$56M Galway French school proposal not justified: transport minister

Newfoundland and Labrador's transportation and works minister says he's not prepared to approve a new $56-million school and community centre in Galway that Newfoundland and Labrador's francophone school board proposed last December.

"I haven't seen information that would justify that [project] as of right now," Steve Crocker said on Tuesday, addinghis department will launch a new request for proposals in early July, with the hope of "analyzing all the available options."

Instead, the provincial government says it may renovate the former Holy Cross school building or the former School for the Deaf instead of building a new francophone school in St. John's.

On Tuesday, the price tag of the planned school was reported as $46.3 millionthe cost on the original proposal submitted in December 2018. Now, six months later, the province says the total cost has jumped to $56 million.

He said the resulting study should be ready by early fall and will help inform funding decisions for the new school included in next year's provincial budget.

Crocker maintained that building a new school somewhere in the St. John's-metro region remains a possibility. But he said they proposal put forward by the Conseil scolaire francophone provincial is "considerably higher" than the typical price for a 500-student school.

"A typical school for that number of students is somewhere in the $20- to $25-million range," he said, adding that those buildings didn't, however, include community centres.

Crocker said the government has to balance the board's requests with "the need to ensure best value for taxpayers."

'Sexy' Galway proposal panned

CBC/Radio-Canada reported Tuesday that the seven-acre, $3.15-million property in Galway that the school board recommended to the province costs nearly double the price of a similar piece of land in Mount Pearl. According to an analysis prepared by school board director Kim Christianson in October, Galway was considered a "sexy, fancy modern" area, while Mount Pearl was deemed "less nice."

Craig Pardy, the PC education critic, said he wouldn't comment on the merits of one location for the new school over another without more information on all the options available to government. But he said in his district of Bonavista, "we have some beautiful schools, but none would have hit that price tag."

NDP critic Jim Dinn, who is also a former president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Teachers' Association, also questioned the cost of the French school board's proposal, given the problems with francophone school buildings on Newfoundland's west coast and in Labrador.

Dinn said he's fully in favour of building new schools to meet the needs of students and teachers.

"[But] the criteria of a 'sexy, fancy and modern' is not an educational outcome that I'm aware of."

"I have to wonder, is this more about a development proposal or an educational proposal?" Dinn said.

"I know parents who have chosen to send their children to the English system not because of the building, but because there's a concern that the course offerings at some of the anglophone schools, there's a lot more to choose from. That's something we need to fix," Dinn added.

"If you're telling me that building that school in Galway is going to serve the needs of the students better, then that's fine. But show me the analysis."

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