Tag Archives: Provincial Funding

Standards and Funding: Much Needed for both Schools and Schoolyards

October 26, 2021
Schoolyards Count

Fix Our Schools was founded out of a belief that school building conditions matter. Research has demonstrated time and again that good school building conditions contribute directly to positive attitudes and elevated performance, as measured by fewer health complaints, improved student attendance and teacher retention, and higher test scores. Fix Our Schools also firmly believes that schoolyards matter – they must also be safe, healthy, and well-maintained places for Ontario’s students to play, learn, develop and exercise.

The recently released report entitled, “Schoolyards Count: How Ontario’s schoolyards measure up for health, physical activity and environmental learning” underscores not only the importance of schoolyards but also why, as Ontario emerges from the COVID-19-pandemic, the time is unequivocally now to prioritize both schoolyards and schools. Our provincial government is responsible for funding schools and schoolyards, and is also largely responsible for the associated public policies and decision-making processes that impact schools and schoolyards. Therefore, to prioritize schools and schoolyards, our provincial government must commit to policies and funding that prioritize Ontario’s children and the spaces in which they spend their days. 

According to the Schoolyards Count report, “both achievement and well-being are core purposes of the Ontario education system. Overall well-being includes cognitive, emotional, social, and physical elements. During the school week, children and youth spend half their waking hours at school – so schools share responsibility for getting them outside and active on those days.”

Among the findings on Ontario’s schoolyards presented in this telling report:

  • 73% of schoolyards scored less than half the optimum score
  • 26% of schoolyards were rated not suitable for play
  • 19% of schoolyards were rated not suitable for sports
  • 63% of schools had no dedicated outdoor learning space
  • 26% of schoolyards were not well-maintained
  • Speed limits and other traffic-calming and safety measures to ensure student safety as they walk or bike to school are severely lacking in Ontario’s schools
  • Inequity is significant between schoolyards, based on a school’s median family income

Fix Our Schools certainly agrees with the authors of this report that “As children return to school after eighteen months of education disruption, the importance of outdoor spaces at school has never been clearer.” And, we agree that a key recommendation coming out of this report is critical in making progress – that provincial standards must be developed for schoolyards. 

Provincial Standards for Schools and Schoolyards

As students headed back to class last year, in September 2020, Fix Our Schools noted that provincial standards for schools had never been more important, stating that our provincial government cannot grossly and chronically underfund public schools for over two decades, and then expect these buildings to provide the optimum environments for learning during a pandemic.

In fact, Fix Our Schools has been advocating for standards for Ontario’s schools since before the last provincial election in June 2018, when we successfully secured the commitment of 58 elected MPPs to develop and fund a standard of good repair for Ontario’s schools. We had felt this was an important issue for any new provincial government to take on because so many important aspects of our children’s learning environments are simply not reflected in the disrepair is assessed in Ontario’s schools. Specifically, the following aspects are excluded:

And, to that list, today we would add schoolyards! We wholeheartedly agree with the notion put forward in the Schoolyards Count report that, “the provincial government should work with partners – including school boards and municipalities – to establish minimum provincial standards for schoolyard quality.” 

Indeed, standards, metrics and funding will continue to be what Fix Our Schools advocates for in the coming months leading up to the next provincial election, scheduled for June 2022. Surely, one of the silver linings of the COVID-19 pandemic will be a commitment to doing what is clearly the right thing – not only for the 2-million Ontario students, who deserve to spend their days in environments that meet a minimum standard, but also for citizens, who deserve to see that the investments made in schools and education have positive outcomes.

A Plan for September, Transparency, Data, Metrics & Funding

July 8, 2021

What is the Plan for September Premier Ford?

Ontario parents, students, teachers and education workers continue to wait for the Ford government to release a well-funded, research-based, comprehensive plan for September that prioritizes Ontario’s children, their learning and their mental health.

