Photo by Pierre Chauvin
DISCUSSING THE FUTURE – Marc Champagne, the executive director of the territory’s francophone school board, shows the location of the future French-language high school, to the right of F.H. Collins Secondary School’s race track. He is shown at Wednesday evening’s board meeting.
Whitehorse could get a new theatre in the coming years.
Whitehorse could get a new theatre in the coming years.
During the francophone school board’s annual general meeting on Wednesday evening, Marc Champagne, its executive director, unveiled some of the details of the new French-language secondary school the government has committed to build.
The high school would include a theatre with seating for 200 to 250 people and a community space, Champagne told parents.
The theatre would be open to the entire Whitehorse community, he added.
However, the theatre itself would only go forward if the Yukon government receives subsidies from Heritage Canada.
“At the moment, we’re optimistic we can get federal funding for this project,” Champagne told the Star in an email.
At the meeting, Champagne noted a new theatre would benefit the entire city.
The new school will be built where the skateboard parks is on the edge of Riverdale.
This will allow francophones to have their own school, but also to share installations for sports and workshops with F.H. Collins Secondary School students, Champagne told parents.
The actual design of the school hasn’t been decided yet.
The construction committee, which Champagne sits on, has only met once since its creation, and is still in the planning stages.
Once this is done, it will apply to the city for a development permit.
The francophone school board and the Yukon government have been locked in a legal battle since 2009.
The school board has been seeking to manage French-language education in the territory and to get the government to build a French high school.
Last May, the Supreme Court of Canada ordered a retrial.
The case has been on hold since. Both parties created a committee to deal with the issues brought before the courts, including the high school construction.
Students in the French high school program, called Académie Parhélie, have been sharing the primary school, École Émilie-Tremblay, creating cramped conditions for students.
This year saw 224 students register, 177 at Émilie-Tremblay and 47 at Académie Parhélie.
“This was a record number of students, resulting in a lack of space,” Champagne noted in his report to parents.
Last May, francophone parents petitioned the school board for a temporary solution while the new high school is built.
Champagne estimated there are about 150 students eligible to attend the new high school.
The design of the school will offer the possibility of building extensions, he told parents.
The school board wants to set the high school opening for the fall of 2018.
Champagne insisted the government hasn’t committed yet to a fixed date.
Both parties are scheduled to be back before a judge in November to discuss progress.
Judy Arnold, the Department of Education’s deputy minister, was at the school board meeting.
Champagne also spoke to the concerns raised by some residents about the impact of an additional school on Riverdale traffic.
A potential solution would be to space out the different school opening times, he added.
Champagne also announced the school board is gearing up for Émilie-Tremblay’s 30th anniversary.
The name was officially adopted by the Yukon Legislative Assembly in 1985.
It originally started as portables on Nisutlin Drive in Riverdale before moving in 1996 to its current location on Falcon Drive.
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Comments (21)
Up 12 Down 1
Lost in the Yukon on Oct 8, 2015 at 2:36 pm
Meanwhile the Yukon's original citizens, its original landowners, whose language was first spoken here have to fight, threaten lawsuits, beg for equal status ... for schools in communities that have adequate resources, for a curriculum that recognizes our place in their history not theirs in ours ... but as noted, the not so subtle racism that exists deep within the core of the Yukon Party makes this all a shameful joke. The Francophone community should be telling Paslostski... deal with the First Nation community first.
Up 24 Down 1
Non on Oct 8, 2015 at 12:06 am
Non, non, and non. Keep this school at EET. Expand there. You have the Canada Games Center nearby, build your new high school alongside of the elementary. 1) Nobody wants it in Riverdale 2) 30 French high school kids don't justify a huge new building 3) many EET kids when they are teens want friends from outside of EET. Building a new school won't retain them in segregation. 4) you have to live here in this community and how do you face your other adult friends, outside of your French 'family', and tell them that your child is worth '365,000' while ours go to old schools, overcrowded schools, schools with 25-30 kids and one teacher, while yours have 5-9 kids, IPADS and one teacher. How do you look your friends in their eyes and tell them your child is entitled because he/she is French? I don't know how you can do it--I couldn't. The charter says a school, it doesn't say a brand new school. If I was Doug Graham, I'd be fighting this in Federal court.
