PROCEEDINGS IN THE
DOUGLAS FIR ROOM

Committee of Supply

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

The House in Committee of Supply (Section A); S. Malcolmson in the chair.

The committee met at 1:37 p.m.

On Vote 21: ministry operations, $6,657,927,000.

The Chair: Minister, do you have any opening statement that you’d like to give?

Hon. R. Fleming: I do, Madam Chair. I welcome the opportunity to say a few things before we get underway in estimates debate, and I’m sure the critic will have some opening remarks he wishes to make. It’s really an opportunity to talk in detail about some of the budget highlights and then answer some of the detailed questions that my counterpart the critic for Education will undoubtedly have, as well as some of his colleagues.

I just want to set the context, though, for today’s debate, where we’re seeing tremendous improvements across the school system in British Columbia — the lowest class sizes we’ve seen in generations; new parents coming into the school system, with their kindergarteners in class sizes 18 students or lower; smaller class sizes in every grade level; more teachers in the system; more one-on-one support time for young people to be successful in school.

We’ve also been working at an incredible pace as a ministry, as a government to ensure that there are more resources for students in the classroom than ever before.

The budget writ large this year is a record $6.7 billion in funding for the fiscal year. It’s $1.1 billion more for B.C. schools than what was in Budget 2017. I’m also pleased to tell you that Budget 2020 will make this momentum continue, with the highest school operating and capital funding ever, investing more than $20 billion in B.C. schools over the next three years, the period covering the service plan that is before this committee for debate. That’s more than $2.2 billion over the introduction of Budget 2017 in this fiscal plan.

[1:40 p.m.]

Included in that amount is $6.1 billion for public schools. This will help districts support a growing student population. It will help them enhance innovative programs and services that they deliver in their communities, custom-tailored to the learning needs of the students that they serve. It will allow us to continue to hire teachers and other educators in the school system.

Within this budget, allocated funding for students with special needs has gone up 30 percent. Under our government, funding to support Indigenous education has gone up by 29 percent. The Ministry of Education budget has increased by a total of — and I want to be accurate here — $1.088 billion since Budget 2017. We will continue to increase education funding in the years ahead.

The context is that we’re very proud to be working with a diverse set of stakeholders, our partners — the B.C. School Trustees Association, who represent all 60 school districts in British Columbia — to have made a lot of progress in a very short period of time. Since we formed government, enrolment has increased by 3.4 percent. Our operating budget for the school system has increased 19.4 percent.

Again, to put this in context and to see how progressive B.C.’s successive budgets, which Budget 2020 builds on, are in making investments into the education system — long overdue investments, I might add — it’s 19.4 percent since we formed government into our public education school system.

Over the same period of time, the average of all other Canadian provinces is a 5 percent investment. In other words, we have proceeded, and Budget 2020 will build upon a rate of investment in our school system — in our kids — four times greater than what the national average has been over the last three years.

We have to do this. We have more families choosing to make B.C. their home. School enrolment is growing throughout the province, from communities like Surrey to Langford to Chilliwack and Kamloops. I know members here will agree that B.C. is a highly desirable place to start a family, to build a life. That’s why we’re making forward-thinking investments to match the growth in enrolment that we see for years to come.

The Ministry of Education capital budget, in this regard, is the highest ever. Again, it is increased to $2.8 billion for new and expanded schools, seismic upgrades, maintenance and property purchase for future schools over the next three years. We’ve already invested $637 million to add 11,000 new seats that are under construction, designed to get kids out of portables and into an enriched classroom environment. Budget 2020 guarantees that this is a sustained investment, building on the momentum. We’ve been working at breakneck pace with our partners, the school districts, to get projects from green-light to groundbreaking faster.

The example of Surrey comes to mind, where about 1,000 new students move into the district, typically, each year. While there was only one new school built and completed between 2014 and 2017, our capital plan includes funding to build schools with enough new student spaces for every student learning in a portable today. In fact, 7,300 students in Surrey alone will move from portables to classrooms by September 2022. That’s the equivalent of more than 300 portables that will be reduced in Surrey and replaced with real classrooms in the heart of new neighbourhoods that are being built out in that fast-growing city.

We’ll continue supporting the district to move forward with other new projects, in this budget, in Surrey and in other communities. As I mentioned, we’re making tremendous progress to fast-track capital projects throughout the province. We’ve streamlined the process for approval, and we funded project offices in Surrey, in Vancouver and most recently in Richmond. This is helping to accelerate construction projects in a tough construction market.

Of course, members will know it takes land to build new schools, so this is really about government being able to turn the corner and plan ahead. And that’s why we’ve been actively funding the purchase of new sites in fast-growing districts.

Since September 2017, our government has more than quadrupled the pace of approvals for capital projects here on Vancouver Island. We have tripled the rate of approvals in the Surrey school district and doubled the pace of approvals in Vancouver. The investments in Surrey to date includes $270 million. Some 13 projects. Nine are in business case development. There’s more good news to come for Surrey, building on the investments we’ve made.

And $169 million in Sooke, close to $100 million in Coquitlam, close to $100 million in Chilliwack, over $50 million in Langley and tens of millions invested in Abbotsford, to name a few of the fast-growing communities in British Columbia that have seen projects approved and get underway.

[1:45 p.m.]

Seismic safety, of course, remains a key priority in this budget. It’s why we’ve been working hard to accelerate upgrades to B.C. schools. Families deserve to know that their kids will be safe in the event of a major seismic event here on the coast of British Columbia. We have to be prepared in the event that an earthquake hits, and that is why the pace of seismic project approvals has nearly tripled under our government.

So $935 million has been allocated for 41 projects that have been announced in just 2½ years. What that represents is 25,000 safer seats for students in our province. If you pause to think about 25,000 seats, that’s the size of a small city. That certainly means a lot to families who send their kids to these schools.

The good news in Budget 2020 is that there’s an additional $925 million available in the seismic mitigation envelope in that program that will allow us to continue accelerating the creation of tens of thousands of safe spaces in school districts where this is a priority.

Another feature of the budget, relatively small in consideration of the $2.8 billion that’s allocated there but very, very important and personally gratifying to parents who work hard and volunteer in their children’s schools, is an initiative we undertook to reduce fundraising pressure.

I speak specifically about the playground equipment program, a $5 million annual program. So far, it has built playgrounds at 101 schools in B.C. It’s benefited 25,000 kids throughout the province who have access to those playgrounds. We expect this pace to continue. Another $5 million more is coming in Budget 2020. We know that these have been well subscribed by school districts. We expect to get their priority list for new playgrounds. They wanted confirmation of the money, and I’m pleased to say it’s in the budget.

As part of new school construction projects, we’re recognizing how critically important child care is in the life of a school and the life of a community. So we’re making sure that capital plans, when they come forward, address the needs by funding what are called neighbourhood learning centres, for which child care is the ministry’s number one identified priority.

To date, we’ve funded 23 neighbourhood learning centres at new or replacement schools just since September 2017. That’s 1,200 direct, new child care spaces in schools, and much of it is aimed at the precious early childhood education spaces that families queue up to try and get their young infants and toddlers into.

More is on the way, by working in partnership with MCFD to ensure that quality child care services are available to families. It’s an efficiency to link siblings together during the school days, some of who will be in primary grades, with their younger siblings in child care. It’s convenient for families and communities right around British Columbia. Given the success we’ve had in those 23 projects, we intend to continue doing it at every opportunity — to build a new or replacement school.

To date, over 2,600 new, school-based child care spaces have been created since September 2017. I think what that gives us is an experience and a track record. School districts are able to work with their communities, often non-profit-based partners, to apply for grants available through the new spaces fund and build even more spaces. That’s what we expect with Budget 2020.

Additionally to this, and I know members will canvas it, perhaps, in more detail in a different ministry, the fee reductions that have been available to parents, making life more affordable…. The setting for much of these operations and the money back in the pockets of parents comes at the school itself.

New facilities, high-quality child care, more affordable for families, who, typically, after housing costs are met, child care is their number two family cost. By reducing that, we’re putting money back in people’s pockets to do other things and to make life more affordable.

I want to highlight the legislation that passed recently. I think we expected it to pass. We certainly planned for it in our budget, and I’m pleased it did. It awaits royal assent now.

Part of that package was around personal education numbers, which have been in existence since 1993. But we’re going to expand their use so that children who are assigned this number can get one, can register with a PEN, prior to going to school.

[1:50 p.m.]

This will give us a powerful planning tool for kids coming into the school system well before they arrive, help them adjust and give powerful data analytics to government investments on early childhood education and demonstrate to the taxpayer that this is improving student success and is a wise investment.

We’re going to invest $2.9 million more in Budget 2020 in child care and other early learning initiatives. I’m speaking specifically around curriculum, if you like, and the early learning framework, which is receiving national and international attention for its potential to make a positive difference in the lives of our early learners. This is in addition to…. A few months ago I had the privilege of announcing over $1.2 million in funding for school districts to help improve the outcomes for early learners with planning grants that all 60 districts eagerly pursued and put into action.

Let me speak briefly about the funding review. The member opposite may have questions about this. I’ll just say this. It has been a very busy time in the ministry, working with our partners. In addition to all the work and new programs and innovation we’ve been doing, the project offices we’ve established, work on the graduation program and completing the curriculum review, we’ve also done the province’s first comprehensive funding review in more than two decades. This was a response to a decade, a decade and a half of calls from trustees, education professionals and parents to have a thorough review and envisioning exercise as part of the funding model review in the province of British Columbia.

All 60 school districts and over 350 education stakeholders took part in that review. We heard time and time again that there are too many children who are not getting the supports they need to be engaged in the life of their school. I feel very strongly that if we’re looking at making improvements, we need to look at what challenges there are before and after the school bell rings.

That’s why we’re moving quickly, in Budget 2020, to work with one group of students in particular who have not been historically well-served by the school system, who we are trying to give opportunities in life to be successful. I speak of children and youth who are in care, whose guardian is the government, living in foster care.

The graduation rates have been abominable for decades. We are seeing improvement now, which is very positive. But we have a long way to go, especially if they’re to access other programs government has designed to help youth in care become successful adults in our community, such as the tuition waiver so that they can benefit from college and university programs and get into careers. So we need to increase the focus that we bring to those students, and this budget will be the first time British Columbia has ever had a specific student supplement directed towards kids who are in care.

I want to also just highlight that we have expanded our ERASE strategy — Expect Respect and a Safe Education — to be a more comprehensive resource that goes beyond just an anti-bullying initiative, although it has been a tremendously successful one in its fifth anniversary. The expansion is focused on mental health and wellness; preventing substance abuse; training parents, school staff and kids themselves on social media and online safety; a focus on gang prevention, which has been in partnership with the Solicitor General; and also making sure that students feel welcome at every single school community in the province of B.C. by supporting, in particular, students of all sexual orientations and gender identities.

We now, I am pleased to say, have policy support of SOGI initiatives in all 60 school districts and, in fact, in many independent schools in British Columbia.

In partnership with the Ministry of Mental Health, we are investing nearly $11.9 million over the next four years to enhance services and resources they need. This will help government work more efficiently. Clinicians and those who work with children, specialists, will be more integrated and better integrated with the school system.

We’re hosting our third School Community Mental Health Conference in 2020. This will bring, again, more than 500 educators and community partners together to focus on what the mental health challenges of our students look like, to have deep discussions about what meaningful preventative work means on promoting mental wellness in our curriculum and our physical and health education and how to get services for those that are in acute need who attend school.

[1:55 p.m.]

I mentioned SOGI earlier. I’m pleased to say, in terms of furthering the development of SOGI education, we are investing $350,000 to expand the annual provincial SOGI Education Summit. This is something that teachers, staff and students are interested in from a professional development point of view and from a promotion of respect for one another.

We’re helping students get off the path to gang life by investing over $6 million in the ERASE school-based gang and gun violence prevention program. This has engaged thousands — more than 8,000, in fact — of students, parents and educators who have now received formal training in gang awareness and prevention. Something like 20,000 educators and community partners have also been trained in what are called violent threat assessments. This has helped prevent a number of tragedies in communities around B.C., because it has demonstrated that it is highly effective.

Let me just talk a little bit, briefly, about Indigenous students as it relates to the funding model review process. There are going to be benefits that come from targeted funding for culturally appropriate support and services. This is really in recognition that government as a whole needs to continue to move forward on the journey to reconciliation — as a province, as a country. As the Truth and Reconciliation Commission itself outlined in its calls to action, much of this falls to the education system to put our society moving forward on a healing path that is inclusive of Indigenous perspectives. It’s at the heart of everything we’re doing in schools today.

We will continue to build on supports for Indigenous students, including a $20 million increase in funding for Indigenous education since 2016-17. That will increase again through Budget 2020.

I mentioned curriculum briefly. The curriculum transformation is now officially complete at the beginning of the 2019-20 school year. We worked closely with Indigenous communities to take the first steps to ensure that Indigenous ways of knowing and being are included in all grades and subjects through a child’s learning career.

I’m pleased to say there are now 17 certified Indigenous languages that have curriculum available to them in B.C. schools today. At least six more are currently under development. What we’re seeing is that the focus on indigenizing the education system and some of the curriculum content is actually improving all student outcomes — importantly, helping Indigenous students see themselves reflected in their school day, in the knowledge that they’re learning, but also helping all students understand the historical development of this province.