Meanwhile, news is surfacing about the concerning impact of the pandemic and school closures on Ontario’s children. In a July 8, 2021 Toronto Star article entitled, “Very, very concerning: Pandemic taking heavy toll on children’s mental health, Sick Kids study shows”, Dr. Catherine Birken, a senior scientist and pediatrician at Sick Kids, states that for September, she hopes “there will be a heightened focus on in-person learning that includes the return of extracurricular activities and other support programs, including mental health services, while reducing disruptions to schooling.”

Amidst the frustrating wait for a back-to-school plan from the provincial government and this worrisome news about Ontario children’s mental health, Fix Our Schools was at least pleased to see the TDSB, Canada’s largest school board, carry on its commitment to transparency and advocacy.

TDSB Continues its Commitment to Transparency and Advocacy

Back in August, 2016, the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) took a leadership position in transparency. Working with Fix Our Schools, the TDSB became the first school board to publicly release disrepair details on a school-by-school basis. Even though the provincial government had been collecting this school disrepair data for years, the Ministry of Education had never publicly released this data, so back in August 2016, Fix Our Schools was pleased to see the Ministry of Education follow the TDSB’s lead in transparency and release disrepair details for all Ontario schools a few days after the TDSB. We had had been calling for transparency on disrepair data, believing that transparency was critical to acknowledging the magnitude of the problem of disrepair in Ontario’s schools and then to move to finding solutions.

Thankfully, the TDSB has maintained its commitment to regularly updating and publicly sharing the disrepair data for its 588 schools. Fix Our Schools commends the TDSB for this commitment to transparency and was pleased to read the TDSB media release on July 8, 2021, with updated disrepair data for every TDSB school.

In conjunction with reviewing the detailed data on TDSB school disrepair, you may find our 2017 blog entitled, 10 Things you Need to Know About Your School’s Repair Backlog to be informative. It is an “oldie but a goodie” – and sadly, still very relevant. In addition, the TDSB media release on July 8, 2021 clearly outlined that:

  • Our provincial government is responsible for all funding for public education and schools, and that TDSB schools have been underfunded by the our provincial government for many years. Fix Our Schools believes that the TDSB is not unique in this regard, and that all school boards have been chronically and grossly underfunded by successive provincial governments.
  • The Province has allocated $275-million to the TDSB to use for school repair and renewal in the 2021-22 school year, when the TDSB repair backlog in its 588 schools is a gob-smacking $3.7-billion and estimated to continue to grow each year without more financial commitment from our provincial government.
  • Education Development Charges (EDCs) represent an opportunity for an additional $500-million in new revenue for the TDSB over the next 15 years, if the provincial government amended its regulation guiding the eligibility for and use of this money. For years, the TDSB and Fix Our Schools have been asking our provincial government to amend its outdated regulations on EDCs. To date, no changes have occurred, leaving hundreds of millions of dollars in developers’ pockets rather than invested in Ontario’s schools.

In stark contrast to the TDSB’s ongoing commitment to transparency, Fix Our Schools has been consistently disappointed with the Ford government’s lack of transparency. Since taking power in June 2018, Premier Ford’s government has consistently ignored calls to update and publicly release disrepair data for all of Ontario’s schools.  While our provincial government continues to use our tax dollars to collect school disrepair data each year, the only glimpse the public gets into this data is when a member of the opposition party asks a pointed question in a legislative committee meeting.

In November 2019, Education Critic Marit Stiles was able to glean from the government that the overall repair backlog in Ontario’s schools had increased to $16.3-B. As at June 9, 2021, Minister Lecce admitted that the overall repair backlog in Ontario’s schools had increased again to reach $16.8-billion. Of note is that this huge, and growing, repair backlog number does not even include assessments of portables, nor items such as indoor air quality improvements, air conditioning to address extreme temperatures, or asbestos remediation.

 

Fix Our Schools has consistently advocated for transparency; data and metrics to gauge outcomes; and adequate, stable funding to ensure that all Ontario’s publicly funded schools are safe, healthy, well-maintained and conducive to learning. Ontario’s children deserve nothing less. 

