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Committee of Supply

April 24, 2008 - Education Department

Ms Blakeman: Thank you very much, and thank you to my colleague from Calgary-Varsity for allowing me to participate in this debate with the Minister of Education. Welcome to the staff that are on the floor.

I have four areas that I would like to participate in in a back and forth with the minister. The areas are Braille funding materials for visually impaired people that are inside of our system, educational property tax reductions for seniors, school utilization rates, and taxation requisition powers to school boards. I actually have received, as I’m sure the minister did, a letter from the CNIB that notes that Canada is not publicly supporting library services for people with print disabilities, and I thought: hmm, I’ve heard about this somewhere else recently. In fact, it was quite an extensive bit of media that was done around students with visual impairments who are unable to get educational materials in a reasonable period of time to complete their coursework. Seeing as this took place recently, which would put it sometime in let’s say late March or April, I’m assuming that these students have gone through a good part of the year without the materials that they requested. My question to the minister is about what plans, hopefully, the ministry has in place to address this problem prior to the beginning of the next school year. I’ll let the minister answer that, and then I’ll continue.

Mr. Hancock: My understanding, Mr. Chairman, is that we have a very solid resource process for assistive technology and for supports for persons with disabilities and particularly relative to persons who are blind. It’s not perfect, and sometimes situations can occur where the right resources aren’t available at the right time, and I think that was probably the circumstance that’s been reported recently. I’m given to understand that when students enrol for courses of studies and if done on a timely basis and the school boards make our Learning Resources Centre aware of the student that’s enrolled and the circumstance, the Braille resources can be provided on a timely basis in most circumstances. There is sometimes a delay in providing resources, and I think one of the circumstances that was referred to in the recent article was getting a chapter of the book at a time, so to speak.

I’m given to understand – and I’m making some further inquiries into this – that we can provide resources on a timely basis as long as the Learning Resources Centre is alerted to the registration of a student in an area. Of course, there’s some lead time in making sure that the resources are in place, but if enrolment takes place in April or May, as it normally would do, and the information is made available, the resources will be available for the student at the start of the school year. If there is something else, a student moving in that we are not aware of or if there hasn’t been timely communication of the need, then there can be a delay in the provision of resources. We will be looking at that more thoroughly, and we have been working very closely with the CNIB, as I understand it, and they’re working with us in terms of making sure that we have timely provision of resources and that we’re providing the right resources.

Ms Blakeman: Thank you. I’m glad to hear that that is being looked at because I think we want to welcome and embrace a diversity of people in our school system, and I think that people with visual impairments would like to participate at the same time as the rest of their colleagues. So I appreciate your looking into that. My second issue is around education property tax for seniors. As the minister knows, I have a fairly large percentage of seniors in my community, not as large as the 15 per cent that gets hit in some places like Lethbridge and Camrose, but I think I’m in the 12 or 13 range, so I’m pretty high. This continues to be an area of resentment and gets brought up every single election. When seniors have paid their educational property tax all the way along, why when they become a senior do they still have to pay this? I give the argument about: well, you know, it’s to all of our benefit that we have a strong public education system, that we all benefit by having educated children, that when I’m older, I want to have well-educated young people looking after me. You can give all of those arguments to people, but they still say: why am I having to continue to pay and pay and pay?

Actually, two elections ago I can remember that the Liberals had a policy on reducing the educational property tax for seniors. I believe we had the same policy this time out. I’d be interested in hearing from the minister on whether that is at all being considered or, I was going to say, if there was anything else that could be done.

But it’s pretty straightforward: either you’re going to charge seniors or you’re not.

The Deputy Chair: The hon. minister.

Mr. Hancock: Yes, Mr. Chairman. In fact, actually that’s not an Education policy; that’s a tax policy. We get the honour and privilege of spending the money once it’s raised, but education property tax is really a question of taxation. So I would invite the hon. member to either address that question to the minister of the Treasury Board or the Minister of Finance and Enterprise or, in fact, as a seniors’ program to the minister of seniors. There is, in fact, a seniors’ program which freezes the property tax so that a senior will not have had to face any increase in their education property tax since, I think, 2004. Now, I’m constantly amazed that there are people who are not aware of that, so I try and make a point of publicizing that to my constituents through my newsletter and other ways, and I would certainly encourage the hon. member to do so as well and all hon. members to do so because I’m surprised at the number of seniors in their own homes who don’t have knowledge of that. That’s a rebate program, and I understand that that was due to technology not being able to identify for some reason who seniors are and just apply it to the tax bill at the front end.

The property tax for seniors was frozen in 2004: no increase to property tax based on increase in value of the homes or those sorts of issues. So that’s a very important start. As I say, I’m really talking about somebody else’s area of jurisdiction because although it’s called education property tax, we just are concerned about the amount that gets into the foundation. We get to deal with that from that end, but the rest of it really happens through Municipal Affairs, Treasury Board, and Seniors.