In furtherance of Indigenous student outcomes and promoting a parity with non-Indigenous students, B.C. is continuing to lead the way as the only jurisdiction in Canada that has a collaborative tripartite agreement. This ensures that there is absolute equity of funding between First Nations students whether they study in a First Nations school on a reserve, in public schools or in independent schools.

In signing this agreement, which has four of five years remaining in it, we are now beginning to see the fruits of an additional $100 million in investment coming from our federal partners to help with things like language and culture, adult education and solving transportation problems from rural and remote communities where, often, First Nations communities are located.

It’s a big deal. It wouldn’t have been possible in the slightest without the hard work of the First Nations Education Steering Committee. They were instrumental in developing this tripartite partnership. It has far-reaching and profound impacts for First Nations students for the duration of this agreement and for generations to come.

These are all extremely positive things to date, but we know we have a lot more work ahead of us. Reconciliation is a long process. It comes after hundreds of years of colonization that will not disappear overnight. But as I mentioned earlier, the school system is critically important to moving British Columbia and Canada to a better place in this regard.

Just a little bit on teacher seats. Undoubtedly, the critic will have questions on this. We have invested directly, as the Ministry of Education, for the first time ever, $3½ million to directly fund expanded new teacher education program seats. This has created, thus far, about 250 new seats in B.C. universities to bring teachers in high-demand areas and make them trained, ready and available for employment right across British Columbia.

[2:00 p.m.]

This is in addition to the 1,500 to 1,900 teacher graduates that B.C. typically produces each year. This is an additional investment, really, to get at specialist teachers: French immersion, Indigenous teachers, special education specialists, teacher-psychologists and others.

We have $3 million invested to support curriculum development for Indigenous teacher training included in that amount. We also know that the demand for French immersion is increasing, not declining. We celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Francophonie society earlier today.

One of my colleagues mentioned that ten years ago, French immersion enrolled approximately 25,000 students in B.C. It’s now in excess of 55,000 students. At or about, maybe in excess of, 10 percent of all students earn a French immersion program. There are wait-lists in some communities. We have to be clear about that. We are trying to do what we can to match the increasing demand for instruction in the French official language.

Just yesterday I joined Mélanie Joly, the federal Minister of Tourism and Official Languages, to announce that students and families will benefit from more than $2½ million, the majority of which is federal money that’s going to help us in our French teacher recruitment and retention efforts in B.C. That will fund 74 new seats in French teacher education programs in B.C. universities, and that money will be available immediately. Some of the money will fund bursaries and scholarships to support students in French programs at SFU and UBC.

I’m also pleased to say that the latest statistics on international recruitment…. That was a new tactic that this government attempted to use to meet demand for qualified French instruction. We reached out to France and Belgium in 2018. We’re starting to see more and more applications from those two countries in particular, up from 17 just a couple of years ago to 64 applications so far in 2019. Some are still being processed. In other words, a fourfold increase of international applications for certification from those two countries.

That is certainly helping to build on the success that includes 4,200 new net teachers in British Columbia that we’ve hired just in the past 2½ years, 700 of which are special education teachers. Nearly 200 of them are teacher-psychologists and counsellors. We’ve also benefited from having over 2,000 additional education assistants hired. I’m happy to say that what that means is that the number of classes assisted by an educational assistant has gone up by 37 percent just since 2016-2017. So it’s much more likely to be a feature in a child’s learning environment today thanks to that additional hiring.

There are more teachers that will be hired. Budget 2020 outlines an additional $98 million in funding over the next three years to hire even more teachers and education professionals in this document.

I’m very pleased too. I think the teacher recruitment effort is going to be helped, for new teachers, by the new student access grant that the Ministry of Advanced Education has brought into being. That will help lower student debt. It will reduce the repayment burden for people going into the profession of teaching and other professions.

We’re going to continue, I think, to benefit from out-of-province interests. We’ve seen 1,127 teachers come to B.C. just in the 2018-19 year. It’s up 80 percent from where it was a decade ago. B.C. is, by all accounts, by all the data, a significant destination for teachers to begin or resume careers in teaching who come from other provinces. We have asked, and the teacher regulation branch has met the demand to process applications more quickly. So 1,900 new certificate holders just since last July, approximately eight months ago, have been certified.

I’ll leave it there, I think. I want to thank, in advance, the member for Peace River North for his questions and his colleagues’ questions. I have with me deputy minister Scott MacDonald, assistant deputy minister Reg Bawa and Joel Palmer, from the capital branch, to assist me in answering the members’ queries today.

The Chair: I recognize the member for Peace River North and invite you to make any opening statements.

[2:05 p.m.]

D. Davies: The minister might not be thanking me after this is all done on my questions. But that’s what we do this hard work for anyways.

First of all, I certainly want to thank the minister. I know that all of us come to this place with an incredible job ahead of us, and we do the best that we can. I certainly appreciate the minister’s efforts, as well as his ministry staff, not just the ones that are joining us here today but, of course, throughout the ministry. I’m not even sure how many staff members you have, but I know there are quite a few. Certainly, thanks for their incredible work.

As a former school teacher myself, education has always been an absolute priority for me. I have two children that are in the public school system. My grandfather was a teacher before me. Education is extremely important. I’m proud to say that British Columbia has had, for a number of years — and I’m sure, hopefully, will continue for a number of years, or forever — one of the best education systems, recognized around the world.

That is certainly done by the work of the incredible teachers that are throughout the 60 school districts in the province, the hard-working school district staff, the trustees, by whom I’ve always been amazed. Most school districts, when you talk to the trustees…. The creativity that they have to manage budgets and do amazing things within their school districts…. Of course, the PACs play an incredible role, and our parents. Of course, the students, most importantly, are the benefactors of this incredible system that we have here in British Columbia.

I’m not going to take up too much time. The minister gave a very robust opening statement. I almost don’t need to do estimates. But I’m not going to let you off that easy. I’m going to be starting with capital. That will probably, I suspect…. Well, it will take all day today and probably a little bit once we return from our constituency weeks.

I’ve got a couple questions here to start, and then I have a list of colleagues that will be probably taking most of the afternoon for riding-specific questions that they’ll be asking the minister.

I just want to start off with…. The minister spoke of Surrey, some of the work and the planning that’s happening for Surrey. I’m going back. It’s been mentioned in this House numerous times by myself and other members to the minister. The minister and the Premier made a promise of eliminating portables in 2017. The promise was made again in 2018. It was somewhat less reconfirmed in 2019. Understanding that Surrey is a fast-growing school district…. We recognize that. The member from Surrey here, I’m sure, can attest to the incredible growth. I think it’s 600 babies a month are born in Surrey, which is an incredible number.

I want to go back to the promise and the promises that have been made by this government. I was going through Hansard. Hansard is a wonderful thing when you pull out these great little pieces of quotes. In 2018, we were sitting here in this room, approximately two years ago now, and asking the same questions around the Surrey portables. The minister stated that there was an aggressive campaign to eliminate portables. He dared me — these are his words — to judge him “in two years from now” on the progress that they will have made on eliminating the portables.

I guess today is judgment today. I have to ask the question on the progress that the ministry has made on eliminating the portables, because from the numbers that we have, and I’m sure the numbers are quite factual, they’ve increased by 88 portables since this government has taken over.

My question is: can the minister can give us a robust update — I know he touched on it during his opening remarks — on how the plan is coming along for eliminating the Surrey portables?

Hon. R. Fleming: Let me say to the member that progress is going remarkably well in Surrey. I think we’re thrilled with where we’re getting to. We have 7,500 seats, new student spaces, under development. This will significantly reduce the number of portables in Surrey.

He mentioned that the number of portables has gone up while we have endeavoured to build schools, and he is correct. But if he were to talk to the superintendent or the director of capital operations in Surrey and ask him for an explanation….

[2:10 p.m.]

I’ll repeat it. The vast majority of those new portables that have been made necessary were due to the Supreme Court decision going against the previous government — in fact, from class sizes going down, which is a positive thing. But in a place like Surrey, which hadn’t received enough attention to build new schools, it meant a 10 percent space absorption, most of it related to the government’s 12-year fight with the teachers in the courts, which they lost and which our government had to respond to. So yes, portables were required in order to address the legal failure of the previous government.

The other, over a dozen — I think 14 — portables that were added are not for K-to-12 students; they’re for adult basic education in Surrey. The reorganization of adult basic education and the imposition of fees under the previous government…. We reversed that and made adult basic education tuition-free, to help adults who didn’t have a graduation certificate or who didn’t have a strong enough graduation certificate to get into college programs. We made it free. We made it available at post-secondary institutions, and that included in Surrey school district.

So 14 of the portables that the member quotes are directly related to growth in adult basic education. That’s great. That’s helping people get their graduation certificates, get into work, pay taxes, contribute to the community of Surrey and help fill valuable positions in the job market. It’s actually a good-news story in the case of those portables.

D. Davies: I understand that the Supreme Court ruling did, obviously, increase student numbers out of the classrooms, but that ruling was, I believe, in 2016 — when that came down. Going back to 2018 — when, again, the statement was made that judged the minister on removing the portables — he talked of 7,500 new seats that were under new development. If I could maybe get some more details on exactly what that looks like. When will those 7,500 seats be open?

Hon. R. Fleming: What I will tell the member is that the projects that are in construction or in planning will be completed, representing 7,830 seats. I misspoke; it’s higher. I’ll have to get him a date for each project, if he wishes. I do not have that with me at this time. But by 2022, it’s projected that 7,830 seats will be completed.

What this represents is a pace of construction in Surrey three times faster than what we saw in the previous mandate of the last government. If the previous government had proceeded in the manner and at the pace that we have as a government, there wouldn’t actually be any portables in Surrey today. We wouldn’t even be talking about this. It would have been done, and those resources would be available in other school districts.

[2:15 p.m.]

I have to say that we’ve worked quickly and that we have secured, on some projects, reductions in timelines, which is very positive, very hard to do when you’re trying to get workers on construction sites and there’s a lot of infrastructure and private market construction going on.

We’ve been able to start a very close working relationship with the city of Surrey, both the current mayor and the previous mayor. We’ve held five Surrey summits to date. That has involved the city manager, the political representatives of the city, the chair and trustees and superintendent and director of operations for the Surrey school district. In other words, it’s been all three levels of government, if you will, sitting down to identify how we can make things move faster.

The city of Surrey has lived up to its commitments to try and reduce permitting time. The use of qualified professionals, for example, to get things like drawings signed off more quickly has, in some cases, reduced timelines for projects by six months. We’ve committed to go to Treasury Board and process business cases more quickly, and we’ve delivered on that time after time.

Everybody has brought things to the table. The school district has a project office that’s working extremely well, that’s able to develop business cases and conduct planning more quickly. Where there are cash contributions from the school district, which is usually a small portion, both the province and school district have committed to bringing their money to the table more quickly, once we know the cost of the project.

I have to say the time and the effort that we’ve invested in convening regular summits in Surrey has paid off. You’re hearing that from the Surrey Board of Trade, very positive quotes about the level of cooperation they’re seeing. You’re hearing it from the board chair, who has served in Surrey for a long, long time, about seeing announcements actually become funded projects.

This is good momentum. I don’t want to scoop any future announcements in Surrey, but I’ll let the member do some guessing. With nine further projects in the design process right now, I think it’s fair to say there’s even more good news coming soon to Surrey.

D. Davies: We will coming back to this. I’ve got a bit of a schedule set up for my colleagues, so I’m going to turn it over to my colleague from Surrey South.

S. Cadieux: Back in 2017, I congratulated the minister on the decision to fund playgrounds, and I asked some questions about that. I asked some questions about whether or not they were going to be accessible to all children and whether or not they had thought that through in terms of how much those playgrounds would cost and, indeed, if that was what they were planning to build.

The minister responded that it was a good question and that he understood that they cost more, up to $200,000 and more, to build a truly universally accessible playground but committed that the ministry could go away and look at it and get back to me, which did not happen.

However, since then, the ministry has announced two rounds of playground grants in 2018 and 2019. I think that’s great. There’s no criticism of funding playgrounds. But in December, I called into question what had happened in terms of the accessibility of these playgrounds. Parents, in the announcements, were promised universally accessible playgrounds for about, well, 25 of the playgrounds in 2018 and 30 of the playgrounds in 2019. They aren’t.

A few of them are, and that’s great. It’s a celebration. In fact, Westerman in Surrey is a very good example of a universally designed playground. It isn’t perfect, but it is really quite good, and I think it’s a good step forward.

There are a great many others that I have seen that received grants and were called universally accessible playgrounds that, at best, provide a limited level of access, a limited level of inclusion for some kids with some disabilities. Kids are still on the sidelines.

[2:20 p.m.]

I raised this in 2019 — again, not to criticize the government for funding playgrounds but to criticize calling it something it’s not. I criticized government for the way they had funded these playgrounds knowing full well that there was no hope that they would be building accessible playgrounds with that amount of money.

The initial set of grants issued for universally accessible playgrounds designated $90,000 to update standard or aging equipment or services and $15,000 to add accessible features. Can’t do it; $15,000 won’t buy you an accessible surface. It won’t buy you an accessible piece of equipment. Government must have known this, if they had done any research whatsoever or even if they had listened to my estimate in estimates about the cost. But they still went forward and told parents that’s what they were getting, told schools that that’s what they were getting, when, in fact, they didn’t.

