Joint Use Mutual Partnership picked as P3 team to build new schools

The P3 team that will build six new elementary schools in Saskatoon and the surrounding area has been selected.

Joint Use Mutual Partnership (JUMP) will build four schools in the Saskatoon neighbourhoods of Evergreen, Hampton Village, Rosewood and Stonebridge by September 2017. 

The schools will be joint-use, meaning one side of the building will be a public school, and one half will be a Catholic school.

As part of the public-private partnership, commonly known as a P3, schools will also be built in Martensville and Warman.

 "There are about 8,000 students that will be moving into these schools in a little over two years, and that's very exciting," Saskatoon Public School Board Chair Ray Morrison said. "These communities are ready for schools and it will relieve pressure in some of the other schools that we have."

While there were slowdowns at a project in Willowgrove recently, Morrison is confident there will be no such delays this time.

"There are some repercussions for the proponents if their timeline is delayed," Morrison said. "Willowgrove, I would have to say, from our experience in Saskatoon Public, was a little bit of an anomaly. It has not been the norm for us when I look back at Centennial Collegiate and Tommy Douglas, W.P. Bate and other schools we've built."

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The province said the school divisions will own and operate the schools. 

JUMP includes the following businesses as part of its team: 

• Concert Infrastructure Ltd.
• Bird Capital Limited Partnerships/Bird Design‐Build Construction Inc.
• Wright Construction Western Inc.
• Kindrachuck Agrey Architecture
• Johnson Controls Canada LP
• GEC Architecture

Opposition voices concern

In Regina, where officials made a similar announcement, Saskatchewan's Minister of Education said the building program allows the province to build schools that have been overdue.

"We believe this is the best way we can do this," Don Morgan said. "Since we've formed government we've built 40 schools. We should have built 60. This will give us the opportunity to catch up. It's a good opportunity and will give good value to our citizens."

The opposition NDP, however, noted that other provinces have had issues with public-private partnerships.

They claim that, in some cases, the cost of a new building has been more than expected.

"We're really concerned that this government is ignoring all the evidence in ramming forward with a deal that will put taxpayers and students on the hook for over 30 years," Trent Wotherspoon, the NDP's finance critic, said.

However, Gordon Wyant, another Saskatchewan Party government minister, said the province has learned from the mistakes of others.

"The construction contracts will be very specific," Wyant, the minister responsible for SaskBuilds, said. "They'll need to be built on time and on budget. And there's financial penalties in the contract that will be built in so as to ensure that."

One expert, Larry Hiles, from the Centre of Management Development, added that the contract is key and keeps everyone accountable.

"Both sides of the transaction, the government and the P3 party are going to have to work harder on a P3," Hiles said. "The private sector player is going to have to work harder in terms of making sure their numbers are accurate, that they can deliver on what they say. And the government is going to be working hard to make sure those numbers are right that they're getting."