disrepair is invisible doesn’t mean that it won’t impact students and teachers at some point and definitely doesn’t mean that it can be deferred indefinitely!  So, how is all of this disrepair calculated if much of it is invisible?  Great question!  Read on…

Over the past five years, Ontario’s Ministry of Education has engaged a company called VFA, a leading provider of facility assessment services, to assess the condition of Ontario’s approximately 4,900 public schools via a “Facility Condition Assessment’ (FCA).

An FCA involves a team of one or more specialists inspecting each system (mechanical, electrical, plumbing and architectural/structural elements) in a school building to understand its condition. The FCA team takes into account the remaining useful life of the system and also conducts a physical assessment of the school building. Unfortunately, this physical assessment is usually limited to a visual inspection and rarely involves any destructive or intrusive testing to make a better determination of the state of the building component. Therefore, an FCA team could visually inspect a school’s roof and deem it to be in good condition, and then the following week a major rain storm could prove that assessment incorrect when the roof starts to leak.

The FCA Team determines an estimated cost for each item of work that should be done on the school building’s system components (mechanical, electrical, plumbing and architectural/structural elements) and assigns each item of work a priority level: urgent, high, medium or low.

So, disrepair in public schools is based on these Facilities Condition Assessments conducted by VFA, a third party company engaged by the provincial government. Given the limitations of these assessments, the estimated $15-billion of disrepair in all 72 of Ontario’s publicly funded school boards may actually be quite conservative. Yet another reason why Kathleen Wynne’s provincial government must start to prioritize school buildings as important public infrastructure that must be repaired and rebuilt!

Feds should fund larger infrastructure projects – not curling rinks and hockey arenas!

November 3, 2015

A group of Canadian economists has concluded that the federal government would deliver more benefit to Canadians by investing in larger infrastructure projects rather than smaller projects, which include many extra administrative costs.

A series of three research papers on federal infrastructure funding was released November 2, 2015 by the University of Calgary’s school of public policy. “Striking the Right Balance: Federal Infrastructure Transfer Programs, 2002-2015” by Bev Dahlby and Emily Jackson provides the insight above and states that, “by providing more in the form of block grants, Ottawa can leave smaller stuff to smaller governments, where it, and much else, properly belongs”.

So, while it is tempting for a federal government seeking favour from voters to dole out small infrastructure projects like curling rinks and hockey arenas to many communities across the country, the wiser investment would be larger infrastructure projects – like transit, roads and rebuilding our schools!

Let’s hope Prime Minister Trudeau and his new cabinet are paying attention!

 

Ontario must fix more schools… and do it faster

October 28, 2015

Kathleen Wynne predicts progress on infrastructure in Ontario based on the federal election results.  “Now that we have a federal partner with the same priority, we can do more and we can do it faster.”

We want to ensure that Premier Wynne includes public school buildings on Ontario’s list of infrastructure priorities. Some of the new federal infrastructure money slated to flow to provincial coffers must go towards addressing the $15-billion of disrepair that currently exists in our province’s public schools.

To this end, Fix Our Schools sent this_letter:

Letter sent to Premier Wynne & All Ontario MPPs on October 27, 2015

All 72 school boards in Ontario have a capital repair backlog, for a total of $15-billion of disrepair in our province’s public schools.

The 2-million students who attend Ontario public schools deserve better – as do the countless children who attend childcare/early learning programs in these same schools; the adults who work every day in these buildings; and the community members who rely upon these buildings as important community hubs.

On October 19, Canadians voted for change. We gave the Federal Liberals a mandate to deliver on their promise to increase investment in infrastructure – even if this means running a deficit. In reaction to the majority win by the Federal Liberals, Premier Wynne said:

“Now that we have a federal partner with the same priority, we can do more and we can do it faster.”    

Fix Our Schools agrees with this comment by Premier Wynne. We hope her sentiment will be applied to addressing the $15-billion of disrepair in our province’s school infrastructure. The $11-billion in capital grants to school boards over 10 years is simply insufficient. More public schools in this province must be repaired and rebuilt – and we must do it faster.