In December of 2019, when I brought this to the attention of folks because I had people telling me about, questioning, the playgrounds…. I had a number of parents talk to me. We saw one in the newspaper, and we did a little bit of digging and started to see what we found. The minister responded, in a letter to the editor, to my criticism, mostly criticizing me. But at the end of that, he said: “Next year all school districts who receive funding under the program will be required to build accessible playgrounds. We are currently reviewing the total amount given for each playground.” That is good. I hope that means that the minister has taken note that in fact the plan wasn’t a good plan.

I do question, though, whether or not the applications that were in place for 2021, this budget year…. The call for projects which went out and were required by June 30 of 2019 — if the minister anticipates that those projects will be accessible?

Hon. R. Fleming: Thank you to the member for the question. Hopefully, I can answer all the questions she may have at once. I was anticipating seeing her during the estimates process. I did take her comments to heart on previous occasions.

I want to say, maybe, at the outset that most districts took the ministry’s capital instructions previously, of the 101 playgrounds that applied for the universal playground, to mean “to a high standard,” which meant that every child could access it — so that it had accessible ground cover for those, so that it was mobility-accessible, and those kinds of things. Some school districts did not, and I compliment the member for working with parents who were a little disappointed that what was billed as a universally accessible playground was not.

A couple of things. One is that we have increased the funding amount to $125,000 for this year. We no longer have categories of non-accessible and accessible. They’re for universally accessible playground equipment — period. Those are the kinds that we wish to support. The $125,000, by the way, is to support what’s called a playground equipment program. It’s for the equipment.

We expect, and we typically see, very eager partnership from school districts and often local business communities. What we wanted to do was alleviate a huge burden for the equipment itself that often fell to parents, and we’ve done that. The grant will go up to $125,000. The category that…. We will only fund universally accessible playground equipment.

I’ve had an opportunity, myself, to talk to Rick Hansen, when I met with his foundation recently. We had him present to the Council of Ministers of Education of Canada last year about a whole bunch of building code issues, primarily. I brought to his attention that we had this equipment program. I’ll have a further occasion to talk with him.

Maybe lastly, to give the member an idea of the instructions we’re going to give to the school districts this year, which were — I’ll be generous — misinterpreted, maybe, in a couple of instances last time. We’ve made it much more explicit about what we expect in exchange for the grant.

I’ll read it. This has actually not been sent to school districts, but I don’t think they’ll be surprised to hear it, because we’ve let them know it’s coming.

[2:25 p.m.]

“The playground equipment program is available to provide specific funding to purchase and install new or replacement playground equipment, supporting inclusion and accessibility for all children. The Ministry of Education will require all playground equipment systems to be universally accessible and include appropriate ground cover for fall protection and ease of mobility.

“Universally accessible playground equipment is considered to be adventure-style playground equipment that is designed to be accessible by all elementary-aged students, including children with disabilities or developmental challenges who need to interact with playground equipment in a specialized manner, including wheelchair, walker and crutch use. This equipment is to be permanently fixed on a school site and include appropriate ground cover for fall protection and ease of mobility.”

It’s a much more detailed set of instructions. I’ve given her a copy before any other school board chair has seen it, so don’t let them get mad at me.

S. Cadieux: I’m going to just go backwards a little bit, because I do have a couple of questions that arise out of the minister’s statement.

Now, knowing that, as the minister says, some districts may have misinterpreted…. I think, frankly, it was a failure on the government to provide clear direction given that there are standards that exist, like the Let’s Play guide that government helped fund with the Rick Hansen Foundation, about how to do this — right? It’s not hard to find. I just googled it, and there it was. So I think it was a government failure to adequately equip districts when they put out the first two rounds of grants.

Since now finding out that, in fact, what was promised was not delivered in the vast majority of cases….

Interjection.

S. Cadieux: Well, okay. Then, we’ll let the minister explain. Did they have an independent audit done of all of those playgrounds by a certified professional in universal design to ensure that, in fact, they know which ones are and which ones aren’t and which ones will need further upgrades — of those hundred?

Hon. R. Fleming: First of all, as to the equipment itself, it’s certified to a high standard. It’s part of a coordinated buying program to get the best price possible for school districts.

[2:30 p.m.]

What I would say, in general, is that we are learning as we go. We’re improving. This program never existed before. The previous government had no such program for 16 years. Didn’t have one at all. Didn’t have it.

In the first year, we had two categories. We looked at that and we said: “We shouldn’t have two categories.” The second year we had one category: accessible. I think most people who would read the instructions from the second year would interpret it according to high-quality guidelines. Some clearly didn’t. So this year, we have made more explicit the guidelines. We also have increased the amount of the grant, recognizing that it needs to be a larger amount to be able to buy this equipment.

In other words, the program isn’t static. The program is evolving and improving, and it has funded much-needed playground equipment in communities around B.C. that is accessible for kids. And 25,000 kids now have access to a playground where they didn’t before. So it’s a good program, and it’s getting better all the time.

S. Cadieux: Again, no argument. Full credit to government for funding playgrounds. No argument with me. My argument is that government is continuing to fail kids with disabilities in this process. There are 25,000 kids that have access to a playground, and in at least half of those cases that does not include kids with disabilities.

Sure, it’s not possible to build an accessible playground for $125,000. It is not possible. It is possible to buy equipment, but if the surface is not purchased at the same time — which can be $40,000, $50,000, $100,000, depending on the surface — it still doesn’t work.

What we’ve seen, in a number of circumstances, is a number of playgrounds where kids can show up, and they can go to this little tiny part over here, but they can’t go over here. I’m concerned by that.

I’m heartened to hear the government’s learning. I am heartened to hear that the amount is going up a little bit and that the expectation is that these are going to be accessible playgrounds. However, the reality is, for the funding amount, those are going to be some very interesting accessible playgrounds. That’s still, then, requiring the school district or the PACs to come up with the money for the rest.

Now, again, I’m heartened to hear there was only one category for the 2019 intake for accessible playgrounds. That’s not what was announced. There were half accessible and half not accessible. So I’m not sure what the minister is referencing there. However, I will clarify why I’m confused. The 2020-2021 call for projects dictates, “standard playground equipment or universally accessible playground equipment,” which, by their own definition, serves the same purpose as standard playground equipment but is designed to be accessible by all elementary-aged children.

Then when you go to the second page of the application, it says that schools are to provide a number of things — the priority of the project, if it’s new or replacement equipment, etc. Then it says to provide “a rationale for universally accessible equipment. If universally accessible playground equipment is selected, describe the need at the school. Include the number of students with physical disabilities currently attending the school, the known number of children with physical disabilities that are expected to attend the school in the near future — i.e., the next couple of years.” Well, this just doesn’t jive with the minister’s own statements.

If I was a school district and I was applying for a playground under this program for the 2020 year that we are now in estimates for and hoping to receive one of those grants, I’d be asking myself a question: am I applying for standard equipment or universal equipment? And gee, if I have to apply for universal equipment, which I want to do because I believe it’s the right thing to do…. But gee, you know what? Right now in my school, I don’t have a child with a physical disability that’s going to require universally accessible equipment, and I don’t know if any are going to show up in the next two years. Maybe I better just apply for the standard playground equipment so I get it.

Can the minister explain why that while at the same time this government is drafting accessibility legislation for the province of British Columbia, we are asking people to justify whether or not there are kids that might require the equipment?

[2:35 p.m.]

Frankly, I can tell you, in every community in this province and probably in every school, there are children that require this equipment today and/or will in the future. This equipment is expected to last for many years, as we know, because we’re only going to be able to, even with a new playground program, replace a few a year.

Can the minister explain, please, where we are at today? Because if the call for projects required people to justify universally accessible projects, where are the projects at going forward?

Hon. R. Fleming: A couple of questions ago I read out to the member the playground equipment instructions that have been revised. She’s reading the one from the first intake. We’re now on intake three.

Interjection.

The Chair: Member, please, for the benefit of the public, we want to have this through the microphone, as well as questions come through the Chair.

Hon. R. Fleming: I read the member the draft language that will go out in the capital instructions — we’re not in the new fiscal year yet — that will accompany round three. I’m happy to provide the text to the member so she can review it again. But I think she’ll find that it’s pretty explicit. Therefore, there is no rationale for a grant application to include why they’re choosing a universally accessible playground over a standard playground, because we don’t fund standard playgrounds.

We already have submissions from the districts who have applied for these grants, and because it is now a requirement that all playgrounds we fund be universally accessible, 100 percent of the applications for new playground equipment is for universally accessible playground equipment.

I mentioned to the member the amount has gone up. The standard has been made more explicit. The district that received a lot of media attention for falsely billing something as being universally accessible in the Okanagan has apologized to the parent advisory group and to the parents of families who raised objections, understandably, because their kids couldn’t participate and access that playground equipment. They acknowledged that they did not live up to the commitment they made to the ministry in exchange for receiving that grant.

S. Cadieux: Chair, I apologize for my interjection.

I am reading from a document, Minister, from your ministry called Playground Equipment Program (PEP) 2020-2021: Call for Projects. It includes, “The completed spreadsheet must be emailed by June 30, 2019,” to a person’s name, planning officer, at a government email address at the Ministry of Education.

Now, I accept that the minister says now he has changed his mind. He has gotten religion on this issue and understands that there needs to be something different. But my question is…. Given that for this coming year, 2020-2021 projects, applications were to be in by June 30, 2019…. If that’s not the case, then a whole bunch of school districts have some incorrect information, and I’m concerned about that.

I’m also a bit concerned about the minister sort of pushing off that this was a mistake made by districts. It wasn’t a mistake made by districts. I made that very clear, and the districts did a really good job, I think, of responding to criticism when it came and looking at what they could do to change.

The reality was that at the beginning of this project, there weren’t clear instructions. There weren’t clear expectations. There was no guideline prepared. So in various districts, clearly, where there are varied sizes and capacities for work, a lot of that work fell to the parent advisory councils who were raising the additional money to make these playgrounds work. They made some decisions, and sometimes, they weren’t good. They had nothing to go from. They had no idea. They didn’t know. They were doing the best they could.

It’s government’s responsibility to ensure that government facility, government infrastructure is accessible to everyone. It’s government’s responsibility. It is not the parent advisory’s responsibility. So I am concerned.

I am happy if this document is no longer the document that is expected to be worked from. I’m happy to hear that the minister has a new set of guidelines that are going to go out to districts. But none of this fits. It’s hard to know what the policy is, what the expectations are and when, if ever, we are going to see fully accessible playgrounds planned for every child in the province of British Columbia with public funds.

[2:40 p.m.]

I’ll reiterate. You can’t build an accessible playground for $125,000. The reality is that we aren’t going to get them. But I would really like to know what the instructions to districts are. Who is overseeing whether or not this actually is accessible? Are they putting them in touch with experts? Are they putting the districts who are granted the money in touch with experts to oversee the planning of these playgrounds to ensure that similar mistakes aren’t made, going forward?

Hon. R. Fleming: To the member, I would say this. At the outset of the program, we gave the school sector a high degree of input into how we would design this program, including BCCPAC. The districts actually wanted to have two categories. There were some that made the argument that they had just funded accessible playgrounds — that they wanted a second playground on a large elementary school, for example, and they wanted to have the choice. Most districts made the choice for universally accessible.

The second year of the fund revealed that some districts had not applied a high-standard interpretation of what most of us would consider universally accessible play equipment. The instruction documents were updated in April 2019 to read as follows: “The program….”

The Chair: Minister, I’m going to remind you not to use a device when you are in possession of the microphone.

Hon. R. Fleming: Okay. I’ll read the paper version.

“The playground equipment program is available to provide specific funding to purchase and install new or replacement playground equipment. Supporting inclusion and accessibility for all children, the Education Ministry will require all playground equipment systems to be universally accessible and include appropriate ground cover for fall protection and ease of mobility.

“Universally accessible playground equipment is considered to be adventure-style playground equipment that is designed to be accessible by all elementary-aged students, including children with disabilities or developmental challenges who need to interact with playground equipment in a specialized manner, including wheelchair, walker and crutch use. This equipment is to be permanently fixed on a school site and include appropriate ground cover for fall protection and ease of mobility.”

That change has been made. The next change is around the amount. It will be increased to $125,000. There’s now only one category.

As I mentioned to the member earlier, it’s a playground equipment program. It buys the equipment. We centrally procure that and get it as cheaply as possible, much cheaper than somebody who just bought it through a distributor. We pass on those savings to school districts, obviously. We’re funding them.

It does mean that there may be some additional costs, but let me tell you. A school district facing no budget, no grant program, didn’t build playgrounds. What we’re finding is that with a grant program — and now a much more robust grant program, in its third year of operation — this is well subscribed. That’s why it’s contained in each year of the next three years in the service plan before us. That’s a $15 million investment for play equipment.

Look, the people that are highly supportive of it include the B.C. Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils. We have inclusive advocacy organizations that are supportive of this program. All the districts are supportive of it, so the program will ask for further grants very shortly. We will send the improved instructions.

We expect districts to continue to contribute things like installation costs, using a mix of their own staff and volunteers. We expect them to access grants from organizations like the B.C. tire stewardship council to get soft ground cover. There are other foundations and private companies out there that are matching, essentially, or supporting the investments that we’re making in playground equipment. The point is that the grant program has succeeded in taking the burden off the backs of parents who, depending where they live, don’t have the means to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars. They no longer have to. They can work with their school districts.

