‘Build, build, build’ pledge includes 11 new schools

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/03/2025 (209 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WINNIPEG — The Kinew government plans to break ground on 11 new public schools before the end of its first term by using a template that designers will copy and paste.

Budget 2025 sets aside an initial $20 million to carry out the commitment that’s estimated to cost $700 million overall.

An excerpt from the 146-page budget states a common design standard will “lower costs per school and ensure all Manitoba schools are built by Manitoba workers.”

“We are going to build, build, build over the next many years to make sure our economy keeps humming,” Finance Minister Adrien Sala told reporters during a briefing on Thursday.

Sala said school divisions will still have “very important input” to modify the design template based on their unique needs.

The universal blueprint for new builds will replace existing design requirements.

The list of future schools includes nine identified by the previous PC government — which it had planned to build through a public-private partnership — and two more: a francophone campus in St. Boniface and high school in northwest Winnipeg.

This year’s allotment will pay for four kindergarten-to-Grade 8 schools, all but one of which is in Winnipeg.

The recipient communities are Transcona’s Devonshire Park, Prairie Pointe in Waverley West, Meadowlands in north Winnipeg and southwestern Brandon.

Construction is scheduled to begin in 2026. Shovels are expected to hit the ground on three more schools the following year, with the remaining four on track to start in 2028.

Sandy Nemeth of the Manitoba School Boards Association said she anticipates principals and other employees who work in schools will be consulted on a universal design template.

“If it means schools are being built faster, but still the size that they need to be and with all of the amenities that are required, then, I would say, on the surface, it sounds promising,” the president of the association said.

The Progressive Conservatives, under the leadership of former premier Heather Stefanson, announced in 2022 that Manitoba would leverage a P3 model to speed up the opening of new schools.

Typically, P3s set out a long-term path to procuring public infrastructure. For instance, a private group finances, designs, builds and maintains a school for several decades until its contract expires and the government buys it.

The NDP officially called off the approach at the end of the summer.

Two bidders — Concert-Bird Partners and “Manitoba Education Partners” — had submitted proposals at that point, per Sept. 18 letters obtained by the Winnipeg Free Press via freedom of information request.

PC education critic Grant Jackson accused provincial officials of dragging their feet only to repackage nine previously-identified new schools to “take some political credit for them.”

“There was no reason to pause these schools for 18 months. That just means that those school divisions have had overcrowded classrooms for that much longer,” the Spruce Woods MLA said.

He said he’s skeptical Premier Wab Kinew and his colleagues will find any cost savings by building schools with a standardized construction blueprint.

Sala called the Tory pledge “a make-believe commitment,” reiterating a claim that the Tories did not budget for the projects when they were in power.

Budget 2025 includes $298.4 million for capital school and child care infrastructure projects, with up to $124.1 million set aside for a yet-to-be determined number of daycare spots.

Few details about child care and in particular, the recruitment of early childhood educators, is disappointing, said Jodie Kehl, executive director of the Manitoba Child Care Association.

“This government, notably so, is prioritized on tariffs and the economy and health care. One of their prioritizations is 18,000 new jobs in Manitoba — well, those individuals that are working in those jobs are going to need child care, very likely, and they will not have access to child care if there are no early childhood educators,” Kehl said.

She noted that 20 per cent of facilities cannot open new spaces due to staffing shortages.

In total, $174.3 million has been budgeted to finish school building, addition and renovation work that is in progress.

Those projects include a gymnasium addition and renovation at Green Valley School in Grunthal, an expansion at Brandon’s Maryland Park School, and a new “recreation campus” with a vocational wing and child care spaces in Waverley West.

» Winnipeg Free Press