Tag Archives: Federal Funding

Who is Responsible for Funding Safe, Healthy Return to School for Ontario’s Children?

July 27, 2020

The schools that most Ontario children attend depend entirely on funding from the provincial government. However, the children of Ontario’s First Nations schools are funded at the whim of the federal government. In 2014, the Auditor General called for Canada to “immediately develop and implement a comprehensive strategy and action plan, with targets, to close the education gap.” This plan has not happened. Providing equal education to Ontario’s First Nations requires a commitment to adequate, stable funding.

Matawa First Nations Management, a council representing nine communities between the north shore of Lake Superior and James Bay (five of which are only accessible by air & winter road), has not received adequate funding to address a safe, healthy back-to-school this fall. 

These remote communities estimate they need $25-M in supplemental funding for all their educational facilities for this fall. These costs are in addition to the funding for Grandview Lodge, a dormitory-style school that will not only allow students to stay in the north, but will also allow their parents to stay for extended visits.

In Ontario’s First Nations communities, our federal government is obliged to fully fund appropriately-equipped schools and prepare all schools for this fall’s challenges. Prime Minister Trudeau… over to you.

Another Possible Source of Federal Funding for Green School Infrastructure Projects

July 30, 2019

In addition to the federal Climate Action Incentive Fund, in which Ontario agreed to participate, there may be additional sources of federal funding for green school infrastructure projects via the Clean Growth Hub.

Back in May 2019, Fix Our Schools noticed that a high school in the London Catholic District School Board had plans for a $9.7-million energy-efficient retrofit and that $4.8-million of this amount was coming from the federal government. To our knowledge, this was the first time that our federal government had invested in public schools (outside of First Nations schools, which are a federal responsibility) as critical infrastructure.

Fix Our Schools was optimistic that this project would set an important precedent so we dug in to see if we could find out more. What we found was that the federal government operates a Clean Growth Hub, an advisory service that aggregates various available funding opportunities for clean tech available through the federal government and that, from time to time, funding programs being offered by the federal government could align with green projects being conducted by school boards across Canada.  

The Clean Growth Hub is a whole-of-government focal point for clean technology. Fix Our Schools encourages all Canadian school boards to monitor the Clean Growth Hub and to see if any programs being offered at a given time would allow federal money to be accessed for local energy-efficient projects in schools. London Catholic School Board had the foresight to do this and was able to benefit from $4.8-million of federal money!