Just before calling the election last month, Doug Ford’s provincial government promised $1.3-billion to build 30 new schools and expand 15 already existing schools across the province.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
With a provincial election in Ontario less than a week away, the Ford government’s promise to spend more than $1-billion to build new schools is not nearly enough to meet the needs across the province, opposition parties say.
Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative Party has not yet released any election platform details regarding its plans for education. But just before calling the election last month, Mr. Ford’s government promised $1.3-billion to build 30 new schools and expand 15 already existing schools across the province.
Combined, the projects will create 25,000 new student spaces, the province said.
The funding is part of the government’s commitment to spend $16-billion over the next 10 years to support new school construction, renewal and improvement projects.
But the Ontario NDP and Liberal parties say the Ford government has failed to adequately fund education, leaving too many students to learn in portables and too many schools in need of repair.
“With a growing population we need new schools, but we also need the schools that our kids are in now to be safe, healthy environments, and unfortunately too many of them are not,” says Chandra Pasma, the Ontario NDP’s education critic.
NDP Leader Marit Stiles has promised to spend an additional $830-million per year to clear the school repair backlog within 10 years.
That backlog is significant.
A December report from Financial Accountability Office of Ontario estimated that it would cost $21.7-billion to clear the infrastructure backlog and maintain all school buildings in a state of good repair over the next decade.
The report also said that it would cost $9.8-billion to build new schools to address permanent capacity pressures during that same period.
Ontario has $12.7-billion school repair, construction shortfall, budget watchdog says
The number of students in Ontario is growing – the report says more than 170,000 student spaces will need to be built by the 2033 school year to meet projected enrolment growth – and overcrowding is already a widespread issue: 35.2 per cent of schools in the English Catholic system and 29.7 per cent of schools in the English public system are currently over capacity.
Of the 10 largest school boards in Ontario, the Durham District School Board has the highest proportion of overcapacity schools, with 69.2 per cent of schools operating above 100-per-cent utilization, followed by the Thames Valley District School Board, at 40.6 per cent, according to the report.
As boards struggle with capacity issues, more than one-third of schools are in need of repairs, the report says.
The problem is particularly severe at the Toronto District School Board, where 84.1 per cent of schools are in need of repairs. At the Thames Valley District School Board, 52.5 per cent of schools need repairs, the report says.
Ontario Education Minister Jill Dunlop says the Ford government has prioritized building schools quickly.
“Under our plan, schools are being built faster and more efficiently than ever before so more students have access to a place to learn and prepare for the jobs of tomorrow,” she said in a press release.
But the Ontario Liberal Party says schools are not being built quickly enough to meet the needs of overcrowding.
“Every single kid in Ontario needs and deserves to learn in a safe, functioning school environment. This has not been the case in Doug Ford’s Ontario. After years of underinvestment by Ford’s Conservatives, almost one in 10 kids in Ontario are taking their classes in a portable,” Taylor Deasley, a spokesperson for Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie, said in an e-mail.
The FAO report found that there are nearly 1,500 schools across the province that are over capacity. The report estimates that to address capacity pressures, the province would need to build the equivalent of 227 new schools over the next decade.
Kathleen Woodcock, president of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association, says that while the government’s promise to build new schools is welcome news, any future provincial government needs to do more in order to help boards across the province address their infrastructure costs.
In particular, she says, lifting the moratorium that has barred boards from closing or merging schools since 2017 would help relieve the significant financial pressures they are struggling with.
“It’s an unsustainable situation to have that moratorium because it has created funding deficits,” Ms. Woodcock says. “It costs the same to clean, maintain and keep the lights on in any school whether it’s half-full or full.”
The Toronto District School Board, the largest school board in Canada, has also asked the province to lift the moratorium, which would save the TDSB “millions of dollars,” board chair Neethan Shan says.
“We have asked the provincial government to allow us to lift the moratorium, and they don’t have to do it provincially,” he says. “They can make it specific to the city of Toronto if they are worried about other parts of the province because there’s a lot of money that we lose by not consolidating projects.”
The province has consistently said that families do not want schools to close.
None of the five capital projects the TDSB submitted for consideration were approved for funding under the province’s $1.3-billion plan.
Lifting the moratorium would allow the board to spend money more efficiently, Mr. Shan says.
“There are buildings that are underutilized and are being maintained at a cost of millions of dollars that could go towards programs.”