I would, finally, add that districts are able to partner with us on these playground installations because the amount of money that they have in the school system is $1.1 billion more annually in the budget that we’re debating. The rate of surplus and transfers to reserves has increased dramatically. We’re talking in the hundreds of millions of dollars since we formed government.

[2:45 p.m.]

They have small equipment and other program reserves that fund playgrounds, and that’s great. What we’re finding is that when they can leverage a significant major grant like the playground equipment program from British Columbia, they’re willing to make their own local investments to match it and release 100 percent of the burden from parent advisory councils.

S. Cadieux: Once again the minister wants to make this a partisan attack. I’m not making this a partisan attack. I am not talking…. I have said multiple times, and I will continue to say: I support the program. I support the efforts of the government to do this. I think it’s a good thing that they’re doing, in building playgrounds.

I am questioning the method by which they are doing it and the expertise with which they are deciding what an accessible playground is and how they’re actually ensuring that that is delivered. The reality is that, previously, when districts and others and parent advisory councils decided to build playgrounds and they were not accessible, it was frustrating. But I also understood that they were making a decision. They were not necessarily making a decision in the best interests of everyone, but they were making a decision that made sense for them — and financially that they could manage.

I’m not critical of folks who don’t have the expertise in making decisions that, in the end, are not ultimately inclusive. Often they don’t realize they have made a decision that excludes others. This goes beyond playgrounds to all sorts of decisions.

When we have a government that has decided and states frankly in many, many places: “Playgrounds are a key factor in a child’s development and learning. They encourage outdoor physical activity, help children learn how to share and overcome challenges and help them focus and learn more effectively in the classroom.”

Government recognized this. I support them in that recognition. They decided to use provincial tax dollars to pay for infrastructure — in this case, playgrounds — and they are not ensuring that those are accessible. They are continuing, through this process, even now, saying that you have to have an accessible playground. “We’ll give you $125,000.” It’s not possible, which means these districts are still going to have to be fundraising a great deal of money. The minister just said that these districts have to raise money from grants and contributions from corporations and what have you.

In order to do it right, that has to happen. It hasn’t happened with the previous ones, and the reason was there wasn’t enough money, and there wasn’t clear direction on what “universally accessible” is. I’m very hopeful that they are hearing this and that they are taking it as constructive criticism, because I want this to work. I want them to get this right.

The reality is that at the same time as you are drafting legislation on ensuring that everyone has access to everything they need in this province — in terms of infrastructure, in terms of work, in terms of government services — we have a government that is putting out documents that suggest you have to justify universally accessible playground equipment. That’s just problematic.

I understand now that the minister is assuring me that this is wrong — that this document is outdated, even though it clearly says, “2020-2021 call for proposals” and “please send them in by June 30 of 2019,” meaning that applications will have already been received, based on this criteria. This was sent to me by a district. This is what they are using. So if that is not the case, then I hope that the minister will commit today to ensure that no decisions on playground capital are made before a new process is clearly defined for all of the districts, articulating what an accessible playground is and how the process will go forward.

Frankly, this document is offensive. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe they figured it out, and they pulled it back. But it’s still out there, and that worries me. I hope the minister will take that under advisement and provide me with a copy of all the documents that go out related to this program henceforth.

[2:50 p.m.]

I’d be happy to be certain that, in fact, they have corrected their very large mistake.

Hon. R. Fleming: Thank you to the member for the question and the points and what she described as constructive criticism. I think many of the points that she’s raised today and previously are ones that have been taken into account to improve the program. She’s asked if we would copy her on the instructions for the next round of grants before they go out, and I think that’s something that we can do. They will become a public document, so we will give you those public documents when they are delivered to school districts.

We have worked to make the instructions clear. We have sought the advice of the inclusion community, the disability community, about what language would be clear and capture it so that, you know, it would be really impossible to make an argument that it was confusing. It’s much more explicit and, I think, in keeping with language used on project planning around inclusion and accessibility.

I will commit to have the ministry give a copy of the new instruction letters that are going to go out to districts for the playground equipment program.

S. Cadieux: I thank the minister for that. I’ll appreciate that.

Just one follow-up question on that and then one very brief question after that. I’ll put them together because I think the minister will be able to answer them quite quickly.

The question, then, is…. The document that existed, that districts were in possession of, that suggested that applications for the next round for 2020-2021 had to be in by June 30…. That is incorrect information, and those applications have not yet been received for the 2021 year. Is that correct? I think that’s just a clarification.

The second piece of this is…. All of the documentation that I’ve read — acknowledging, Chair, that there may be changes when we see this new document — is that districts can apply for up to three playgrounds per intake. Maybe that’s not the case, but that is the documentation that I have. It suggests that districts are eligible in the year, provided they didn’t receive funding the year before. So that, too, may be incorrect.

I’m curious. How is government deciding where to build playgrounds when, in fact, some districts, as the minister will know, like the one I represent, are vastly larger and have vastly more schools, playgrounds and children than other districts? It would seem completely unfair to be able to do all of the schools in one district in a short period of time and yet have, for example, Surrey take, in theory, 20 years.

If the minister could just clarify those points for me before we wrap.

Hon. R. Fleming: The program takes into account the distinction between district sizes. So, yeah, she’s correct. We have some districts with as few as 500 students and her own district with approximately 70,000 students. So a district like Surrey can expect to, in some years, be awarded two or three playgrounds. The smallest districts may get one every three years or until they run out of schools, which is sometimes the case.

It is weighted, roughly, towards population — larger districts getting more announcements. And it could be the case that there are some districts that stop applying for it if they, presumably, run out of the need to apply for that grant. We haven’t hit that point yet, but maybe by year 5 or 6, we will.

I will look into the instructions, whether the…. I see the member has a printed copy, so it could be the version that was not updated. I was looking at an electronic device. I was ruled out of order for trying to read from it. But it was on line, live, that had instructions that had been updated in late 2019. It was in red text which highlighted and made very explicit to districts the changes around the standard and what the new standard was — in red text, in the new application form. The date of which was, I believe, April 2019.

[2:55 p.m.]

Interjection.

The Chair: Member, if we can please speak through the Chair.

Hon. R. Fleming: I’ll just consult about getting a date for the next intake application.

S. Bond: I just would like to add my comments — the fact that I am hopeful that a discussion about accessible playgrounds is a place we can find some common ground and actually make this work. It’s a pretty important issue in all of our communities. Hopefully, we can, across party lines, figure out how to do the job as best we can.

My comments today are related to my constituency, which, obviously, is Prince George–Valemount. It’s a large urban-rural school district. I’m sure the minister is well aware of some of the challenges that districts like mine face.

I want to raise two issues. Obviously, our community is excited about the fact that we will soon see the opening of a new secondary school in Prince George, Kelly Road Secondary. It’s something, I know, that I advocated for, for a long time, even with our own government. I’m very happy to see that move forward, and I know that it’s going to be well received in our community.

Perhaps something that other MLAs may not be aware of: portables are not just an issue in urban British Columbia; they’re actually a concern in my constituency as well. I know that school districts annually put forward a request for their capital needs, and I know that my school district has a list of things that they’re interested in seeing move forward. The most critical of those and at the top of their list is a full expansion of D.P. Todd Secondary School. My understanding is that that school will see, potentially, a number of portables — I think up to six portables being in place in the coming year.

We know that there is a growing shortage of secondary school spaces as we move forward into the 2023 school year. I’m wondering if the minister can just give me a sense of the priorities of the government when it comes to additional investment in communities like mine. We may not be Surrey, but we certainly are having some challenges. This is the top priority, as I understand it, identified by my school district. So I just wanted to just get a sense of the minister’s awareness of that issue and when he would expect to have some dialogue with my school district about that important capital requirement.

[3:00 p.m.]

[M. Dean in the chair.]

Hon. R. Fleming: Thank you very much to the member for the question. The short answer is that D.P. Todd has not been supported to date. It’s a fairly new request for additions. We review that annually. We’ll review it again as a district priority. We will review it along with requests from all 60 districts, of course. We recognize that there are some districts that do not have space pressures but they do have some localized space pressures within their districts.

By the numbers, the Prince George district…. Only 2 percent of students in that district study in portables. That’s quite low in the provincial context. It’s among the lower. But we recognize that sometimes there are space pressures within families of schools transitioning from elementary to high school or middle school, as the case may be.

We are also keeping our eye on an uptick in growth after many, many years of decline in enrolment. It’s not significant, but in 2017-18, there were 13,047 students in the district. The latest I have is the March 19 enrolment number — 13,221. So about 150 students added. It’s moving in the right direction. We’re looking at that enrolment growth.

It was one of the reasons that we reopened a previously closed elementary school and worked with the district to refresh that. It had been closed for a number of years and didn’t have things like up-to-date Wi-Fi and needed to be brought back into service. We’ll look at requests from Prince George or other districts where that may be helpful in avoiding the demand for portables.

S. Bond: I do appreciate the minister’s response, and I know he wouldn’t be surprised that I’m here advocating for my community, because that’s what MLAs do. That’s our job.

I know that, as I understand it, Kelly Road, the new school — which I said we’re very grateful for — will open at or near capacity, and there is an ongoing shortage of seats as we move through the next number of years. So I would be very appreciative of an ongoing monitoring of that situation when it comes to the number of secondary school seats.

I’m told that the number of seats, in terms of secondary school spaces, will be 300 to 500 short as we move into 2023-24. I think the school district has been fairly public about that. I should also say that I very much appreciate the hard work done by our trustees in terms of looking at the capital needs in our community. They certainly are working hard to try to figure out, as the minister points out, how they manage through those transition issues. I appreciate that, and I will look forward to further information and the minister monitoring.

The other issue I wanted to raise…. I certainly appreciate the critic making time for us this afternoon. I know we’re doing capital now. I’ll come back with a couple of other issues more broadly impacting our school district, but we’ll do that when the critic gives us the nod. Whatever his schedule looks like, we’ll fit into that. So I do appreciate the opportunity.

[3:05 p.m.]

I did want to raise, though, the issue of annual facilities grants. I know that this is an ongoing challenge for governments, whoever is sitting in the government benches.

I know that the school district has, I think, for a number of years in a row, through the Select Standing Committee on Finance, raised the issue of facilities grants with a concern to look at: how do we keep schools updated — as the minister pointed out, “refreshed” — and deal with capital issues, preventative maintenance, those kinds of things?

It has been an ongoing request by school districts, including ours, to take a look at funding in that particular envelope. So perhaps the minister could give me a sense of where we’re at with the annual facilities grant. How will we begin to keep up with the challenges that many, many school districts are facing with buildings that are aging?

I fully recognize how challenging it is to balance the demands in the education system, having sat in that chair myself at one point in time and having been a school board chair.

Just a bit of an update on that particular program. Is it increasing? How are we managing? There’s an awful lot of demand, and I’m just wondering if the minister could give me an update on that program.

Hon. R. Fleming: Thank you to the member. Just to go back to her previous question around capacity and enrolment growth, as I said, we’re going to monitor that. We’re certainly very pleased with the progress reports on construction around Kelly Road. Obviously, the community is going to really, really enjoy that new facility and all that it brings to the students and to the community.

The new capacity is larger than the current overcrowded school. So the capacity will go up to 850 seats. Right now there are 788 students. I don’t believe it was designed for that. So it’s over capacity, and it will have additional capacity when it opens.

[3:10 p.m.]

Specifically on the annual facilities grant that deals with maintenance requirements in B.C. schools, we were pleased, at a previous set of estimates, to highlight that for the first time in, I think, ten years, the AFG had gone up by $5½ million, which is positive. I think what I would say in this budget, Budget 2020’s feature, is that we’re going to augment that by tripling the funding that’s in the carbon-neutral capital program in government. This is part of CleanBC.

I say augment, because the clean investment program is available for things like energy system replacements and windows. It essentially augments or stretches the AFG dollars further, so that’s a good thing. That’s a $12 million addition. The program will grow from $5 million to $17 million.

There are a couple of other complementary programs, too, that I think help us with deferred maintenance types of problems. The building envelope program remains. So for those types of specific building envelope failures, there’s an $8 million program that is ongoing and continues. Also relatively new — at least, in comparison to the AFG program that exists — is the school enhancement program, which is $65 million annually, and that’s in Budget 2020 as well.

S. Bond: I appreciate that answer. Can the minister just remind me? Are those dollars distributed on a prioritized basis? Do they look at where the need is greatest? Is it per capita when it comes to school districts? Is there a distributed formula? Perhaps, could the minister just remind me? Is it done after an assessment of where the needs are the greatest in the province?

Hon. R. Fleming: Thank you very much to the member for the question. Yes, there is a formula, but it has some variables within it, so it would be inaccurate to say it’s based on per-capita, strictly equity, allocation. It looks at things like the number of schools in a district and the age of those schools, what the facility condition index or the needs of those schools are. In practice, I’m told that often it does work out to almost a per-capita type of basis. But because larger projects can be concentrated in one district one year and less in another, it does vary.

[3:15 p.m.]

The school enhancement program is an application-based program. There are priorities that are set there. Funding goes to the projects that have the greatest impact on improving the facility condition index of the school. And the carbon-neutral capital program is also a priority-based application fund. It looks at projects that have the greatest amount of carbon emission reduction and, therefore, operating savings for districts to use for classroom learning services.