Premier Ford and Minister Lecce – when will you make a commitment to prioritize Ontario’s children? The clock is ticking.

Onwards and Upwards But First …

January 5, 2021

Fix Our Schools was founded in 2014 with the goal of ensuring all of Ontario’s publicly funded schools were safe, healthy, well-maintained buildings that provided environments conducive to learning and working.  With some notable successes along the way, we continue to work towards this goal as we head into 2021. But first, a necessary reflection on the past year and on how Ontario’s provincial government handled school infrastructure in this unprecedented year.

Ontario’s school buildings began 2020 with at least a $16.3-billion repair backlog. While this number is staggering, it notably does not even include First Nations schools, portables, accessibility retrofits, water quality, air quality, or asbestos abatement.

Throughout a year like no other, Ontario’s school boards continued to be at the mercy of provincial funding and policies. While the Ford government maintained annual funding for school renewal and repairs at $1.4-billion/year, this level of funding has been shown to be grossly inadequate since disrepair in Ontario’s schools has continued to increase every year.

In fact, when the Ford government released its budget in November 2020, political economist Ricardo Tranjan declared it to be “really bad for Ontario education”.

https://twitter.com/ricardo_tranjan/status/1324491092147011584?s=20

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ford government actually shirked its responsibility to provide adequate, stable funding for schools and education when it ‘allowed’ school boards to dip into their own reserve funds to try to fund what was actually needed to ensure schools were safe, healthy environments.

Throughout 2020, the Ford government continued to drag its heels on new school builds and expansions across the province, leaving us almost 2 years behind in this process. 

When schools were shuttered in late March 2020 and left empty for months, the Ford government missed the opportunity to invest in school repairs and improvements, such as accessibility retrofits, that could have been done much more safely without students in these buildings. Even for repair and renewal projects that were particularly relevant amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, such as those focused on improving ventilation in schools, the Ford government dragged its heels in allocating any funding to school boards to take action on improvements. 

At the same time that Ontario’s provincial government was unable to take the necessary action to invest in school infrastructure that would provide safe, healthy environments for learning and working, especially amidst a pandemic, our federal government was doing very little to ensure First Nations schools were safe. Many of Ontario’s First Nations schools still do not even have clean drinking water, let alone the type of infrastructure that would be safe and healthy during a pandemic.

https://twitter.com/cbcreporter/status/1298973279923793920?s=20https://twitter.com/cbcreporter/status/1298973279923793920?s=20

The Ford government also failed to make needed changes to an outdated regulation guiding the eligibility for and use of Education Development Charges, so developers continued to get away without contributing to school infrastructure, from which they profit.

Our provincial government chose to ignore an opportunity to fund any outdoor education plans, which could have been a helpful component of a safe return to school in September. 

And, since taking office in June 2018, the Ford government has refused to publish updated disrepair data for Ontario’s 5,000 schools. This data is collected with taxpayer dollars, and citizens deserve transparency into the state of school buildings. 

Looking back on 2020, we realize a “silver lining” of the global pandemic relative to schools is that substantively more attention has been paid to the condition of school buildings. Ventilation, drinking water, and air quality may not be sexy topics, but Canadians now appreciate their importance. Media coverage of the state of school buildings was intense in 2020. With the ardent support of Fix Our School followers, we helped to keep a full conversation about safe, well-maintained schools in the press.

With your ongoing support, we intend to continue our work towards ensuring Ontario schools are safe, healthy, well-maintained buildings for all students and teachers. Onwards and upwards to 2021.

Technology is Critical Infrastructure in Schools to Delivery Curriculum

October 27, 2020

When the COVID pandemic shuttered schools back in March, millions of dollars worth of technology was, understandably, taken from Ontario’s public schools and redistributed to students who needed this technology in order to access online learning. When Ontario’s public schools opened their doors again in September, the majority of the technology that was borrowed has not been returned to those schools. Again – for good reasons. Many students have opted to attend on-line school this year and, for many high school students in Ontario, online learning is a significant component of their education, if they opted for in-school learning.