Ms Blakeman: Thank you. I appreciate the explanation, but frankly my seniors would say right back to you that they’re still paying an educational property tax even though it was frozen in 2004. So a fine distinction from the minister but not one, I think, that the...

Mr. Hancock: Oh, I didn’t say that it shouldn’t be discussed. I just said: discuss it with the right ministries.

Ms Blakeman: I will, and I’ll be interested to see if they then refer me back to you because I bet you they will.

Okay. My fourth area is one that I have raised before, and it continues to cause me great concern. What we have here is policy that is at odds with what another government department, that being Municipal Affairs, and more specifically the municipalities that fall under Municipal Affairs are trying to do. What causes this is that utilization rate. The effect of that, when implemented, is that it puts the school boards in the position of having to close smaller enrolment schools in the core part of the city, not just the inner city. Let me call it the core because that rolls out a little bit further. They’re put in the position of having to close those core schools at the very same time as the municipalities are trying to rejuvenate those very same areas.

The minister will agree with me when I say that schools are the heart of our communities, and even if we don’t have children in schools, they are a gathering point. They are a place of activity. Everybody in the community is invited to come to the school Christmas concert. They see the kids walking by. They come to know who’s in their community. They see the parents walking kids to school. Neighbours talk to each other. It helps generate a sense of community and security. If we want to talk about community safety, that’s one of the ways that we can build it. So when we have a government policy that in essence results in or where the consequences of it are closure of schools tending to be in the core of cities, it absolutely fights against what the municipalities are trying to do in revitalizing those communities.

I have one of those schools that was closed because of the utilization rate. It was closed in about 1998 or 1999, and we now see what it did to our community of Queen Mary Park. In essence, that closed school has become a huge black hole and at night literally a black hole because the schoolyard, of course, is not used. The kids can’t use the playground that was built there now because it’s being used by a criminal element, and now there’s danger. There have been needles found in the sand and things like that, so people won’t even let their kids go there. There’s no community activity around that school at all, and it’s literally a black hole. Plus, we’re missing all the activity that that school generated on a daily basis.

I’m looking at the condominiums that have been built around that community, and guess what? They’re not condominiums that anticipate families because who with a family would move into that community now? There’s no school. So when the developers go to build condominiums, they look around and say: “Well, no school, no kids. Okay. Well, all right. Then we’re going to build . . .” I think most of the ones I looked at were in the kind of 600 to 900 square foot range. Those are not condominium sizes that would encourage a family. Now this becomes self-perpetuating. Even if you did have a family that wanted to move in, they’re going to have a harder time finding a place to live because the condominiums have been built in a much smaller size. What we’ve done, then, is start to hollow out once again our municipalities, the centre part of our cities. We all should have learned that lesson, not to do this stuff. I will continue to raise the dilemma that is created by this department’s choices: the position they then put the school boards in, the decisions the school boards make based on that utilization rate, and the effect that it has on the municipalities that are trying to revitalize the communities. This is, if you would work with me here, a crossministry issue, but it continues to really affect our communities, and if you want to talk about safety issues and community safety, boy, have we seen the results of this around Queen Mary Park because of the closure of that school. Would the minister like to respond to that, or should I keep going?

Mr. Hancock: First of all, I think it’s probably overstating the case to say that the closure of the school brought the criminal element, who are there in the evenings, into the playgrounds, but I would accept the hon. member’s point that a school is very important to a community and, in fact, can be the core of the community, can be the core of how you build other community services and programming and other things and creates a great deal of the life of a community. That’s why it’s very important that we do build schools as we change our demographics, as we grow, that we continue to keep up with the schools.

But there’s also a reality, and that is that they have to be viable. They have to be viable not only in terms of the operation, in terms of the building and the lights. They have to be viable in terms of the educational opportunities for the children, which is much, much more important.

I point again to the city centre school project in Edmonton, where I thought they did a very good job in partnership with the province. In fact, I would give kudos to the now Premier, who was then the minister of infrastructure and transportation, who was willing to sit down with us and say: well, notwithstanding the so-called utilization formula we understand that there has to be an opportunity to rationalize school use but to make sure that there’s an opportunity for every child to get a good education. It’s not enough just to say: “Well, we’ve got a school here, and it’s important to the community. We’ve got 50 children, and we should keep it open.” Those 50 children have to have access to very good learning opportunities, and you can’t provide the breadth of programming in that kind of an operation. It’s not really always about the building; it’s got to be first and foremost about the children. Now, that doesn’t mean putting them on a bus and making them ride for two hours either. It’s a balance, and it’s a balance that needs to be worked in partnership between the school boards, the community, and the province coming together and saying: what’s the rational way to deal with this?

