Parents in Mission held a protest Thursday morning over a broken promise by the province to build a new high school to replace the existing Mission Secondary School.
They’re outraged the province no longer plans to follow through on a promise made on the campaign trail before the last election.
“It’s completely disappointing, and frustrating for our kids,” said Candace Koch, one of the parent organizers.
“Our high school is at 109 per cent capacity right now, kids are crowded in the hallways and some of the programs are wait-listed because the school is too small.”
Parents also have concerns with how old the high school is.
“We would like to send a message to John Horgan: What are your priorities?” Koch told Global News Thursday morning.
“This school is 70 years old. Our kids deserve a clean, safe learning environment that is conducive to modern education.”
The B.C. government has rejected requests to fund major capital projects for 2022-23 due to “financial impacts caused by the pandemic.”
“There are times where we may need to rejig and re-prioritize our capital list somewhat to push our projects a bit further out and those situations occur when we have other priorities that come up,” B.C. Minister of Education Jennifer Whiteside said.
Also on hold are projects like a new school in Fernie and a seismic upgrade of Pitt Meadows Secondary.
Critics have been quick to point out that the NDP has allocated almost $1 billion in capital spending for the Royal BC Museum replacement.
“They’re promising a billion-plus museum project, trying to tell us the two projects aren’t connected, and that they have all the capital to do all the things you needed, yet the NDP school (project) freeze shows they don’t,” said Peter Milobar, B.C. Liberal official Opposition critic for finance.
The protest took place at the constituency office of Abbotsford-Mission MLA Pam Alexis.
“MLA (Bob) D’Eith and I are advocating constantly to make sure these protest concerns become a reality, because we understand where parents are coming from,” Alexis said.
“We get it and we are committed to this cause.”