Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Recently, the Standing Committee on Priorities and Planning had an opportunity to have a retreat in Inuvik – and I hadn’t been up to Inuvik for a while, not since the new school was built – and it was our opportunity while we were in Inuvik to tour some new facilities that were built there. Sitting here in the Legislature, I had heard a lot about the new super-school in Inuvik. I expected to be amazed. Now I can tell you the only thing that amazes me about that school is the price tag.
I hate to rain on anybody’s parade, but right from the outside of that school, it has an exterior very similar to this Legislative Assembly. It has some kind of metal cladding. It is a very cold looking building. It could be mistaken for, I want to say a penitentiary, but something like that.
When you go in the door, you go in and there are long, grey, cold hallways. Maybe there is more work to be done, I don’t know. But it clearly told me that Public Works and Services needed to come up with standardized things that are required in schools.
We saw the children’s indoor shoes in clothes baskets inside the door of the classrooms because there were no shelves built into the program to store their shoes. Now, everybody knows we are living in the North; it’s cold weather. Kids are going to wear their boots to school and they are going to have indoor shoes. No cabinetry, no millwork, nothing for children’s shoes inside the classroom.
No bulletin boards in the classrooms, Mr. Speaker. Twenty-five pages, eight and a half by eleven like this, pinned up on a drywalled wall with pushpins. You walk in there and it kind of leaves you feeling… Like, we all like to have nice homes that are well decorated and well-appointed and you go in there and you see that. It doesn’t make for a nice environment.
So many things. Janitorial equipment in the hallways. We asked about it – no janitor’s room. One whole end of the school and no janitor’s room. Great big floor cleaning pieces of equipment sitting in the hallway.
We went into the library. It’s a beautiful library, but I don’t know how this could meet any kind of energy code or energy efficiency code. The windows in the library are so massive – and I am not making this up – the librarian has to wear sunglasses and they are about to spend $60,000 on new blinds to cover up the windows, because they wanted to put so many windows in this new facility. It’s a challenge for them operating in there. The teachers told us that they can’t see their computer screens for all the glass that they wanted to build into this school. I’m sure they will work out all these kinks, but for $126 million, I have to say I am rather disappointed with the thought that went into this. We need standards for things like shoes, bulletin boards, the janitor’s room.
I would like to seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
Like I said, I’m not trying to rain on anybody’s parade on this, but we did spend a lot of money on this. We heard about all the consultation that went into the school. I just don’t know how such basic things that a school needs could have possibly been overlooked in this school.
On the same tour we saw the Children’s First facility, which I must say was amazing and lots of thought went into that. That was a Cadillac of early childhood development centres, but I have to say I’m disappointed with the school. They’ve got lots of things to work out, so I hope Public Works will get on that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
