Alberta’s premier announced a plan Tuesday evening during a televised address her government will boost the amount of money being spent on new school construction over the next three years to $8.6 billion, an increase of $6.5 billion from what was originally promised in the 2024 budget.
Danielle Smith said during the address on both CTV and Global surpluses from both this year and a “modest” one next year would fund the increase.
The move comes as the population of the province has grown by more than 200,000 since the beginning of 2023. In her address, Smith said Alberta Kindergarten-to-Grade-12 schools have seen a population increase of 33,000 students per year.
“This will allow us to complete actual construction on approximately 50,000 new student spaces over the next three years, and to complete and open 150,000 new spaces over the next four years after that,” Smith said
“This is quite literally the fastest and largest build our province can manage, given available construction workforce capacity and the time it takes to permit prepare and service available school sites.”
Smith also announced new programs to provide, over the next four years, 20,000 new student spaces using modular classrooms and 12,500 charter school spaces.
She also said the government is “developing a school capital pilot program for non-profit private schools to incentivize investment in the creation of thousands of new independent school student spaces at a reduced per student cost to taxpayers.”
Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi said in a Calgary media conference following the 10-minute address while he credits the government for the investment in public school spaces, he questions the timing of it.
“Why in September, when we’ve lost a construction season? Why not in the budget, so that people could plan?” said Nenshi, the former Calgary mayor who assumed the NDP leadership in June.
“By announcing this all at once, they’ve massively increased the inflation and the cost of construction for every single one of those schools …We could have been methodical. We could have been thoughtful. We could have built schools as they were needed.”