So, as those with power over the funding of public schools in this province:

How much of the federal infrastructure money that is expected to flow to provincial coffers from our new Liberal Federal Government will you commit to repairing and rebuilding Ontario’s public schools?

Public schools are a key component of our society’s infrastructure – and must be funded as such. We look forward to hearing back from you with an answer to our question.

Kind regards,

Krista Wylie – Co-Founder, Fix Our Schools Campaign

Timing not right for austerity

October 26, 2015

The Liberal Party of Canada’s economic platform included running a deficit budget for three years to increase investment in infrastructure. Given the election results, Canadians agree that stimulating our sluggish economy by investing in infrastructure while interest rates are so low makes sense.

On October 23, Globe & Mail’s Eric Reguly published a column entitled,”Justin Trudeau understands that timing is crucial to austerity.” In this column, Reguly agrees with the Liberals that timing is right to steer clear of the austerity economic policies proposed by both the NDP and Conservatives in the recent federal election. Reguly points to several Canadian economists who also agree that timing is right to run a deficit budget to stimulate our economy.

What does this mean for the economic policies of our provincial Liberal Party? Will Kathleen Wynne follow Justin Trudeau’s lead and consider increasing investment in infrastructure – even if that means straying from the objective of balancing Ontario’s budget by 2017-18? Likely not, given that our provincial government has already been running deficit budgets while the federal government posted a surplus budget this year. So perhaps, we are comparing apples to oranges here. But dare to dream for increased infrastructure investment in Ontario and with that, increased spending on repairing and rebuilding Ontario’s public schools, a critical part of our society’s infrastructure!

Canadians have spoken

October 20, 2015

Canadians have spoken. The election of Justin Trudeau’s Liberals can be interpreted in many ways but clearly Canadians voted for change.

One significant change that the Liberals promised to voters was an increase in infrastructure spending – even if infrastructure investment meant running a deficit. This element of their economic platform differentiated the Liberals from the Conservatives and NDPs.

So, the election of a majority Liberal government has to be interpreted, at least partially, as Canadian’s endorsement of the Liberal economic policy to invest in our public infrastructure.

Given that public schools are a key component of our society’s infrastructure, it is worth noting that in Ontario public schools, there is currently a $15-billion repair backlog. Other provinces such as B.C., Alberta, and Quebec also face repair backlogs in their public schools. This situation across our country is unacceptable and untenable. Some of the federal infrastructure funding promised by our new Liberal government has to find its way to provincial coffers and be used to fix our schools.

8-minute documentary contrasting public vs. private schools

October 17, 2015

This 8-minute documentary was produced by the Campaign for Public Education. It highlights the disparity between public and private schools along Mount Pleasant Rd. in Toronto. It drives home the point that all children deserve to learn in safe, well-maintained buildings (not sure two salt-water pools and a yoga studio in every school are absolutely necessary – but surely roofs that don’t leak and a comfortable year-round temperature for learning is a base requirement for public schools?). It also questions how donations to rebuild a private school can be tax-deductible… have a watch!

CBC looks at federal government’s role in addressing infrastructure issue

October 13, 2015

On Sunday, October 11, 2015, CBC’s Michael Enright considered the role our federal government ought to play in addressing issues such as poor transit and collapsing infrastructure that pose real challenges for Canadian cities. Mr. Enright cited that Canadian cities currently face a $123-billion infrastructure deficit. We have sent in a question clarifying if this number includes disrepair in our public schools.

Given the pivotal role that public schools play in urban communities across the country, we believe that disrepair in these buildings certainly ought to be included in any infrastructure deficit calculations!

Click here to listen to the complete 30-minute segment of “The Sunday Edition”, where Michael Enright speaks with the following guests to explore this complex issue:

Don Iveson, one of the youngest mayors of a big Canadian city. He has been the mayor of Edmonton for two years and is a member of the Big City Mayors’ Caucus.

Jill Grant, Professor in the School of Planning at Dalhousie University in Halifax and has authored and edited many books and research papers on urban planning. Her focus is the rise of suburbs.

Ken Greenberg, an internationally renowned architect, writer and urban designer.  He is the author of Walking Home: The Life and Lessons of a City Builder.