Federal candidates Davies and Black call for federal funding for seismic upgrades for schools
Don Davies, Vancouver Kingsway NDP candidate and his colleague, Dawn Black, NDP MP for New Westminster-Coquitlam have joined with parent activists to call for federal infrastructure funding to help make BC schools safe as part of Canada's National Disaster Mitigation Strategy.
Despite a $1.5 billion commitment by the provincial government to complete school seismic upgrades in 15 years the work is proceeding at a snail's pace. "The cost of needed remediation work now appears to be beyond the capacity of the province" Davies said. "There is a lesson for Canada from the terrible toll in lives of children and teachers in the recent disaster in Sichuan, China. The federal government has a duty to help earthquake prone regions like BC," Davies added.
Dawn Black, MP had tabled a motion in the House of Commons that would have debated the issue in the fall sitting but the election derailed the initiative. "Time is precious. We could have been using Parliament to transfer needed funds to BC. Instead, Stephen Harper called the election" Black said. "BC is again being ignored. The Conservative slogan in the last federal budget was from the Atlantic to the Rockies. What about BC? The symbolism in that slogan is clear and the gap in Conservative sensitivity for BC shows up in seismic upgrade failure," Black said.
Local activist Dawn Steele supports Davies's call for help from the federal government. "The international community has expressed astonishment that Canada does not consider school buildings as critical infrastructure" Steele said. "There is no excuse. Canada has an obligation to provide safe schools for our kids. We can't afford not to do this," she said.
Michael Watkins, another Vancouver parent advocating for school seismic safety echoed the call for federal funding. "There are over 35,000 kids in high risk classrooms and schools across the city" Watkins said. "It's time for mitigation funds from the federal government to prevent a disaster," Watkins concluded.