Up 4 Down 5
Joe on Oct 7, 2015 at 5:17 pm
@june- please don't confuse equalization payments with with territorial formula financing. And, as per the Canadian Official Languages Act and section 16 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom, Yukon is bilingual. Point is, it's a far cry to assume you or anyone other Yukon taxpayer is paying for this or any other school in the Territory. Now, about the location in Riverdale, that's a whole other argument!
Up 29 Down 3
June Jackson on Oct 7, 2015 at 1:42 pm
To: Joe: http://www.fin.gc.ca/access/fedprov-eng.asp this URL gives a better and in depth picture of transfer payments than you have presented with your unsubstantiated guess.
Quebec will receive 20.4 billion dollars in transfer payments for a population of 8.250 million. So for transfer payments to be 28% of Quebec's income is huge.
Yukon will receive 923 million 74% of its revenues for a population of 38K
My point is, Quebec, the French province is not spending, can not spend $345,000 for every student in its schools.. Why do the French in Yukon, a primarily Anglophone area, expect us to do it?
Oh..by the way.. every province and territory in Canada gets transfer payments..at 38K population Yukon is doing very well to carry 25% of its financial burden. It's ludicrous to think the Yukon with its mining subsidies, resource sales, investments didn't pay anything.
As for my entitlement? I am entitled not to have to work until I am dead to pay for a French school for 42 students with a theater in it.
Up 50 Down 1
Smurf on Oct 7, 2015 at 1:07 pm
Is anybody out there who is listening to the "normal people" and has at least a little bit of common sense? Anybody?
No - it doesn't seem like!
Nobody wants the school built there and nobody also wants a million dollar soccer field in Whistle Bend!
But what happens: They continue to plan and try to "sell" it as the best thing in the world... What is going on here???
Be ready for more future tax increases = rent increases! Reasons: Bridge repairs, a second bridge, new skate park, traffic re-routing and so on. Don't forget the soccer field maintenance and some handouts to "special interest groups...
Up 47 Down 1
WhataJoke on Oct 6, 2015 at 5:18 pm
So where is the plan to turn the Riverdale bridge and connecting infrastructure into 4-lanes? Whitehorse/Riverdale is only going to become more populated within the lifetime of the new schools; So where is the plan to improve the traffic infrastructure? Are they going to wait a few years and when they are FORCED to build a new bridge, they will act like it's an unexpected problem like they did with the french school?
I mean, THEY KNEW the french school had to be built. Why couldn't the new french school be incorporated when they were making plans for the new FH Collins? Building two new high-schools within four years is crazy enough, but to build them 12 feet apart from each other, to build them both in one of the most congested traffic areas in the city... What are these people thinking? Are they letting the school students do the city planning on these projects?
Up 3 Down 64
joe on Oct 6, 2015 at 5:07 pm
@ june jackson- well actually, Yukon receives over a billion dollars of transfer payments from the feds every year. That federal tax base is comprised of about 30% Canadian francophones who contribute so, say 300 million or more coming to the Yukon via transfer payments is from Canadian francophones taxpayers. I'm a bit confused as to your sense of entitlement and criticism when you, and the rest of us, hold out our hands and wait for payments to come.
Up 49 Down 1
Max Mack on Oct 6, 2015 at 4:37 pm
@Bob Harris
The majority of posters aren't "hating" anyone. They are legitimately concerned with various aspects of this "proposal" (I would say it's gone far beyond a proposal, and appears more and more like a done deal), including: the need for a separate French-only high school, the cost of the facility, the location of the proposed facility, the displacement of the skate park (with its associated additional new construction costs and impact on existing parks) , and the perceived unfairness vis-a-vis First Nations students.
I am fully in support of French-language rights that are enshrined in the Constitution. I am also sympathetic to the plight of Francophones and their educational and other challenges. That does not mean that I give up my ability to think critically.