S. Bond: I admit that I probably should have remembered those things, but sometimes on days like today, it’s hard to remember what day it is, much less those details.

Madam Chair, I want to thank the minister for the opportunity to ask some questions about our school district. As I indicated, I’ll come back when the critic gives me the opportunity to ask a few more general questions about some issues that are important to northern trustees and northern school districts. I appreciate the information and the time this afternoon.

B. Stewart: It’s a pleasure to rise today during estimates of the Ministry of Education and the discussion around capital. I just want to inquire about the capital request put in by school district 23, Central Okanagan, for a secondary school in Glenrosa to help alleviate the pressures and problems, essentially, of a school that’s called Mount Boucherie Senior Secondary School, which has reached capacity some time ago. It has been backfilled with portables, and there has been grade reconfiguration. I think, because of the distances to other secondary schools across Lake Okanagan, it only is feasible to look at a proposal that’s been put forward.

Hon. R. Fleming: Thank you to the member for the question. I think this is a good example of where the ministry has been working closely with school district 23, Central Okanagan district, to support what has been their highest priority in their annual capital submission. The member is quite correct: Mount Boucherie Secondary is overcrowded, and a new Westside secondary school is going to help alleviate those conditions tor students.

We have been working closely with the school district on securing a site as a first step for this project. I’m told that they’re very close. They have a couple of options. Probably the less we talk about land in an open forum like this, the better. But SD 23 is securing a site. We support that. While they’re securing a site, the ministry has given a green light to a concept plan. District 23 is working on that right now. They haven’t submitted it back to the ministry, but we supported the request for that, and it’s underway.

[3:20 p.m.]

B. Stewart: There were some challenges in evaluation of some of the sites, which maybe the minister or the staff are aware of. They had issues around three of the school sites that were identified as being in the agricultural land reserve, even though they’d predated the land reserve. Needless to say, there were some restrictions. I understand, from the superintendent and the chair, that they’ve worked through those. There are some options that they are working on, and I’m sure that they’ll be expediting that plan back to you as soon as possible. I’m glad to report that you’re anxious to do that.

Can you give an idea on the timeline, Minister? Once that plan, the conceptual plan, is returned to you, what type of timeline should be expected for school district 23 being able to move ahead with action on a conceptual plan and move ahead on construction of something?

Hon. R. Fleming: To the member: when we receive the concept plan from the district, we will get a draft. The ministry will probably go back and forth on some items in the concept plan. The concept plan is an idea, I think, that’s important to the process, because it’s going to be a large project, at least $75 million or more. It will probably be informed once we have clarity on the site as well.

Once that work is completed, then there will be a formal business development case, which will really get into costing what the project will look like. There are a few steps along the way. We did, in terms of taking the first and significant steps, work with SD 23 to meet that request and get us to where we are right now. I will advise the member, if he doesn’t hear before I do, about any developments around the land and, certainly, get back to him about the concept plan as well.

There are a few steps along the way before the business case is developed, and then a supportable project would go forward to Treasury Board. I think, as a general comment, SD 23 is good at capital procurement. They’re interested in working quickly. I think they have a good relationship with local government too. So we’ll look forward to the presentation of that draft concept plan.

B. Stewart: I just want to recognize the trustees for their hard work. I know this great reconfiguration…. I know the minister goes through hard work every day. As trustees, they took a lot of public abuse — whether it was appropriate or not — but they were trying to work and fit into existing facilities they have. I just want to acknowledge their hard work.

I want to go and pivot to one other project which the minister and I have met on and discussed. I realize it’s early stages. There is a First Nation band at the north end of Lake Okanagan called the Okanagan Indian Band, who have been working through a feasibility study with McFarland Marceau Architects. The feasibility study of this is to be complete later this month.

There have been public meetings in my area, Kelowna West, as a part of that. There are about 100 students from K to12 that travel by bus on a daily basis. It’s a little over an hour and 15 minutes from end to end. So for some of those kindergarten or younger years, this is an important possibility for them. As well, there are a number, almost exceeding that — a couple of hundred — going to school district 23 in the North Okanagan.

[3:25 p.m.]

My question to the minister. This is a unique project that presents an opportunity to reduce transportation significantly, for both school districts 22 and 23. More importantly, I just wanted to know if the consultants had had any discussions with the minister’s staff in terms of the feasibility. There are examples, although not many, where there have been provincial funds put into a provincial school where it’s shared ability. I just wondered if there has been any further progress on this unique model or concept.

Hon. R. Fleming: Thank you to the member for the question. He happens to ask me, I think, a day after the Okanagan Indian Band met — yesterday, I believe — with both school districts 22 and 23. News travels fast. I do not have a debriefing from that meeting, but that’s a good sign — that discussions of the concept are proceeding. What I understand, in terms of what the Okanagan Indian Band would like to see happen, is to have a band-owned and -operated school. It would be administered by them.

The concept is interesting, in terms of catchment students that are non-reserve, non-Indigenous kids forming a significant part of the school population. We do have a few examples, as the member mentioned, where we have kids attending schools in that manner. British Columbia’s obligation — what we do in those situations — is to pay reciprocal tuition to the institution. We pay the operating costs, for kids that would otherwise be part of the B.C. public school system, to attend what’s essentially an independent First Nations school that’s on their reserve lands.

[3:30 p.m.]

We will certainly continue to engage Ottawa — the Department of Indigenous Services Canada, in particular — about this being a priority project. I think what I’ll do is check in on districts 22 and 23, find out what the meeting was like with the Okanagan Indian Band, talk to them as well and see where we’re at.

I think it’s fair to say there’s good work happening between those three parties. We get updated on it. We haven’t been updated as recently as maybe the member would like.

B. Stewart: Thanks for that update.

I had a brief visit with another First Nation that is in my riding. Westbank First Nation were here yesterday. And I just want to tell you about a recent equity signing agreement about two weeks ago that was signed in SƏNSISYUSTƏN community centre with Westbank First Nation and school district 23.

What’s significant about this is that this particular agreement has already been going on. But what has been very unique is that, as the Chief mentioned yesterday when we were meeting with the Minister of Advanced Education, they’ve had three years of significant numbers of First Nation graduates at a 100 percent graduation rate from school district 23.

It is an example of where they’ve really moved the ball forward. I know Councillor Coble, who was here yesterday, is a prime example of somebody that graduated through that.

Anyway, I do want to continue to encourage you to reach out and support First Nations and education as best you can. Thank you very much for your time today.

T. Shypitka: Thank you for the opportunity to ask a couple of questions. A couple of issues — and the minister probably knows which ones they’ll probably be — but more of an update.

Last year the minister announced that funding was secure for Isabella Dicken secondary school and the expansion of that school to get rid of the eight portables. I think eight portables is one of the highest of secondary schools in the province to have that many portables. But at any rate, it was something that was well needed and well received, and we were happy to hear that funding was going to be on the way.

I believe a PDR was being requested of the school district to be completed by October of 2019. And the first question, I guess, to the minister: was that PDR received on October of 2019 or before that, and what kind of back-and-forth did they have in that process?

Hon. R. Fleming: Thank you to the member for the question. As soon as I saw him, I anticipated this. And he’s correct. The Isabella Dicken Elementary School business case, or PDR report, has been ongoing for about a year now.

[3:35 p.m.]

We have provided a lot of feedback and talked to local officials, both at the school district and the town council level, about its alignment with the second project, a potential middle school in Fernie. The Fernie middle school needs a site, so they’re working on a site identification for that.

If a middle school was secured, it would allow greater grade configuration flexibility there. That would make the elementary addition smaller, and the middle school would be able to cover additional grades of kids. Therefore, you’re working towards the goal of portable reduction on the current elementary school from the point of view of two projects.

The secondary school, of course, is the third facility in Fernie and has room to grow for the foreseeable future. We need to get it right in terms of elementary and middle school. I know that the community briefly, and not very favourably, had looked at adding another grade to the high school, because, as I say, there was space there. Having a grade 6-to-12 high school there — I’m not aware of that existing in another community in B.C. It didn’t pan very well. I think that all of those factors led to the middle school discussion.

I don’t have an update on how close Fernie is around getting a site for the middle school, but I think that’s a pretty exciting option for the community to have the capacity that middle school brings. You get things like larger gymnasiums. You get more diversity of programming. Sometimes you get early exposure to trades and equipment-type programming as well. We’re working with the school district on both of those projects currently.

T. Shypitka: It’s kind of going back and forth with aligning with a middle school or a high school, I guess. It may be adding additional grades and figuring out how this is going to work with Isabella Dicken School and limiting their portables. Was the PDR submitted by school district No. 5 in entirety to address that expansion? Or was it this back and forth of finding things out that the school district actually kind of opted out for the expansion of Isabella Dicken?

Hon. R. Fleming: Thank you to the member for the question. The short answer is no. We have not received the PDR yet for the Isabella Dicken Elementary School addition.

T. Shypitka: All right. Yeah, that’s a bit of a…. I mean, it is what it is, right?

What are the negotiations, or what is the talk right now on timelines? I guess they’re looking at different options with land purchases and things like that, perhaps, I’m getting. But are there any timelines on how we can bring this all together some time soon?

Hon. R. Fleming: I would say to the member that this spring we’re expecting both some movement on the PDR, receiving the PDR, and possibly some more certainty and clarity over the site acquisition.

T. Shypitka: Is the PDR with any specific entity, any specific school? Or is it with Isabella Dicken, or is it with…? I just want to clarify that.

Hon. R. Fleming: The PDR we anticipate receiving shortly is for the elementary school addition project.

T. Shypitka: Well, we’ll be looking forward to…. I’ll be touching base with my folks back home to see how that’s going. Appreciate the ongoing discussion around that. I know it’s really much needed there.

I don’t want to get into politics about it, but Mount Baker High School is obviously a big concern. I see a smirk from the minister there. Like I said, I don’t want to get into the politics of it all, but Mount Baker High School was built in 1949 or somewhere around there. It’s over 70 years old now.

Asbestos. It’s been a priority with the school district for quite some time, since around 2008, I believe. It was right around that time that the seismic upgrade program came into place, I believe, with the B.C. Liberal government, the former government, and setting those priorities with seismic upgrading.

[3:40 p.m.]

We all understand, and the minister has recognized that from last year’s discussion, that it is important to recognize seismic upgrades in the protection of children in the case of a seismic event.

At any rate, I’m just wondering: has the minister been to the school since the last time we discussed?

Hon. R. Fleming: I am aware that this has been the district’s high-priority request since at least 2008, as you mentioned, so going on 12 years. We have not asked the district yet to go forward with the PDR on this. As he has mentioned, and we discussed this last year, we have two main programs around capital investment that have a high claim on the $2.8 billion that’s in the service plan that we’re discussing in the estimates for capital. Close to $1 billion of it is, as the member mentioned, seismic.

If Mount Baker had seismic issues, it may help it get closer to an investment decision. The other is around fast-growing communities. We’ve already talked a little bit, and I suspect we’ll talk more, about districts that are experiencing significant overcrowding issues. Fernie, which is also the district’s priority, is the one that we’re working on with them right now. So I don’t have an answer about the response to the district yet, but we continue to hear the district on Mount Baker.

We have not wanted to give them a false start though. We want to make sure that we’re going to be ready to proceed with the project. I understand why this is a priority. This is a building that is getting on in age. It reminds me a little bit of Cowichan Secondary School here on the Island. In that case, it’s the highest safety risk rating, structurally, that could cause significant loss of life should it be full when an earthquake strikes.

That building — I think 1949 as well — has been green-lit for replacement. We’re working on that. For Mount Baker, we will have to continue to evaluate in light of requests that we receive from all over the province.

T. Shypitka: I’ll take it from the answer the minister gave that he hasn’t been to Mount Baker since the last time we met and hasn’t been there since he’s been minister, I believe, because he wasn’t there last year. He said he tried to get there, but the doors were locked and it was after hours. But maybe the minister will take us up on the offer to come down.

If the minister would like to see the school virtually, there’s actually a really good YouTube video on the state of disrepair of the school. The kids from the drama department put on somewhat of a musical montage of the disrepair of the school. It’s actually quite good. That was in 2012, I believe, so it was eight years ago. It’s significantly deteriorated since then.

[3:45 p.m.]

I guess the problem is funding priorities with the school district. Like I said before, Mount Baker was a high priority item for such a long time. Isabella Dicken — leapfrogged over that last year for whatever reason. I’m glad that we’re starting to see, hopefully, some resolve to the issues in Fernie.

The problem exists where priorities on one hand override priorities on another hand. What I mean by that is the seismic upgrade program that was put in place in around 2008, somewhere around there. The former government had a plan to have those seismic upgrades done by 2025. That was their goal. And I believe the minister is on record saying that they would be ahead of that goal, ahead of that target. I’ve got a couple of quotes here. Is that still the case? Is seismic upgrading still going to be ahead of that 2025 target, or not?

Hon. R. Fleming: Just to go back to Mount Baker for a second, we will be informing the district very shortly about their grant request for school enhancement program funds — some of the issues around deferred maintenance they’re wishing to address. So while they would like to have a replacement school, they’re also looking at some of the mechanical issues and improvements that they can do to the school. So we’ll have a reply to them very soon on that, and we’ll let the member know about that as well. So there could be some investment into Baker that will improve the quality of that school.

