Province boosts spending on schools to match growing enrolment

The Higgs government will spend $1 billion on provincial infrastructure next year, an increase it attributes mainly to the impact of inflation.

Finance Minister Ernie Steeves tabled a capital budget for 2023-24 far higher than the $864.8 million the government originally intended to spend.

"Much of this increase is a result of the elevated inflationary environment and supply-chain-related delays seen around the globe," he said.

"Today's capital budget reflects not only what we can afford but also what we need and have the capacity to deliver."

The increased funding includes $64.2 million to continue the planning, design and construction of eight new schools, including five previously announced schools and three new ones in Saint John, Shediac Cape and Campbellton.

A new anglophone kindergarten-to-Grade 8 school in Campbellton and a new Saint John school to replace Hazen White-St. Francis and Centennial schools were near the top of the province's rankings for priority school projects last year.

The only two schools that ranked higher were announced in last year's capital budget.

A Shediac Cape school does not appear on the list, but a report by Anglophone School District East in May said enrolment at the the existing anglophone school there was at 108 per cent of its capacity.

It suggested a new kindergarten-to-Grade 12 school there. 

Steeves said the province's record population growth has translated into increased enrolment in schools, with 4,000 new students in the current school year. 

"This growth means that we have gone from declining enrolments and school closures to a period where our schools are full, and the need is there to build new capacity," he said. 

Liberal finance critic René Legacy said three new schools was normal for a capital budget and that means the province isn't keeping up with enrolment growth.

"Now we're supposed to celebrate coming back to the norm? We have a lot of schools that need some renovating, a lot of schools that need some upgrading, and we're just getting back to what our old path was."

Steeves responded by telling reporters that the province plans to unveil four more new school projects in next year's capital budget and another four in the year after that.

He clarified that of the $152.2 million of spending above the province's original plan, $50 million is due to inflation and the rest is for new spending on projects. 

Green finance critic Kevin Arseneau also criticized Steeves for not spending more and for portraying inflated costs as new investments.

"I find it disrespectful, making a big deal of exploding costs and trying to take credit for something that they can't take credit for."

The province will also spend $95 million to continue work on renovations and additions to health-care infrastructure, including expansions at the Chaleur Regional Hospital in Bathurst and the Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital in Fredericton.

Work will continue at the Saint John Regional Hospital to meet growing demand at existing clinics and at the Moncton Hospital, where a new maternal newborn unit is being built, and a coronary care unit is being modernized.

Some of the funding will be for renovations at the Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont University Hospital Centre in Moncton, where the province is creating a new provincial public health lab. 

The capital budget includes new funding to start work on the redevelopment of the New Brunswick Museum in Saint John.

It also has $33 million of previously announced funding to start building the first of 380 new provincial social housing units.