All of these decisions make perfect sense.

What makes zero sense is that our provincial government has done absolutely nothing to ensure that the students who opted to return to in-school learning also have access to the technology that they require for learning. In fact, Fix Our Schools is starting to hear from parents and teachers alike that the new provincial math curriculum (that includes a coding component and therefore demands access to technology) requires students to “bring their own device” to school or to conduct their work at home so that curriculum requirements can be met.

The inequity of this situation is appalling and Fix Our Schools calls upon our provincial government to immediately release new funding to school boards to be able to ensure that every school in the province is able to provide the technology required for students to meet curriculum requirements.

The last time our provincial government announced any funding for technology in schools was back on June 18, 2020 when Minister Lecce proudly announced a paltry sum of $15-million in funding for technology in schools. To illustrate just how inadequate this funding level was to meet the real needs for technology in schools, we point to a recent Q&A post on the Toronto District School Board website:

What are the TDSB’s key fundraising and donation priorities for 2020-21? 

A: The TDSB’s key fundraising priorities for 2020-21 are:

  • Technology: There continues to be a need for technology to ensure that all students are supported. The TDSB has a plan to replace the devices that were borrowed from schools and sent to students to support virtual learning. However, this will take time. The TDSB is planning to spend approximately $15M for new technology and any additional fundraising support would be used to supplement this technology.

So the country’s largest school board has been able to find $15-M in its budget (which means that some other important line item on this budget is going unfunded this year!) to begin to replace the technology that has been borrowed from schools and to provide additional technology for students who need technology at home to support their learning. The TDSB is relying on fundraising dollars to supplement its technology needs for schools and students, clearly acknowledging in its statements above that their $15-M spend on technology for this year is not going to be sufficient.

The TDSB is just one school board out of 72 school boards in this province. So, if the entire $15-M amount of new funding provided by our provincial government in the face of the COVID-pandemic is not even sufficient for one school board to completely meet its technology requirements for schools and students, then clearly – this level of provincial funding is grossly inadequate. 

Fix Our Schools believes that we could have agreed years ago that technology, as well as fast, stable wifi, is a critical element of the Ontario public school infrastructure in order to accommodate “21st-century learning”. In the face of the current high school learning model in many school boards, as well as the recent provincial changes to Ontario’s math curriculum (which includes coding and therefore necessitates access to technology), the criticality of technology within our school infrastructure has become even more pronounced.

Fix Our Schools believes that our provincial government is being grossly negligent by failing to provide the required funding to all school boards to be able to quickly ensure that the technology and wifi requirements for all schools and students are met as soon as possible.

 

Why Are We Relying on Corporations to Fund Safe Classrooms?

October 15, 2020

Our provincial government is responsible for funding public education and schools. Full stop. 

To Fix Our Schools, this means that our provincial government is responsible for providing adequate, stable levels of funding that would ensure the safety, health, and well-being of the 2-million students who generally spend their days in Ontario’s schools, along with teachers and education workers. Yet, for over two decades, this has not been the case.

In fact, the gross and chronic provincial underfunding of school infrastructure by successive provincial governments lead to a situation where, even before the pandemic revealed further cracks, there was a school repair backlog of $16.3-billion in Ontario’s schools.

Now, in the midst of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario, public schools and the safety of our classrooms seem dependent on the charity of corporations rather than proper provincial funding, as we consider the recent donation of 500 air purifiers by Danby corporation to the Toronto District School Board (TDSB).