In terms of seismic programs in general…. I expect the critic will ask a number of questions about this as well, but just to give him an idea about the progress we’ve been making, we have 41 seismic upgrade projects. Some of them are replacement schools. For some of them, there are significant upgrades underway right now. We’re moving three times faster than the previous government on the seismic programs, so we have picked up the pace. We’re doing that in communities like Richmond, for example, that had only had one seismic upgrade completed since 2002. We assumed office and got projects out the door beginning in September 2017, and we now have eight projects underway. There’s an eightfold increase, if you will, in Richmond. So we’re getting at the backlog of projects.

Just to give the member an idea of the scale of investment over the service plan that we’re debating right now, it’s close to $1 billion for seismic infrastructure. The last service plan of the previous government was about $300 million over the same time period. So more than triple the investment going into seismic upgrades. The 41 projects that I mentioned represent over $900 million of seismic approvals that we’ve done. Most importantly, it represents 25,000 safe student spaces. So about 25,000 students who are currently studying in seismically unsafe facilities are on their way to transitioning into new, seismically safe facilities.

T. Shypitka: Well, that is encouraging, to say the least — three times faster than the former government. So when the former government put out a goal, a target, for 2025 to have the seismic upgrading completed…. I believe it was 2025.

[3:50 p.m.]

I’ll go back to my question that I asked the last time. I don’t think I got a response on that. Is this government poised to be ahead of that target of 2025? Or are they on track to meet it? Or are they going to be behind it?

Hon. R. Fleming: Well, let me say this as gently as possible. I don’t think anyone put any stock on…. Certainly, it was more of a political announcement around 2025 previously. We have changes to the building code that have been ongoing, as well, that have added projects to the list since that time.

I think that the most important thing for us, as a ministry, is to support projects as quickly as possible. We’ve demonstrated that in the last 2½ years. So before we produce a timeline that’s…. In order to avoid a timeline that’s completely unrealistic, we’re just going to keep building the momentum on the seismic upgrades that we have right now.

I think what the member will find, in consulting districts that have considerable seismic issues, is that they appreciate that we have been able to support projects that they had asked for, for years and years, and get to them much quicker.

T. Shypitka: So I guess the answer is: 2025, there was no stock in that. Nobody really believed that to be true. This government is not believing it to be true. So I’m thinking that the timelines are beyond 2025, from the response. This becomes a problem, once again, for projects like Mount Baker, because they were sidelined because of the seismic upgrade initiative set by the previous government. Now we’re hearing that those timelines may be beyond what the former government slated as their target end date, and so that pushes projects like Mount Baker further down the rung.

At some point, the life expiry date of a school is going to reach a certain melting point where the priority of seismic upgrades will have to come second. I guess the question to the minister is: where would that point be with Mount Baker where they would have to ignore the priorities of seismic upgrading and get to work on Mount Baker School?

To secure funding for a project like that is going to take some time; it’ll take some years. We’re looking at a simple expansion of an elementary school that last year we thought was going to be shovels in the ground by 2021 by the minister’s own estimates. Now we’re looking at a simple project like that being delayed.

For a project like Mount Baker…. It’s reaching 75 years and a deteriorating state and the ongoing priority-setting of seismic upgrading. What would the minister think would be a rational expectation for when Mount Baker should be addressed?

Hon. R. Fleming: Thank you to the member for the question. There’s a fair bit in it, but I think just in general, I want to reiterate that the seismic safety of kids is of paramount importance to the ministry and to government. We need to continue to focus considerable resources on making sure that kids and teachers and all those who work in a school building are going to be safe. It’s a public building. It needs to withstand an earthquake.

[3:55 p.m.]

We work with our federal counterparts who have designed the building codes and continue to refine them. We benefit by having a lot of experienced people here in the engineering profession in British Columbia that do world-leading research on how to strengthen buildings. We have a huge number of projects underway, and we learn from them. So I think the experience in B.C. — getting good at seismic projects.

As I say, we’ve already announced and proceeded with 41. There will be more announced in the very near future. It helps us to get to the light at the end of the tunnel more quickly.

We also come up against some constraints around responding to growth. You look at a community like Fernie — a wonderful community, a burgeoning, diversified economy. Their ski industry is strong. Their ability to respond to the shifting demographics and the number of kids in that town was constrained by decisions that were not good decisions, quite frankly, in the early- and mid-2000s in Fernie. Two school sites were sold. Now we’re looking for land to build additional capacity that’s needed in Fernie. So these are the kinds of conditions that we have inherited.

Unrealistic timelines. I think it was 2030, by the way, in Vancouver. It wasn’t just strictly 2025. At the time when they were announced in 2012, maybe somebody sincerely believed it would be done in 13 years. But what we saw in terms of the rate of investment is that there’s no way that it could have been. If they had been moving three times faster from 2012 onwards, as our government has, we’d be in a much, much better place today, to be sure.

I have to say that we have a significant capital budget here. It’s been increased every year since we came to office. It was increased 65 percent in the first budget year. That allows us to deliver on more projects everywhere in British Columbia. We have in excess of 80 projects ongoing in British Columbia today. That is a huge renaissance of school construction and investment in British Columbia. It’s creating jobs. It’s building schools in fast-growing communities, and it’s making schools safe in other communities in B.C.

T. Shypitka: Well, the minister mentioned something about a school enhancement fund for Mount Baker or some project. I’m not aware, but maybe the minister can tell me a little bit more about that. I know there was a $382,000 emergency request for Mount Baker for the music and drama room, which was denied, I believe, in 2018. Maybe that’s where this enhancement fund is coming from or not, but maybe the minister can shed some light on that.

Hon. R. Fleming: I believe the request is for a mechanical upgrade of the mechanical systems in Mount Baker for the school enhancement program currently.

T. Shypitka: I’ve got no other questions other than just maybe extending an invitation to the minister to come down to Cranbrook to take a look at Mount Baker High School. I know that he doesn’t want to look at the…. Well, I think he would be entertained by it. I’ll send you the link. It’s actually quite good. But come down and actually take a look at the state of disrepair. It really is…. The minister touched on health and safety, and that’s a priority. That’s exactly what I’m talking about.

Health and safety is a major issue at Mount Baker High School. He’ll see it firsthand if he comes down. He’ll have to cross those nice rainbow-coloured crosswalks that he went across last year that he made note of. The doors will be open. I will be there, and we’ll welcome the minister. I hope that he takes us up on the offer.

S. Gibson: Good to see you again, Minister. I appreciate this opportunity.

These are three items that have come across my desk, and people have alerted me to them. Probably you and your staff already know about them, but it may be a way to kind of bring it to the top of your attention, if I may put it that way.

Abbotsford is really the beneficiary of the kind of push out from Metro, as you know — a big push into my riding of Abbotsford-Mission and, of course, beyond into Chilliwack. We have an Eagle Mountain area that I think is already in plan, but it’s still a couple of years off.

The school, as I understand it, is to be built for a capacity of 300 students. I’m advised that if the school is built when it is planned, which I think is two years out, the population will be in excess of 450, which would be highly problematic given that the school is really in a tight residential area. There are no major arteries nearby, so you’re going to see horrendous traffic issues.

[4:00 p.m.]

It would be nice to get that school up and running in a more accelerated basis, and I’m wondering if I could ask about how that is progressing.

Hon. R. Fleming: Thank you to the member for the question. Just by way of an update, Eagle Mountain elementary is under design procurement right now. The procurement is for a 460-seat elementary school, so room for growth there.

S. Gibson: Auguston is another area that is geographically discrete. If you care to look at the maps growing the development — again, in my riding, Abbotsford-Mission — it’s an area that’s kind of isolated from the urban area. It was approved some years ago. The housing is going in dramatically. My understanding is that for Auguston, the district would be pretty pleased to be allowed to add an extension to the school. I’m not sure whether that’s hit your radar or not, Minister, but I’d be interested in if you or your staff have anything to say about Auguston Traditional School.

Hon. R. Fleming: Thank you to the member for the question. We’re aware of the request from the district for an addition to Auguston School. We’re reviewing that request now.

S. Gibson: The last item related to my colleague here asking about seismic. Always these huge, monstrous expenses to do seismic, and I’m aware of that. I was involved, with the previous government, looking at some of the huge plans. Minister, you’ve alerted us to that.

We have a traditional school modality in Abbotsford which creates feeder schools. We have three elementary schools, and they feed to a high school and a middle school — Abbotsford Traditional. It goes way back, even to a separate community called Clearbrook, which was a part of Matsqui — a little history lesson here. Today the seismic upgrade is actually affecting the parents’ confidence in whether they want to send their kids to the school. This is what I’m hearing from parents — that there are some issues there.

I’m wondering whether this is something that’s come to your radar and whether this is in the long-term plan that you have mentioned, or preferably a short-term plan, for seismic upgrades for Abbotsford Middle and Secondary traditional schools.

[4:05 p.m.]

Hon. R. Fleming: Abbotsford Traditional Secondary School has the support of the ministry to go forward with the business case development, and they’re doing that right now. We fully support that. We want to continue to see the district consulting with parents on what they’d like to see from that project. The funds for it will be under the seismic mitigation program. The business case will determine what the definition of that project looks like — how much of it is replaced or braced, those sorts of details in terms of the engineering specifications.

Yeah, our staff is working very closely with the district on this project. We’ll look forward to getting the business case from Abbotsford district, and we’ll have more to share with the member when we do.

S. Gibson: I just want to thank the minister. I appreciate the consideration, and on behalf of my residents of Abbotsford, thank you so much.

D. Ashton: Minister, just quickly, I come from the throbbing metropolis of Trout Creek, with a wonderful little school. And I would like to thank the minister and ministry again for ensuring, at this point in time, that it is able to continue to function the way it always has. After graduating from there, I got to move up to the high school in Summerland and had an opportunity to finish my academia, school, in Summerland. When I arrived in Summerland, I played basketball and gymnastics.

Minister, again I want to thank you for being incredibly receptive. I know, in our discussions about opportunities in Summerland in the future — not only with the school board but with the municipality and another entity of government — of an opportunity that’s been presented of a chance to not only replace the gymnasium but also make a good centre for community use in a position close to the school.

Minister, it’s more of an opportunity today just to say thank you — I know that you’re aware of it — and to be here to reinforce that there is a lot of effort in the community, not only through the school district but also the municipality and another entity of government to try and create something there. I would just ask that, through yourself and through the ministry, you keep an eye on what’s going on and, hopefully, be able to work with those entities. Everybody is going to have skin in the game, and I think it’ll be a very, very good project not only for the community but also for your ministry to show that there are opportunities when various levels of government work together.

Hon. R. Fleming: Thank you to the member for the comments. I will give him a one-day scoop on something which is great. We were going to invite his school district to come forward with a business case for the new and expanded gymnasium that has been the number one priority for that district for a long time.

I also want to commend, on the record, the school district. I know that the member spends a lot of time with the school communities there. He’s been a big supporter of francophone education, as well, in Penticton and has been helpful to us as a government in responding to some of our obligations under the Supreme Court decision, which went against the previous government, to find francophone school sites in communities across British Columbia to uphold their constitutional rights to school instruction in French.

[4:10 p.m.]

It was a pleasure to be in his community in January, a couple of months ago, and help, through the ministry, purchase for the francophone school district, the provincewide school district, a no-longer-in-use school from the majority district, from the Okanagan-Skaha district. In talking with the district chair and administrators of the district, I knew full well that the money we were using to purchase that school and transfer it to the francophone school district would be used for this project. They have a high degree of autonomy over the money that they’ve received, which is great.

We will, as of tomorrow, be able to instruct them to begin working on a business case for that project. I know it’s going to be a fantastic thing for the community. I’ve talked to the mayor of Summerland. She’s very interested in bringing other possibilities around child care, MCFD and community use to promote healthy living, mental wellness programming and all those sorts of things, if I’m not mistaken, and that sounds fantastic.

D. Ashton: I would just like to thank, at this point in time, the school superintendent, who’s retiring. I would like to thank her for her efforts to ensure that the children, the kids who have come through under her auspices, are heading in the right direction. There’s a new superintendent that has been hired. I know the gentleman, and I know that he will do an incredible job.

I would also like to thank Her Worship, Mayor Boot, for ensuring that these levels of government are all working together. Everybody, as I said earlier, will have some skin in the game and have an opportunity to really make a difference with what, hopefully, will be coming down the pipe in a construction phase once the business case is presented and is viable and ensures that it’s going to work. It will make a huge difference in the community.

I would also, at this point in time, like to thank not only the minister for his efforts in the past and being very supportive on what you had mentioned about, but Minister, also your staff. It’s always nice to be so well received and to have the opportunity, as a representative from that area, to be able to discuss not only with yourself, but also with staff, to ensure that we can keep everything on an even keel and go in the right direction.

I’m leaving the politics, purposely, out of it. As I’ve said all the way along, this is always about the kids. I just want to say thank you to you and the ministry.

The Chair: Members, we will take a ten-minute recess.

The committee recessed from 4:12 p.m. to 4:24 p.m.

[M. Dean in the chair.]

N. Letnick: It’s good to be back in estimates with the Minister of Education. I don’t think it will be any surprise to the minister when I bring up a couple of specific topics.

[4:25 p.m.]