Up 36 Down 3
June Jackson on Oct 6, 2015 at 3:37 pm
Francais: I read your link on reasonable accommodation... it puts this right into perspective doesn't it? The taxpayer is going to have to cough up $365,000 PER STUDENT. That goes quite a ways beyond reasonable accommodation.
I have now joined the "I don't want this school at all" group...
Just to the French community pushing this off on to the Anglophone taxpayers.. who do you think you are?
Up 61 Down 2
Francais on Oct 5, 2015 at 5:46 pm
Politicians, Francphones and yes even the lowly Anglephone have a look at this editorial in the National Post. It is so candid and accurate but yet so disgustingly repulsive at the same time. $365,000 per student. Marc Champagne what are you doing to help the homeless and needy...oui monsieur Je suis construit une nouvelle e'cole bien sur!
Please copy and paste in your address book.
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/national-post-editorial-board-unreasonable-accommodation
Up 71 Down 1
Riverdale Res on Oct 5, 2015 at 2:17 pm
E-mail your Yukon Party MLA, or the minister, and let them know they won't be getting your vote if they decide to build this school in Riverdale.
As others have said, Whistle Bend needs "anchor" facilities, and this would do it.
Up 4 Down 97
Bob Harris on Oct 5, 2015 at 1:59 pm
mmmm so much hate. You guys must feed off each other. Not one comment in support of our other OFFICIAL language. way to go Star Trolls.
Up 105 Down 3
Yukoner on Oct 5, 2015 at 8:43 am
Riverdale has no more room for this kind of a facility. Build it in whistle bend or better yet Watson lake could use some new people.
Up 37 Down 13
Josey Wales on Oct 4, 2015 at 8:56 am
School aside, I'd like to know the French having been defeated in every battle they surrendered at...how it was sold they "won" Canada?
They did not "win" Canada via any battles, that is until the PC Circus arrived (you know when).
Now with zealots being allowed to spew unchallenged, zealots representing the fringe laughing all the way to the elitist clubhouse...with your money.
Hence my loathing the PC Circus that DRIVES this imploding country.
Up 68 Down 4
Sad on Oct 4, 2015 at 7:13 am
First Nations language programs are struggling to find time ( 1 1/2 hour a day! ) and dollars to preserve the Yukon's true first languages.
While they struggle to find class time and curriculum it must be heart breaking to read and hear francophones argue over which school they want now and where to spend the dollars with the Yukon Party's support.
The residue from Danny Lang's education vision for no "Indian" culture in Yukon's schools from the 70's ?
Up 45 Down 2
Don on Oct 3, 2015 at 12:22 pm
http://one-of-kellys-heroes.right-0n.com/memes/yuno.jpg
Separatists
"A person who supports the separation of a particular group of people from a larger body on the basis of ethnicity, religion, or gender."
Up 109 Down 0
Max Mack on Oct 3, 2015 at 2:08 am
So, despite numerous residents saying that they do not want another school built in Riverdale, and despite numerous citizens saying they do not want the skate park moved . . . that is exactly what is going to happen.
Our politicians have no scruples.
Up 106 Down 5
jc on Oct 2, 2015 at 9:46 pm
I wonder if Quebec would build an English high school. Any bets?
Up 91 Down 1
Captain Obvious on Oct 2, 2015 at 6:18 pm
Has anyone informed these people that there is already a traffic jam at the inter-section of Lewis and Hospital Rd. I guess it was just out of the question to be practical and build the school further to the South of FHC and Selkirk schools. What happened to common sense. Oh, yes I forgot. "We're not taking a backseat to anybody", philosophy. You just did.
Up 77 Down 3
yukon56 on Oct 2, 2015 at 4:57 pm
Just what we need, Really???
Up 89 Down 2
Thomas Brewer on Oct 2, 2015 at 4:57 pm
A 250 person theatre is going to require at least 100 parking spots. Seems like a lot is being wedged into the small footprint of the skate park.
Maybe it's really not the best location. I hear Whistle Bend needs facilities.....