Almost half of TDSB schools are reliant on windows for air circulation, without any form of mechanical ventilation. Experts believe that standalone filters can be an effective tool to improve safety in those classrooms. Therefore, the TDSB was understandably pleased to receive the 500 air purifiers from Danby, which will be placed in 37 TDSB schools in the highest-risk COVID areas. However, I hope we can all agree that when Doug Ford and Stephen Lecce promised they would do whatever was needed to ensure the safety of students, teachers and education workers, they lied. Full stop.

Our provincial government has clearly not done everything in its power to ensure the safety of students, teachers, and education workers if corporate donations of safety equipment are being welcomed by school boards! Even back in late August as we approached the re-opening of Ontario schools, Premier Ford all but admitted that his government had not done everything possible to ensure a safe re-opening when he stated that, he was “relying on school boards to make sure that students and staff are in a very safe environment“.

So where do we go from here? After six years of working to ensure all of Ontario’s publicly funded schools are safe, healthy, well-maintained buildings, Fix Our Schools is convinced that this will not happen until funding for public schools and education is adequate and stable. We are convinced that Ontario’s schools cannot be fixed by simply “finding efficiencies”. $16.3-billion of disrepair did not accumulate in Ontario’s schools because of “inefficiencies” by school boards.

But how, you may ask, can governments afford to provide the billions of dollars required each year to properly maintain and improve our public schools? If there is insufficient public money in the coffers to pay for this public good properly, then Fix Our Schools suggests that we must look to increase the amount of money in those public coffers. And, Fix Our Schools would suggest that most citizens already pay their fair share (or some would argue more than their fair share!) of taxes, so corporations must start to pay their fair share of taxes, as they did decades ago.

 

Relying on School Boards, Teachers and Education Workers is Disingenuous At Best

September 15, 2020

The fact is that, for over two decades in Ontario, our provincial government has held control over all the money that is allocated to schools via local school boards. Another notable fact is that, for most of this time, the provincial funding for school renewal and repairs (the money that enables a school board to conduct yearly maintenance and repairs on all of its school buildings) has been a fraction of what industry standards suggest is required.

In fact, early in our campaign, back in January 2016, we wrote a blog asking the questions, “What if you sent your child the store with $10.00 to buy a week’s worth of groceries for your family of four, and they came back, having failed to source sufficient groceries for the family for the coming week? Would you publicly shame them for this failure? “

Our suspicion is that the answer was, and would continue to be, NO! Instead, as the parent in charge of the household budget, you would take responsibility for the fact that, with the money you gave them, they couldn’t possibly have succeeded in buying a week’s worth of groceries for a family of four. Are we right?

And yet, for decades, Ontario’s Ministry of Education and our Premier have frequently blamed school boards for the accumulation of billions of dollars of disrepair in their school buildings while, at the same time, providing grossly inadequate funding (in many years, one-tenth of what industry standards suggest is needed!) to those same school boards.

The dysfunctional dynamic of our provincial government pushing responsibility for successful outcomes on to school boards, while it retains all the power over the money, continues today, amidst a global pandemic. Fix Our Schools expressed outrage and anger several weeks ago when Premier Ford said, Premier Ford said, “We’re really relying on school boards. I just told them I have all the confidence in the world that they’re going to be able to get through this and make sure that the students and the staff are in a very safe environment”.

This type of rhetoric is disingenuous, at best. It is also dangerous, unfair, and prevents solution-oriented dialogue from occurring. Our current Minister of Education, Stephen Lecce has been vague about his government’s response, should a COVID-outbreak occur in Ontario’s schools.

This type of response seems typical of the Ford government, which has flip-flopped on many issues since taking office over two years ago. However, amidst a global pandemic, citizens need a government that will take responsibility, and leads us forward in a positive manner. We do not need a government that behaves immaturely, and blames other entities, such as school boards, for its own mistakes.

Clearly, many issues are on our minds as Ontario’s students head back to school. For Fix Our Schools, ventilation and HVAC in our schools continues to be top of mind. We continue to wonder why the Ford government took two months to allocate funding for school boards to pursue work to ensure optimum ventilation for when school buildings re-opened after having been shuttered back in March. We continue to wonder why the Ford government only allocated such a small amount of money to school improvements amidst a pandemic, knowing that there are $16.3-B of disrepair in Ontario’s school buildings.

