Tag Archives: CityNews

It’s Fiscally and Morally Responsible to Fix Ontario’s School Sooner than Later

May 16, 2019

School disrepair in Toronto and the province, at large, was the focus of a CityNews report by Cristina Howorun on May 9, 2019.

Howorun begins her report by stating that “leaky roofs, cracked foundations, broken windows and heaters that don’t always work – that’s the learning environment for much of Ontario’s student population. It’s part of a staggering repair backlog that, according to data from the Ministry of Education, will cost $16-billion to repair if done today.”

However, as Howorun points out, the $16-billion school repair backlog is likely to grow instead of diminishing, unless provincial funding increases to enable school boards to get ahead of the disrepair. Krista Wylie, co-founder of Fix Our Schools, was interviewed for this report and explained that, unfortunately, the majority of repair work at schools is conducted reactively rather than proactively. Industry data would suggest that reactive maintenance can cost up to three times more than proactive maintenance, a real waste of public dollars.

Due to gross underfunding by the Province for more than two decades, school boards frequently end up fixing a school roof only once it has already started leaking. Clearly, the approach of waiting until water is dripping on students’ heads, possibly damaging school property like library books or technology, and possibly creating havoc with electrical and fire alarm systems is not ideal, nor is it a fiscally responsible approach to asset management.

As we learned earlier this spring at Balaclava Elementary School in the Hamilton Wentworth District School Board, reactive repairs for roofing can be not only fiscally irresponsible but can also be downright dangerous to the students and staff who spend their days in these buildings.

So with this in mind, the Fix Our Schools campaign calls upon our provincial government to allocate the adequate and stable funding required to truly fix Ontario’s schools. Economist Hugh Mackenzie estimates this would require an additional investment of $1.6-billion/year – on top of the $1.4-billion/year currently allocated by the Province for School Condition Improvement (SCI) and School Renewal Allocation (SRA) funding.

Sadly, in the May 9, 2019 CityNews report, Education Minister Lisa Thompson was quoted as saying, “we invested this past school year $1.4-billion in school repairs and we’re committed to another $1.4-billion in repairs. The fact of the matter is, over the next 10 years, we’re investing 13 billion dollars in repairs as well as capital.” Fix Our Schools has requested clarification about this funding commitment, given that simple math would demonstrate this funding level to be a substantial cut to funding for school repairs and capital, when, as stated earlier, what is really needed is additional funding.