The Yukon Party is trying to track down some information as to whether a Whitehorse school will be replaced in the next year or two.

The mystery project has appeared in territorial budgets for at least the last two years, Yukon Party MLA Scott Kent noted Wednesday in the legislature.

However, the identity of the school which will be replaced continues to be kept as if it’s a state secret, he added. The Yukon Party got nowhere trying to obtain answers on the issue from Liberal ministers in 2021.

Opposition members attended a technical briefing on the subject this week, Kent said, and three elementary schools were mentioned: Takhini, École Whitehorse Elementary and Selkirk.

The government has so far refused to publicly state which will be decommissioned or where the new school will be located.

“I have some more questions about this mysterious ‘school replacement 1’ that is in this year’s budget,” Kent said during question period.

“We know that there’s $200,000 in the budget this year for designing the school, but let’s take a step back to the 2018 budget that the previous Liberal government tabled. In that budget, the Liberals told us that they would be spending $2 million for a scalable, generic school design.

“At the time, we asked the Liberals about this, and they claimed that this was going to create a generic school design for the government to use in future school replacements,” Kent recalled.

“They claimed that this project would ultimately save Yukon taxpayers up to $7 million as a result of not having to come up with new designs for each new school.

“So, can the minister confirm that the generic school design that the Liberals spent millions on back in 2018-19 will be the design used for the mysterious ‘school replacement 1’”?

This is the answer Education Minister Jeanie McLean provided.

“I will again talk about our commitment to the work that we are doing around infrastructure and actually building new schools. That’s something that our government is doing,” she said.

“We’re really proud of the new Whistle Bend school, which is the first new elementary school in the city of Whitehorse in a few decades.

“I’m really proud, of course — I talked yesterday at a bit of length about the Burwash Landing school, which is an exciting project that we are committed to working on with the Kluane First Nation and the community at large within the Kluane area,” McLean said.

“This is a longstanding request of the community that we’re happy to be fulfilling.”

The government has a five-year capital plan that includes school replacement and renovation projects “to ensure that all buildings are safe and suitable for many years to come,” the minister said.

“Our commitment is also to building schools that create modern learning spaces. This is something that our government is committed to, and I’ll continue to build on this answer as we go forward.”

Kent posed a follow-up question.

“Can the minister tell us what the point of the generic design was and how much was actually spent on it?

McLean said: “Again, as the minister of Education, I am very committed to working with our school communities and planning these facilities based on what the needs are in our educational community.

“Our designs going forward are designs that are creating educational spaces in a new and modern way,” McLean said.

“I think that the school that was built for the francophone school board is a really beautiful example of a modern learning space that takes into consideration ways of learning in the 21st-century model.

“I’m very excited about the Whistle Bend school and the advancement of this project. Again, I am excited about what this will bring to our community and Whistle Bend, the fastest-growing neighbourhood in the Yukon, and I am happy that we are investing in new schools.

“Again, we are basing our decisions on research and evidence, and working with our partners, and we will continue to do that.”

Afterward, Kent said, “We’re trying to get more clarity as to which school is being replaced.

“We’re curious as to why the government is being so secretive. School communities are anxious to know.

“There’s no accountability as to which school is up for replacement. There was certainly no answers on the floor of the legislature (Wednesday).

“We find it difficult to believe there haven’t made a choice as to which school is being replaced. We’re just not getting any straight answers out of the government.”