TORONTO: Ontario Liberal Party Leader Steven Del Duca has pledged that his first act if elected Premier will be to kill Doug Ford’s plan for Highway 413, and instead use the monies to invest $8 billion in new money over 5 years to build and repair publicly-funded schools in every corner of the province.
“Doug Ford has got it all wrong – he’s focused exclusively on rewarding billionaire Conservative donors, while Ontario Liberals are focused on the millions of families whose children deserve the best schools possible,” said Del Duca.
“I am determined to make sure that our kids and our education workers have the best learning and working conditions in the world.”
The Ontario Liberal Action Plan to Rebuild Schools represents the first instalment of the greatest investment in our schools in more than a generation. Working closely with the province’s school boards, to ensure that needs in urban, rural and remote communities are respected, an Ontario Liberal government would build hundreds of new schools and dramatically shrink the chronic repair backlog.
“It is inconceivable to me that Doug Ford wants to spend billions paving over farmland, destroying wetlands and undermining the Greenbelt all for a highway that will only save some commuters mere seconds,” stated Del Duca.
“Ontario Liberals stopped this reckless project once before and we will do it again.”
This plan would include:
• Upgrading Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC), boilers, plumbing and windows so that the air in our schools is safe to breathe and the water is clean enough to drink.
• Adding resources to ensure that Ontario’s schools can access high-speed broadband and are also climate-resilient.
• Creating thousands of new spaces for in-school daycare so that our kids get the best start in life imaginable.
• Developing a new and publicly-reported standard of good repair for all of Ontario’s publicly-funded schools.