LETTER

Official guide cites classroom costs 50% lower than Minister’s estimate 

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is wondering why Minister Jean-François Roberge’s estimates for building kindergarten classrooms for four-year-olds are double the cost established through official guidelines from his ministry’s reference documents.

 

We’ve referenced official Ministry of Education guidelines and calculated it would cost about $400,000 to build a new kindergarten classroom for four-year-olds. That is far from the $800,000 estimates quoted by Minister Roberge.

The CTF made its calculations using the Guide pour l’estimation du coût total d’un projet de construction ou d’agrandissement d’école – Formation générale, a reference document published by the Ministry of Education and Higher Education in July 2018.

To make its calculations, CTF has used a scenario involving the construction of a single 70 m2 classroom in Commission scolaire des Appalaches, with a planned average of 14 four-year-old kindergarten students per classroom. These estimates are those established in the Ministry of Education’s reference document titled,  Capacité d’accueil d’une école primaire-secondaire.

According to the CTF’s calculations, the cost of building this new classroom would be $396,127. According to the Ministry’s own guidelines, the highest costs would be in the du Littoral and Central Quebec School Boards, with a per-classroom cost of $664,949, still more than 15 per cent lower than the government’s estimates.

The government seems to be trying to wing it on their whole four-year-old kindergarten project. The Legault government must go back to the design table before it wastes hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars.

Renaud Brossard, 

Canadian Taxpayers Federation

Montreal