A Global News article published on September 13, 2020, entitled, “Canada’s schools need better air ventilation. Amid coronavirus, it could save lives“ Fix Our Schools is quoted several times:

  • “While the Ontario government has allocated $50 million in funding to improve HVAC systems in schools, it came only two months before classes were due to begin. It also came long after SickKids’ report cited ventilation as an important element in a safe reopening.”
  • “You’ve got medical professionals telling you ventilation is key. You know that the 5,000 school buildings in your province have a gross amount of disrepair, and yet the province waited two months to announce a pittance in funding. On a per-school basis in Ontario, it’s $10,000 a school. It’s nothing. Truly, it’s nothing.”
  • “School boards have been put in an untenable position. They’re beholden to the tender process, which takes time. And, because they’re chronically underfunded, they tend to feel pressured to choose the lowest-cost option, which should not be the criteria for all projects.”

In the same article, Jeffrey Siegel, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Toronto, agrees with the sentiments expressed by Fix Our Schools, and says that “the funding allocated so far for HVAC improvements “doesn’t even pass the laugh test”. The fundamental issue is that this is expensive to do under any circumstances, schools can be particularly so.”

So Premier Ford and Minister Lecce, the people of Ontario are actually relying on you and your government to make Ontario’s schools safe, healthy, well-maintained buildings that provide environments conducive to learning and working – not only amidst this pandemic but for always.

 

 

When will the Ford Government Commit the Funding Actually NEEDED for a Safe Return to School

August 10, 2020

While the Ford government continues to tout Ontario’s back-to-school plan as safe, the consensus among parents, teachers, local public health authorities, and others is that additional provincial funding is needed.

On August 5, 2020, the Federal Minister of Infrastructure and Communities Catherine McKenna announced that the Canada Infrastructure Program was being adjusted so that provinces and territories can use federal funding to act quickly on a wider range of more pandemic-resilient infrastructure projects, including retrofitting schools to allow kids to go to school safely. This funding stream could be worth up to $3.3-billion.

Usually, provincial funding is the only source of money for investment in Ontario’s publicly funded school buildings so this is a welcome source of new funding!

We heard on August 7, 2020 that the Ford government, in partnership with the federal government, is providing $234.6 million in funding to keep children and staff safe in child care and early years settings to help pay for enhanced cleaning costs and health and safety requirements. Fix Our Schools is calling upon the Ford government to also commit additional funding to Ontario’s publicly funded schools to keep students, teachers and education workers safe in schools. Whether partnering with our federal government, digging into our own provincial coffers, or most likely – a combination of both – additional funding is a requirement for a safe return to school in Ontario.

What Does the Ontario Human Rights Commission Say?

February 25, 2020

On the Ontario Human Rights Commission website, we find the following:

“Barriers to education can take a variety of forms. They can be physical, technological, systemic, financial, or attitudinal. They can arise from an education provider’s failure to make available a needed accommodation, or to provide one in a timely manner.

In Eldridge v. British Columbia (Attorney General), the Supreme Court of Canada found that “once the state does provide a benefit, it is obliged to do so in a non-discriminatory manner…. The principle that discrimination can accrue from a failure to take positive steps to ensure that disadvantaged groups benefit equally from services offered to the general public is widely accepted in the human rights field.”[22]

It is the Commission’s policy position that this comment, while made in the context of health care, applies equally to the provision of educational services. As the Commission’s Disability Policy states, “Governments have a positive duty to ensure that services available to the general public are also available to persons with disabilities.”[23]

In order for persons with disabilities to receive equal treatment in education, they must have equal access to educational opportunities. The duty to accommodate includes identifying and removing barriers that impede the ability of persons with disabilities to access educational services. The Commission’s Disability Policy affirms the duty of education providers to structure their programs and policies so as to be inclusive and accessible for persons with disabilities, and to take an active role in the accommodation process”