First of all, of course, I would like to reiterate a thank-you on behalf of the member for Kelowna-Mission and myself and, of course, the member for Kelowna West for the investments that the people of British Columbia have made in our Central Okanagan region: the schools in West Kelowna, in Kelowna, and, of course, the jewel that’s being built right now in Lake Country. It’s much appreciated, and I look forward to, potentially, a ribbon cutting of that school in Lake Country very soon. Should the minister see it fit to invite me to that, I’d be happy to attend and celebrate along with all the people in the district of Lake Country.

That being the past and the current, I am looking forward, along with the member for Kelowna-Mission, to, perhaps, some advance word — like the minister just recently gave to the member for Penticton — some good news on the issue of schools in his area. In particular, the francophone school. That’s something the minister has been working on for some time, and I congratulate the minister and government for advancing that. I would say [French was spoken]. Congratulations, on behalf of all the people that speak French or want to speak French in the province of British Columbia, on that advancement.

Looking towards the future, I would like to bring the whole issue together of the area in the Central Okanagan in Glenmore as well as Rutland. If I can first ask the question on the Glenmore side. I’m seeing the minister wasn’t ready for that one, because I didn’t tell him in advance it was coming.

The road in Glenmore happens to be the boundary between the Kelowna West riding and the Kelowna–Lake Country riding. The school district has, for some time, been talking about schools — a high school, potentially, in the Glenmore area and also, perhaps, a new elementary or middle school there. Can the minister and his staff please take a moment to confer and then let me know what the situation is regarding those schools? Where are they in the progress?

[4:30 p.m.]

[R. Leonard in the chair.]

The Chair: Minister.

Hon. R. Fleming: Thank you, Chair. Welcome to our proceedings.

Thank you to the member for the question. One of his colleagues was in a little earlier this afternoon, and I was happy to update him on the new Westside Secondary School, which was school district 23’s number one priority.

We are working actively with the district on a site acquisition. While we’re acquiring land, though, we did approve the concept plan for that. We’re anticipating the district will be completing that concept plan soon. This will obviously be a new secondary school at a price tag, typically, in excess of $75 million, so it’ll be a significant project. It’ll help alleviate overcrowding in Boucherie secondary and help students in that part of the school district.

Having said that, the Glenmore project, which is the district’s number two priority, also a new secondary school project, is something that we recognize the need for. We have been in discussions with the school district about it, but at this point in time, what we’re working with the district on is getting Westside to move forward. So the concept plan will become a business case, which will become a project thereafter, at which time, as I remind members when they ask about additional priorities in the district — and in this case, the case of Glenmore — the number two priority will become the number one priority. It remains in that order.

We’re making progress on Westside, getting to an eventual investment — construction, tendering, all of those sorts of things. They’re very excited about it. There is a little bit of work to do on the site, but the site isn’t holding up the concept plan, which is good. We did…. I wouldn’t say unusually, but we were in agreement that they should go ahead and do the detailed planning even in the absence of a confirmed site.

That is good news, though, I want to just say, in terms of getting at Glenmore. We understand the need for it, for sure, but I don’t have much of an update for the member at this time beyond what I’ve just said.

N. Letnick: Thank you, Minister. It’s indeed good news. I’m looking forward to another question and, hopefully, another set of even better news from the minister on the one that he knows is coming. That’s Rutland Middle School.

Just as a reminder, because I have been reminding successive ministers over the years of the importance of Rutland Middle School — this is on behalf of myself and the member for Kelowna-Mission, who also represents part of Rutland — the Rutland Middle School is over 72 years old. It has an operating capacity of 425 students. Last year it housed 570 students, with enrolment increasing every year.

Over some years, we’ve seen enrolment being more or less static, and growth in the community being more or less static, but Rutland is a wonderful community that more and more people are moving to. More and more housing is being built, and, therefore, there’s more and more pressure on the facility. The facility, being 72 years old, has really been succumbing to that pressure, to the point that there are now 11 portables on the site, and 44 percent of students attend classes in those portables on a daily basis. Projections are showing that utilization will continue to increase over the next ten years.

My numbers from the school district indicate that they are paying somewhere around $850,000 a year in maintenance of Rutland Middle School, which they estimate, over five years, will be over an excess of $7 million in maintenance in this old school. The latest number that they’ve received was somewhere in the neighbourhood of $38 million to build a new Rutland middle school. As the minister would know, we have looked in the past at different options — replacing an old elementary school, changing it for a middle school — but that came in just about as close in price as building a new Rutland Middle School.

My question to the minister is: can he do the same thing for the people of Rutland that he just announced for the people of Penticton and announce today, here, that we can move to the next step in Rutland Middle School?

[4:35 p.m.]

Hon. R. Fleming: Thank you to the member for the question, anticipated as it was. He knows that I’ve been to this school. I have walked the halls. I’ve seen some of the deficiencies there as a product of age. I know that it has portables on it. And I know it’s been a difficult, complicated site and project.

[4:40 p.m.]

Government has gone back and forth. The previous government was looking at an addition at one time. They had authorized a business case to be developed by the school district. I’m thinking it was about 2015. They put a cap on the price of $14 million, which I don’t think led to a very successful business case development that anybody was particularly happy with.

They were really at square one when we came into government. They have continued to make this their number one priority. I want to acknowledge that. I think what we’re trying to work with the district on and remain in regular communication with them about, in terms of what is the best way forward, is whether an additional site is needed.

It’s very tight there. The secondary school that’s on the same site will probably need an addition as well. Therefore, it’s been an open question. Can you shoehorn a new building there? Would it be better to serve the Rutland area somewhere else? Of course, as the member knows, there’s not very much contiguous land that can be assembled in that area, so do you build up? All sorts of questions.

I would say that we’re not through those potential options yet. That’s where the discussion is at. It’s around having a preliminary look at what might be the best type of project there, whether we’re back to an addition, which became the district’s priority again recently. It’s now back as a capital request for a full replacement. We have to get through those issues, for sure. But that’s kind of where it remains at this point in time.

N. Letnick: Thank you to the minister for that. The minister has said that the replacement of the Rutland Middle School is now the school district’s number one priority. At least, that’s what I believe he said. It has been the school’s number one priority on the list for many, many years. The question, of course, is: is it now considered the number one priority in a new build, or is it a number one priority on some other list that has no money in the fund?

The minister could answer: is it number one priority in a bucket that there’s actually money for it to be funded?

Hon. R. Fleming: Maybe to clarify my own words, it’s the district’s number one addition request. It is a different bucket from the construction of a new school.

N. Letnick: So it is not in the seismic bucket, in which there’s a lot of money for in Vancouver, and it’s not in the new schools bucket, in which there is money as well. It is in an addition bucket. Is that a new category, and are there capital funds in that bucket? Or is that bucket really the additional schools bucket?

I’m confused. I thought there were maybe two major categories, which were new schools and seismic, and then not much for everything else. Is this part of the new schools area, or is this some other fund?

[4:45 p.m.]

Hon. R. Fleming: Thank you to the member for the question. He’s asked about the seismic, and I think the member said that that only applies to Vancouver. Let’s be clear, there are about 30 districts it applies to. It’s all over the islands and many parts of the Lower Mainland and in other communities that are judged to be within the seismic risk zone.

What I would say to him, as well, is that, within buckets, new schools and additions are considered similarly. Our government has approved a number of condition-based replacement projects. I’ve been pleased to announce them. We do have those priorities around seismic. We do have a priority around meeting fast-growing districts where they need new schools.

We have done condition-based replacements for 72-year-old schools. A couple that come to mind are Walnut Park in Smithers, which will be a brand-new school. It was literally falling apart. A new Quesnel Junior Secondary School, which I announced last summer, is underway. We were talking with his colleague, the member from Prince George–Valemount, about Kelly Road Secondary, a replacement school for a school that had really gone beyond the end of its life in that district. There is some of that in the capital plan.

What I can’t say for him today…. To be clear, what I mentioned to the member from Penticton is that we’re supporting a business case. We didn’t announce a project. That project, which flows ministry money from us to the francophone district to the Skaha district, will fund their own local priorities. In a sense, that district will end up paying using what was originally ministry money for the gym expansion. I just want to be clear about that. We didn’t make a proper full announcement today.

In terms of the issue at hand around Rutland Middle School, we’ve still got to get through the complexities. I know that’s probably a frustrating answer for the member to hear today. I do appreciate his advocacy over a long period of time. I know this has been a high-priority project for the district for many, many years, certainly a lot longer than the 2½ or so years that I’ve been here.

I would say that we are getting closer. We have done a little bit of going back and forth — both in the transition from one government to another, but also during our time — about what the best investment is and what’s physically possible there. We’re just not through those issues yet. When we do get to a project, though, to reference his accurate preamble about building it to the right capacity, it would probably involve a larger school, for certain, so that’s an additional layer of complexity about the size of an eventual project there.

[4:50 p.m.]

I’ll thank the member for his interest and, hopefully, that is helpful information to him at this time. I’m not sure I have any additional information, but I’ll do my level best if he has a follow-up question.

N. Letnick: Thank you to the minister for that answer. I do have one last one then.

If the Rutland Middle School new school/replacement is the number one priority — and it would appear to be — and if that area is funded, which it does also appear to be, there are funds in the new school bucket, as we’ve been calling it. Does that mean that the replacement of Rutland Middle School would come before any other school in the school district, since they put that as their number one priority after, of course, the new high school in West Kelowna that the minister announced today?

In other words, before any other school in district 23, after West Kelowna, Rutland Middle School is the next one to be funded and built.

Hon. R. Fleming: We started by answering some questions around Glenmore, which was the number one priority project for the district in terms of new schools. In terms of Rutland, we’re looking at somewhere between a replacement and an addition project, to be determined.

Generally speaking, the ministry will agree with a school district about what its number one priority is, but there are occasions, maybe, where we disagree a little bit. Or there’s an opportunity to proceed more quickly on a project that’s lower down on the list for reasons that are opportune at that time.

It’s not simply striking off the list and moving down, I wouldn’t say. It’s based on a pretty careful evaluation and discussions back and forth between district staff and ministry staff about how we might proceed.

S. Sullivan: My question is about one of the most challenging situations in my riding, which is young parents who are not able to find schools for their children, at least schools in the area that they live. I’ve seen a map recently about the wait-listed schools, and it seems to be all focused on the downtown or areas right around the downtown.

Especially problematic is the lack of the Olympic Village school. We’ve had quite a few parents doing a lot of lobbying and a lot of media efforts, etc. I’ve visited and met with them several times. So I just thought I would ask the minister if there was any update.

I, first of all, would like to acknowledge that I think the minister did make a very valiant effort to try to solve the problem by offering to take that on in return for shutting down the Queen Elizabeth Annex. Unfortunately, the school board did not agree. I might note, all of the veterans on the school board voted in favour of it. They saw it as a very good solution. But they didn’t have a majority.

I was hoping that the minister could give some kind of update or some sort of signal as to what he was thinking of doing with this very difficult problem.

[4:55 p.m.]

Hon. R. Fleming: Thank you to the member. I appreciate his interest in this project and his thoughtfulness on it, quite frankly. I listened with interest to his comments. I think he was responding to the throne speech the other day.

Of course, this is a constituency issue for him, and I think he expressed some ideas and some thoughts there that I certainly share. What I can say to him is, as recently as last Friday, I had a discussion with the board chair and one of the trustees about reconsidering how we might go forward with a potential new school project at Olympic Village.

Let me back up initially, because what I think his constituents are reacting to mostly is around the boundary catchment review, which can be a stressful time and not unique to Vancouver. In any district, you have growth within a school district or shifting populations, and districts need to plan accordingly. There are lots of districts, not just Vancouver, where they won’t be able to accommodate students being able to attend the nearest school to them. That’s certainly the case here in school district 61.

What I would say, though, is that most districts get in the habit of more frequently adjusting boundary catchments than Vancouver. We don’t have a record of the last time they did it, but I think it was at least over a decade ago. Therefore, it comes as a bit of a surprise and a shock to Vancouver, because they’re suddenly adjusting a whole bunch of things at once instead of a more gradual boundary adjustment review that might have taken place as the city changed, added housing and densified.

Regardless, that’s where Vancouver is at. But I think that’s why this is landing as news to a lot of families who have, indeed, moved to apartment-style living in the False Creek area.

Similarly, one of the things that we’re really encouraging the Vancouver school board to complete is a long range facilities plan. We sent out instructions last year to districts discouraging them from looking at school closures absolutely, because we didn’t want to go through those battles. And we think that….

Vancouver has about 55,000 school seats, and 45,000 of them are currently used. That’s a huge excess number of seats, but in a dynamic global city like Vancouver, I don’t think any of us would say that in ten or 20 years, it would be impossible to have 55,000 students. They may well fill up those schools again, so you’d want to certainly not dispose of them hastily.

Having said that, we look forward to the LRFP, because the instructions we sent out were that…. The official community plan and all of the other planning documents that city hall produces are, unfortunately, largely done in isolation from the planning that we require of school districts. So we said we want districts to go away and use the LRFP for their own purposes, not just to tick a box as a mandatory thing you must give to the ministry but to make it their own document for use, a far-reaching, visionary document that aligns with planning, building, density trends — those kinds of shifts that are happening in Vancouver.

Otherwise, you have two local levels of government that are not necessarily working in tandem with each other, and that’s problematic. So we’ll look forward to the LRFP being delivered. Again, it has been at least ten, 12, maybe 15 years since the district has updated their LRFP. It’s very much out of date to the urbanization trends of Vancouver, and that’s unfortunate. We need something current and better.

