The Manitoba Schools Question

When the Manitoba Schools Question was answered a valid point was realized in that Canada is a bi-lingual country and parents should have a choice on weather they want their child educated in English or French. There is no dispute here. English and French languages are important facets of Canadian culture. The answer to the question goes astray when it begins to negatively effect the education of other no-francophone Canadians. Civil liberties of English Winnipeggers in some areas of the city seem to have been forgotten in a ridiculous excuse for trying to include more French.

South St.Vital and other areas of Winnipeg are suffering from this dilemma where predominantly English speaking youth are being displaced at the expense of their parents. What this means is good, hard working, tax paying parents are being forced to send their kids out of the community for schooling. This is not a new problem. Manitoba schools, and more specifically Winnipeg schools have always been under funded. However, this is a newer problem that has been disturbingly developing over the past decade. High school students living in the area south of the Perimeter, River Park South, Dakota Crossing and Norman Park are at times being sent half way to downtown Winnipeg for high school. When I say sent to, I do not mean by publicly funded school bus services. The term ‘Sent’ in this case refers to the students traveling this distance to and from school everyday at the expense of either themselves or their parents. That is only part of the problem. Francophone students are being shipped in from across the city on publicly funded school buses to receive their education. This is outrageous dilemma in which an inequality is actually costing the local residents in an attempt to appease others.

Why are they being shipped in?
There is nowhere else to go. Sounds plain and simple, but is it really?

This problem is multi faceted. The aforementioned issue with high school students is a glaring problem that is obvious and needs to be fixed. The problem actually sits deeper than at this level. The problem is not that there are too few schools in these communities; the problem is that the brand new schools that exist, have recently been built, and are being built are not being built for the population living there. These expanding communities are suffering because the funding that is put into schools, weather primary or secondary are not reflective of population. In River Park South around 2000 Ecole L’Esperance was completed. This relatively small, but modern school was supposed to serve as a high school for the surrounding areas of River Park South and Dakota Crossing. This school was converted into a Francophone primary and Jr. High school. The location of this school at the intersection of John Forsyth and Dakota is on prime land with a vast field and a retention pond – quite a beautiful sight. This school which was supposed to be a desperately needed English school was unacceptably and underhandedly swept into the grasp of the un-proportionally represented minority of francophones.

Another reason is the population in which the province and the schools are supposed to serve. There are 2 French-Emersion schools in close proximity to the area; one primary and one secondary. One of those schools is the next newest school in the area. These schools do not have enough students to fill their classrooms, let alone the population to justify building another new school. So I again beg the question again; why are kids being shipped in from elsewhere to fill local schools?

Building a single new school would not be so outrageous if the disturbing trend did not continue. Just this summer yet another brand new, modern high school was built in the area. In fact, it is literally down the street from Ecole L’Esperance. If anything, the problem is worse today than it was in 2000. The communities of Dakota Crossing and River Park South have grown significantly. The bulging English high schools that are supposed to serve the sprawling communities are the same ones as before. This new school that was recently finished is to be a Francophone school. How absurd is that? Once again, residents of the communities will be forced to pay the additional costs of not only sending their children farther away, and the cost associated with bringing in students to the brand new school in which their child can not attend that is literally down the street from their home. This increasingly ridiculous scenario does not stop here.

New plans for the expanding communities are not solving the issue. The fact of the matter is that the new comers and residents of the expanding communities are a striking majority of Anglophones. The plans for the community expansion see another placement of French schools. Out of the 2 new proposed schools, 1 is slated to be Francophone. Here is a question I am posing to our MLA:

Why are residents of Dakota Crossing, River Park South, Norman Park and people living south of the Perimeter forced to pay high and increasing school taxes, and burdened with the responsibility of sending their children outside the area, because the fact of the matter is that they are not able to utilize essential services down the street from their homes, in order to satisfy the needs of residents of other constituencies who are French speaking?

The Manitoba Schools Question was supposed to be about equality, but it has turned into a matter of creating inequality at the expense of not only the tax payers abroad, but more specifically the hard working, tax paying citizens of and especially the children and youth of South Winnipeg who have been alienated in their own community.