As Fix Our Schools has been stating repeatedly, the issue of equal accessibility is one that negatively impacts Ontario’s publicly funded schools, even when we consider only one aspect of accessibility – the ability for a student any mobility issues to get to their classroom, to the washroom, and participate fully in a rotary class schedule. We know that school boards are not provided with any special provincial funding to ensure that their school buildings are retrofitted to become accessible for children with mobility issues so no wonder Ontario’s school buildings are lagging behind where the provincial government pledged we would be by now. The answer is clear. More provincial funding is required if school boards are to have any hope of ensuring that “services available to the general public are also available to persons with disabilities.”

 

Minister Lecce’s Numbers Don’t Add Up

December 17, 2019

Fix Our Schools co-founder Krista Wylie was interviewed by Press Progress this week about the inconsistent numbers being used by Education Minister Stephen Lecce, when it comes to his government’s commitment to funding school repairs, renewal and builds.

 

The following article, entitled “Questions Remain About the Ford Government’s School Repair Funding” raises some concerning disconnects on the figures being bandied about by Minister Lecce and Premier Ford about their funding commitment to ensuring Ontario’s publicly funded schools are safe, healthy and well-maintained.

Questions Remain About the Ford Government’s School Repair Funding

While the Ford government continued the previous government’s school repair and renewal funding for the 2019-20 year, its 10-year pledge is lower than previous ones and less than what’s needed to address disrepair in Ontario’s school system, critics say.

Facing resistance from parents and educators over plans to raise class sizes and cut education funding, the Ford government frequently cites school capital funding as proof it’s “committed” to education.

Last week, for example, Education Minister Stephen Lecce told the legislature:

The Premier has demonstrated a firm commitment to improving education by putting more money in the system than ever before. He’s committed to that, because we’ve doubled the mental health envelope in this province. We’ve invested more to improve schools—a $550-million renewal to build new schools and improve existing schools.

And, on Nov. 7 the minister said:

It is this government that is investing over $13 billion over the next decade to improve schools

But, the minister also said on Nov. 7:

What I also made clear is that we’re maintaining a $1.4-billion allocation to maintain our schools. After 15 years of dereliction of duty, where we had a multi-billion-dollar backlog that we inherited, we must do more to improve our schools.

The government’s pledges have been uneven.

For example, if the government were to continue spending $1.4 billion per year, as it did in 2019-20, on “funding to support the repair and renewal of school facilities,” it would seemingly come to a ten-year total of $14 billion — not $13 billion.

Krista Wylie, Fix Our Schools Campaign Co-Founder, told PressProgress that also falls short of the previous government’s commitment of $16 billion, over ten years, to renewals, repairs and new builds. “The $13 billion target is a $3 billion cut from what the Liberals promised. And even if you don’t include new school building in that $16 billion amount, it is still less than $1.4 billion per year.”

Wylie said, further, “the representatives of the government we spoke to were not able to give us a good explanation for that. Their finance and accounting folks said they could not say more than $13 billion — because that’s all there was allocated.”

Economist Hugh Mackenzie told PressProgress “It is a cut relative to the previous plan. And that, in turn, falls far short of what would be needed to address the school condition problem.”

The current backlog for school repairs reportedly sits around $16.3 billion. Mackenzie said “ongoing depreciation means that renewal expenditures equal to between 2% and 4% of the value of the buildings will be required annually. And those expenditures will be required, even if the current maintenance backlog were somehow eliminated. ”

On Nov. 6, Lecce told the legislature the government has committed to a “2.5% allocation when it comes to renewal.”

Asked by PressProgress if the government is committed to maintaining its current $1.4 billion annual investment, or the previous government’s $16 billion commitment, or the $16.3 billion estimated repair backlog, the ministry of education did not respond.