Museum over schools? Parents believe province needs to revisit priorities

Mission, B.C. -

People in Mission have been waiting more than 15 years for a new high school, and now they will have to wait indefinitely.

During the 2020 provincial election, the NDP promised to replace Ecole Mission Senior Secondary, but the school district has recently learned the project has been deferred.

“We don't know what that means," said Tracy Loffler, board chair for Mission Public Schools. "Does that mean a year, two years, 10 years? We just simply don't know. And with the growth that we're experiencing and the age of that building, we really need to get it replaced sooner than later.”

The disappointing news prompted a handful of residents to protest in front of MLA Pam Alexis’ office Thursday.

Parent Candace Koch said it is disappointing the province appears to be prioritizing a new $800-million main building and a $200-million satellite facility for the Royal B.C. Museum over the safety of kids.

“We would like to know from John Horgan and the NDP, how do you square the circle of being able to build 10 high schools, when you're spending a billion dollars on a museum?" she said. "I believe they need to go back and reevaluate what taxpayers really want. The education system and the health-care system in Mission are both crumbling."

In Vancouver, the school board has been advocating for a new elementary school for the Olympic Village neighbourhood, which was also promised during the election, but so far, the conversation with the province has gone stale.

The Vancouver School Board has also learned seismic upgrades to David Thompson and Killarney Secondary schools and False Creek Elementary have been deferred indefinitely.

Board chair Janet Fraser said the school board has already spent $1.4 million to create business plans and advance the three projects. The money will be reimbursed by the province once those projects are approved, but until then, the board has fewer resources to dedicate to other capital projects.

“Suddenly, all the work we've done seems to be for nothing and they're saying go back to resubmitting these projects. So (it's) very disappointing, (we're) very surprised,” she said. “We want to be able to have all our students attend seismically safe schools, and we want to have all our students attend schools in their neighbourhood.”

Peter Milobar, finance critic for the Official Opposition, called it “unacceptable” that the projects are not being moved along while the province has approved the controversial new museum.

“It just shows that the government was in a rush in their snap election to make promises all over the place, promises they apparently did not intend on keeping,” he said. “This is simply a case of pulling capital dollars out to try to create space for the premier's $1 billion vanity museum in Victoria.”

But the education minister maintains there is no relationship between the new museum and school projects.

Jennifer Whiteside said the NDP government has already invested $2.7 billion over the last four years and has earmarked another $3.1 billion over the next three years for various projects to build and upgrade schools.

“There has been no slowdown. There has been an increase in investment under our government in schools that is going to continue,” she said.

She explained that there are applications from 60 school districts and priorities get shifted.

“We know that there are several districts who are experiencing significant enrolment pressure. And so we look at all of that every year when the capital submissions come in with districts to prioritize the schools that are the highest priority across all of our 60 school districts. So, it's a very big system and we are working with districts all the time to support the advancement of projects,” Whiteside said.

She said the government's mandate is not over and it still plans on fulfilling those election promises. She encourages the school districts to re-submit their plans later this month.