What I did discuss…. Back to the discussion I had on Friday with the chair. She asked me if she could report out to her board, so I’m certainly not talking out of school, so to speak. It was very simply a discussion, whether we can look at the Vancouver school board helping us, the Ministry of Education, who has to respond to a Supreme Court lawsuit against the province.

[5:00 p.m.]

The judgment was rendered in 2016. We have to provide French-language instruction for B.C.’s francophone community as a constitutional right, section 23 under the Charter. We’re doing that cooperatively with communities. His colleague the member for Penticton and I were discussing just that. We want to make the success we just had in Penticton something that’s available in Vancouver as well.

We have spent a year looking at an ideal site for a francophone public school on the west side of Vancouver. That’s what the court said our ministry must do. We worked for a year with the Vancouver school board, and the best site we could identify was Queen Elizabeth Annex. Why was it the best site? It was geographic location. It was cost. It’s also a school that’s underutilized. It has currently 68 students. It was only built for 150. It was an annex overflow school from years and years and years gone by, and it’s a seismically unsafe school. So it became an ideal site to deconstruct that school and build a brand-new one.

We would compensate the school district for that, and those funds would be largely unrestricted for the district to invest in other priorities. Olympic Village would be their number one priority, I would presume, because they sent it to the ministry as their number one priority six months ago, in July 2019.

As I’ve said publicly in the media and to the Chair as recently as last week and I’m pleased to say to you as well, to relay to parents and your constituents, the door is open for that kind of agreement. I think it’s good for public education, both French and English, in Vancouver, and I think it would be a way forward to finally get ahead of the densification that you’re seeing in False Creek and provide better options for francophone students on the west side of Vancouver.

S. Sullivan: Yeah, it’s truly tragic that that decision was made by the school board. It seemed like such a perfect answer to the problem. So I hope there’s still some way to get through that.

Another issue that is coming up, in great interest to my constituents, is the Henry Hudson school. Something that has happened just very recently is the announcement of Sen̓áḵw, the 11 highrises that will be built — 6,000 units right near Henry Hudson. Interestingly enough, because it’s Squamish reserve land, they do not have to abide by any of the municipal processes or provincial laws on speculation tax and foreign buyer tax and that kind of thing, so they can move quickly. There is a concern…. You know, we’ve got a 100-year-old school that is leaking at high tide — a lot of challenges there.

The school seems to be…. There’s worry that the school is being built for pre-Sen̓áḵw calculations and also that there will be another major development down the street at Jericho with the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh and Squamish development. I’m just wondering if the minister could reassure me and some of the constituents about the progress of Henry Hudson.

[5:05 p.m.]

Hon. R. Fleming: Thank you to the member for the question. A very good question because we’re paying attention to the potential development there and that land transfer and that stated goal by the Squamish development. What I would say, though, today, because we’re getting very close to proceeding on Henry Hudson, with the project there….

It started as a seismic upgrade. So we’re going to have some good news for the community around that, but the answer isn’t to build a 1,000-seat Henry Hudson in anticipation of highrises down the road. I think the answer is for us to monitor and work with and begin conversations with the proponent around their development plans. If they’re going to put 11 highrises into that neighbourhood, that community, it seems to me that we have an opportunity to build a vertical school in one of those buildings. I think that’s where we would want to move forward and have those kinds of discussions.

We have a real live example of where we’re doing that now in Vancouver, around the Cole Harbour school, which is integrated with housing, child care and other services. It’s going to be a tall school. It’s a vertical school. It’s integrated with community centres and other resources around there. So I think we already have a model in another dense part of Vancouver.

We’ll certainly watch how development proceeds in the area that he’s referencing, but I think the best thing is to keep proceeding with Henry Hudson. We’re very close to completing a plan for that project. We’ll, of course, advise the member when we get there.

S. Sullivan: I know we’re getting a little crunched for time, so I’ll just sort of mix a couple of questions into one, if you don’t mind.

First of all, about Crosstown School. There was media notification by the former chief planner of the city of Vancouver, who I hired when I was mayor. He was so proud of this new neighbourhood. He moved himself and his family right in, and now he’s been informed that his child cannot go to that school. This is just one example of a problem. That school also has issues around street disorder. It is literally blocks away from the Downtown Eastside. It is a real challenge for some of the parents, who are quite concerned. If the minister has any comments on what we could do there.

Also, I’ll mention something that…. When I was on city council, we had a developer — actually, it was Concord — that offered to build a school for free and get reimbursed at some point. But the policy of the provincial government at that time, and probably still today, was that they don’t work that way. You want to see the whites of their eyes before you start building schools. I know that was an issue we discussed at city council many years ago.

If the minister also has any update on the Cole Harbour school, because that has a big, big impact for my constituents, even though it is now not in my riding. It used to be, a few years ago.

Maybe I’ll just leave that bundle of questions that the minister could respond to.

[5:10 p.m.]

Hon. R. Fleming: Thank you to the member. He has compressed a few questions in here. I’ll try and answer each and every one of them. I think in relation to the planner that he hired, who has been in the media lately, I appreciate some of the comments he’s made. I think he’s genuinely concerned about his family but trying to figure out something in terms of a city like Vancouver, around changing our concepts of schools.

One of the suggestions I heard Mr. Toderian speak of was renting a commercial property that’s vacant, of which there are some around the area, around Crosstown, which has now got a full kindergarten cohort. It has much smaller grades 3, 4 and 5. They have to cap the kindergarten because those kids will go through subsequent grades, and there’ll be a new cohort of kindergarteners, obviously, the following school year. That school is only at 70 percent capacity, but it’s moving towards 100. It’s because there are fewer grade 3s, 4s and 5s, but that will fill up as the other kids get older.

What I heard him suggest was: “Why wouldn’t the VSB look at a temporary lease, even a medium-term lease, at Tinseltown mall or at another area that might be suitable for classroom space and that has outdoor amenities nearby that are publicly owned?” My short response to the member would be: “That’s not a ministry decision. That would be the Vancouver school board.” We would think that if they want to be innovative and listen to parents who have viable ideas — in this case, Mr. Toderian’s idea — by all means, they should look at doing that.

[5:15 p.m.]

We’re going to continue to look for a solution at Olympic Village. I don’t deny that that project is needed. We want the Vancouver school board to help us. Indeed, so-called majority anglophone school districts like Vancouver were referenced by the judge in the Supreme Court decision — that they had to help the Ministry of Education identify sites and fulfil the constitutional rights of French speakers. So we want to continue to work on that.

I’m not familiar with the Concord Pacific proposal around building a school and being reimbursed, but I think in light of our previous discussion about the Squamish development, we should look at air rights and school-siting in a highrise and look at doing something different. We’re certainly open to that.

The Vancouver Charter exempts the city of Vancouver, unfortunately, I think, from what is called the school site acquisition charge. Districts that have growth, where they have new units of housing being sold, often have a school site acquisition charge tacked on to the unit price for sale. That accumulates to buy land to provide a school. Vancouver has no such thing. But given that land or, in dense parts of the city, air rights are needed for schools, it’s something that Vancouver may want to review with its legal counsel and pursue. It would certainly be helpful in the provision of schools as populations begin to shift.

Finally, I would say about Coal Harbour, for the member’s benefit, that we are in design stage for that school right now. Vancouver school board is working with architects, I believe, on that project. The school will be built by September 2023. I’m confident of that because they’re in a contractual obligation with B.C. Hydro to have the school open for business and built by no later than September 2023.

It would be nice if it was earlier, and it’s possible that it would earlier. That’s 3½ years from now; it could be earlier. The city has an interest in the development, so they could certainly permit their own project more quickly. They’re part of the housing and child care aspect of that project. But by September 2023, B.C. Hydro needs to begin constructing the substation underneath what will be the former Lord Roberts Annex. So those are tied — Coal Harbour and the decommissioning of Lord Roberts Annex to build the power supply for the West End peninsula.

S. Sullivan: I’m not sure if I have time for another question. Should I…? Okay.

I can’t let this one go — the talk of the vertical school. That would be a challenge, would it not? It’s reserve land, so that would be federal as well as provincial? Are we talking about a provincial school?

Hon. R. Fleming: I don’t know a lot about that development, so I hesitate to hazard guesses about what might happen. But it would not be unprecedented for a lease-type configuration, perhaps, in a building on land like that. Again, I don’t know enough about what kind of fee simple strata type of ownership there is. My understanding is that it’s not reserve land. It’s commercially developed land under the control of a development corporation.

I’m not sure. To be determined, I would say.

D. Davies: I’d like to thank my colleagues that came in. I think there are a few more yet that we’ll probably bring in after the constituency break.

[5:20 p.m.]

In September — I think it was around September of 2019 — the Minister of Finance did, basically, an announcement of ministries to cut back. There were some rollbacks. I’m just curious. When that came out, did the Minister of Finance set any savings targets for the Ministry of Education?

Hon. R. Fleming: Thank you to the member for the question. Yes, our ministry, like other ministries, was directed by the Minister of Finance to find savings. We made the decision that we would only look, as a ministry, at discretionary spending. So it had zero impact on money we put into the field, which is the 99.4 percent of the Ministry of Education budget that goes to the 60 school districts and to independent schools. It is not retained in the Ministry of Education.

The types of savings that we found were in areas around ministry discretionary spending, things like reduction of travel, meeting with stakeholders by teleconference, business expense reductions, a reduction in the amount of contracts for professional services that would typically be done in a year. Those were the areas where we were able to find a savings under the direction of the Ministry of Finance.

D. Davies: What was the minister’s target for savings for the Ministry of Education?

Hon. R. Fleming: The target was $7.4 million.

D. Davies: Just curious. Now, of course, we’re into a new budget coming up that we’re discussing here right now. Are there similar targets that are being looked at for this budget — to be looking at going ahead regarding savings?

Hon. R. Fleming: The member will know from the service plan that the $5 million that’s targeted is coming from a reduction in the education and corporate services expenditures of the ministry. Again, I want to just repeat that none of it is coming from the field in terms of what we allocate to school districts.

[5:25 p.m.]

D. Davies: A final question around this. Did you hit your target for the last year?

Hon. R. Fleming: What I would say is that we’ve been successful in reducing costs in the areas that I reported to him — things like reduction of travel, business expenses and reduction in contracting. And then my answer would be that the year is not over yet. We’re not at March 31 yet. But we have been successful in reducing the expenses in the manner I’ve described, in following the direction of the Minister of Finance.

D. Davies: A pretty straightforward question. We’re looking at three and a bit weeks left of the fiscal. You’re asked to save $7.4 million. Appreciating where it was coming from, you must be able to give us some sort of an idea of roughly where you’re at within that target.

Hon. R. Fleming: I would just say to the member: we’re not concerned about missing the target. We’re on track to meet it.

D. Davies: All right, I look forward to hearing that once everything’s all done. Thank you.

Switching back to our favourite subject: Surrey portables. I started off with talking about them a little bit. I just want to go back. I know that you had talked about some of the commitments that you’ve made. I mentioned some of the commitments that we’ve talked about around the Premier and minister promising in 2017 to eliminate all of them in four years, then in 2018, the commitment of reducing 50 percent of them, and then, of course, having me judge you two years later, which is right now, on what you’ve done.

I just want to get some sort of…. The minister has talked about creating more seats — 7,800, roughly, I think is the number we had. I’m just trying to nail down a timeline that we can give to the residents of Surrey of when we might solidify this. And if the minister is still committed to…. Well, I think it’s not going to happen in four years, obviously. But what kind of a commitment around eliminating portables can we give the residents of Surrey?

[5:30 p.m.]

Hon. R. Fleming: What I said earlier is that there are about 7,800 seats under development, under construction or in planning that…. We’ll be able to deliver a majority of those seats by September 2022.

I have to say that we have moved incredibly fast in Surrey — in fact, three times faster than the previous government. As I mentioned earlier in the estimates debate with his colleague, if they had approved projects at the rate that our government has in the last 2½ years, we wouldn’t even have been talking about portables this afternoon. There would be no portables in Surrey. But they never built the schools that were required.

We have. We have 14 projects underway and nine more in planning stages in Surrey. This is an unprecedented amount of construction activity going on. This is long overdue. Members on both sides of the House that represent Surrey constituencies have enjoyed coming out for ground-breakings, announcements and being in touch with families that have waited a long, long time in Surrey for good news about school construction.

We’re going to go away for a break. We might have some more good news for Surrey. We’ll come back and be happy to talk about it then.

I think it’s really hard to take any instructions from the previous government when it comes to Surrey school construction. Portables doubled under their watch. They never got ahead of the need for schools there. They had lots of photo ops and very little follow through. They failed to get the job done in Surrey.

What we’re seeing now is 7,800 student spaces underway there. That’s the equivalent of more than 300 portable reduction capacity in Surrey. It’s good news. It’s why the Surrey Board of Trade, the school district, the mayor’s office and some of the development community is applauding the work of this provincial government. Because there’s substance behind the announcements we’re making. There are actual shovels in the ground. You drive around Surrey today and it’s pretty hard to avoid a construction site that is delivering either new schools or additions to schools and delivering thousands of seats along the way. It’s great news for Surrey.

I’m sure we’ll have an opportunity to canvass it when estimates resume. I move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 5:32 p.m.