Statement from PC Education Critic Grant Jackson on NDP Abandoning Sage Creek Families
WINNIPEG — Spruce Woods MLA Grant Jackson, PC Critic for Education and Early Childhood Learning, released the following statement on the Manitoba NDP withholding funding for a new K-8 school in Sage Creek:
“Despite surging student populations across the province, one of Wab Kinew’s first actions as premier was to cut the construction of nine new schools initiated by the Progressive Conservatives. Now, yet another K-8 school has fallen victim to NDP funding cuts, and this one is already well under construction.
“The NDP have told the Louis Riel School Division to scale back its plans for the school, which would accommodate 900 students in the growing Sage Creek and Bonavista neighbourhoods. The NDP’s funding cut has put the $63.3-million project in limbo while the school division considers borrowing nearly $7 million externally to complete the half-built school.
“Under the PC plan, this school was to open its doors to students from the Southdale, Lagimodière, and Seine River constituencies next year. Now, the NDP are forcing families to send their children out of the area or continue sending them to other schools with already overcrowded classrooms, providing no plan to address capacity challenges. To make matters worse on top of delaying the school, the NDP are holding up more than 100 new daycare spaces that would have been part of it.
“This cutback is the latest NDP failure on schools, after the deputy education minister told school divisions that education is not in the top five priorities for this NDP government. Two of every three Manitoba school divisions are receiving base funding increases less than inflation from the NDP this year, while ten divisions are getting a one-per-cent increase or less.
“The NDP are failing students, families, and teachers across Manitoba. The PCs are calling for the NDP to immediately reinstate funding that was promised for the construction of the long-awaited and much-needed school in southeast Winnipeg.”
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