You do have to have formulas for certain things, but you can’t allow formulas to drive your life. That’s why I go back to the city centre school project, where the then minister of infrastructure and transportation, now the Premier, was willing to come to the table and say: if you’re prepared to put together a plan which shows how these city centre schools can work together, can provide a better educational opportunity for the students, notwithstanding any formulas we’ll provide the money to help renovate the receiving schools and make sure that they have the best possible place. The school board got together to make sure that they had the best possible programming. That’s the type of success we can have if we’re prepared to all get together and work for a common outcome, and that common outcome is the best educational opportunity for the children so that they can succeed.

Yes, we need to be looking at the corollary issues around the utilization of land in the city and the life cycles of neighbourhoods and how you keep neighbourhoods alive and how important the school is to the neighbourhood. I agree with all that, but first and foremost we have to talk about how we educate our children and how we make sure that there is the best educational opportunity available for our children.

Ms Blakeman: Well, as the daughter of two teachers I couldn’t agree more, but as the MLA for Edmonton-Centre and MLA for a community that has lost a school – now we’re coming up on 10 years, I think – we can really see the effect that it had on our community. Yes, it’s about the kids, and I look to you as the leader of that particular ministry and the fine people that you have working with you to make sure that from the policies and regulations that you put into play, you’re aware of the consequences that come further down the road. Even where we have a school, as the minister said, that isn’t viable for the number of students and where the quality of education would not be up to what it should be, again, because of choices that the ministry makes and the instructions or parameters that are given to the school boards that they have to then put into effect, the school boards in many cases are not even able to bring other groups into the school, a daycare centre, for example, or other not-for-profit agencies, because the requirement that the school be self-sufficient or whatever such wording is used then often precludes other not-for-profits getting into the school and sharing the space because they can’t afford it. So where we could have kept a school open and viable in a community using some creativity, the choices that this government department makes often preclude or remove that flexibility from the school boards and, correspondingly, from the community. So that’s what I’m looking for here. We have to stop doing this, or we’re going to end up with huge scorched-earth centres of our cities and then this sort of doughnut of suburbs who all now have schools. What are you going to do with those schools when those people leave? They’re not going to come downtown because we don’t have a downtown left. Anyway, we’ll work on that.

As I heard the discussion, I also wanted to underline how important I think the requisitioning powers of the local school boards are. I mean, the government was very clever in the way things were written, giving I think it’s a 5 per cent window to the local school boards to be able to requisition for 5 per cent of their funds. Am I straight on this one?

Mr. Hancock: Three per cent.

Ms Blakeman: Three per cent. There we go. Very clever. But it’s such a small amount of money that they’re not really going to be able to do much with it. They’d have to go back to the voters for a very small amount of money that isn’t going to achieve what they need to do and incur the wrath of the voters in doing that requisition. This government makes me very uneasy with the willingness they’ve certainly shown in the past to completely wipe out duly elected bodies. I’m thinking of the firing of the Calgary school board and I think at least one other one here. But, you know, the position that the school boards and the trustees are put in when they don’t have requisitioning powers but they take the wrath of all of the parents and the local communities for what is the education in their communities is uneven and, in my opinion, unfair.

I would add that I think what the government did was – I hope it wasn’t deliberately dishonest, but I think that has been the outcome of it. Saying that the government was going to collect the education property tax and pool it so that it could redistribute it on an equitable basis – those are the words I remember from that time; I think I’m pretty close – well, nonsense. It goes into general revenue, and then the department comes up with whatever budget they want, you know, to accomplish their mandate. That money does not go into a special fund marked education and then go back out again. It goes into general revenue. So don’t – well, I’m sure the minister will get time to tell me about it.

That’s the other point I want to make, I think, that I go back to believing that that’s an important part of our elected officials as trustees, that they have requisitioning powers, and 3 per cent ain’t it.

Thank you.

The Deputy Chair: The hon. minister.

Mr. Hancock: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A number of interesting things come to mind as a result of all this discussion. I think first and foremost is the interesting juxtaposition of the autonomy of the school boards to raise money through a tax levy or requisition and then take away the autonomy of the school boards with respect to their decisions with respect to how they deploy their physical assets and tell them what to do with that. I mean, the two don’t really go together. We need to respect the school autonomy, but – and I would agree with this – we ought not to put artificiality around that in terms of formulas which are absolutely strict in terms of how we allocate. I mean, we have school boards that are elected. They’re elected to allocate the education resources in an appropriate way for the education of the students within that jurisdiction. And I fully respect that autonomy. Now, I answered a question earlier about... [Mr. Hancock’s speaking time expired]