24 Hour News: 2009 March 24
Vancouver's Sir Guy Carleton Elementary's 113-year-old, two-room schoolhouse that sustained arson damages last year is at risk of being lost.
The A (primary significance) classified heritage building by the City of Vancouver used to house the school's kindergarten classes but the provincial government is refusing to pay for repairs, according to Adrian Dix, NDP MLA for Vancouver-Kingsway.
"For them not to fix the school is really reprehensible," Dix said yesterday in front of the boarded up schoolhouse.
The cost for repairs would be in the neighbourhood of $400,000, he said.
A school alumnus from the '40s, Jackie McHugh, one of four generations in her family who attended the school, said, "It's a landmark to Collingwood."
But, in a written statement Minister of Education Shirley Bond, Liberal MLA, expressed her concern for Dix's sudden interest in the project and says the province's School Protection Program has spent $100,000 so far on repairs, including the removal of asbestos from the site.
"The kindergarten students who had been using the building before the fire have been accommodated in other classrooms on the school property," Bond wrote.
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