EDMONTON – Alberta’s education minister is firing back at the former Progressive Conservative government over criticism stemming from massive delays in school construction.
Progressive Conservative Leader Ric McIver said ambitious timelines to build or refurbish almost 200 schools were on track until the NDP took over this spring.
READ MORE: Major delay in school construction projects, says Alberta’s education minister
McIver said bureaucrats told him the projects could and would be done on time.
“So if they’re telling the current minister that they can’t, the only change that’s happened is political direction. So the minister ought to be looking at himself as the problem because clearly he’s the only thing that’s changed,” McIver said on Tuesday.
But Education Minister David Eggen said it became clear in recent weeks that about 100 of those projects will be delayed past 2016, many for almost a year.
Eggen said he has no evidence that shows bureaucrats misled the former government.
He said the fault lies with the PCs for making promises on school construction the bureaucrats had no hope of meeting.
“It has become painfully clear through the development of our school capital plan that the previous government was not being clear with Alberta families about the timelines and funding required for over 200 new school and school modernization projects,” said Eggen.
With files from Global News
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