Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will keep my comments fairly brief. I think most Members have taken on the issues that concern me.
I guess one of the biggest issues that I see right off the hop is, like other Members have indicated, it is one of the biggest operating budgets but yet it is probably well in the bottom half of the capital budget. My concerns would be the fact that we have to keep upgrading schools. We have to keep upgrading those facilities. I see a couple of retrofits on them but not a lot of big projects. I know we have done a couple of big projects in the regional centres, but it just seems that we are not… We are given kind of multiple years here; we should be looking at more of a phased-in approach and having more projects on the go, I would think, for that size of department.
My concerns are as well with Junior Kindergarten. I think we are getting indications already before the budgets are even being implemented that the money is not enough that’s being put there. We are going to see demands from communities that the retrofits are going to be way more expensive than we originally estimated. You’re doing a lot of communities; you’re implementing this in all the communities, so it will be a bigger budget. I think we have underestimated the cost that it is going to take to fit these young children into our school system. I think we should reassess that sooner than later so that we actually have an indication of what it is going to cost to put these youth into the school system.
I guess it is concerning, again, the stuff that’s not in there. The troubling issue is always a concern, I think, from this side of the floor, that we have a school that is in a community hall that we continue to put money into and why aren’t we building a school there as opposed to just upgrading a community hall.
The other thing that’s not in here, and I know we are waiting for a court case, but I think the government has stepped aside from its responsibilities with the French schools in the fact that it says, well, we’re just going to wait for a court case, which is not necessarily a proactive approach. We know that there is going to be some costs associated with this; we need to be putting some money into it. I’ve made Member’s statements to this effect, that to have a French community versus a non-French community fighting amongst each other or having to argue about the cost of these facilities, upgrades and the court case is part of the government’s responsibility. They are the ones that created it because they want to fight the system. I think there should be some money that we are starting to put away, but then again I see us find lots of money real quick if we need it. I am concerned that we’re not putting anything in for the French schools. We know there is a court case coming, but we also know that we lost the first one. So that’s just my opening comments. Thank you.