P.E.I. will receive 12 new electric school buses by the end of 2020.
The 12 new buses, as well as the installation of charging stations, will cost $4.8 million. P.E.I.’s provincial government will contribute $2.7 million, while the federal government will contribute $2.1 million.
In an announcement via Zoom on Monday morning, Federal Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna said the school buses would also be manufactured in Quebec by Lion Electric.
“Every taxpayer dollar needs to grow the economy and create jobs. It needs to tackle climate change, build a cleaner and more resilient future,” McKenna said. “That’s exactly what this announcement is doing today.”
Premier Dennis King, who spoke to the announcement via Zoom, said the funding represented “an important first step” to moving P.E.I.’s entire fleet of 300 school buses to electrification.
“We anticipate the first bus to be here sometime in November, around the 25th we hope, with the remaining buses arriving by the end of December,” King said.
The new buses will replace existing diesel buses, King said.
King added the new school buses will remove 12 tonnes of carbon emission per year from P.E.I.’s atmosphere, the equivalent of taking 26 cars off the road.
The $4.8 million price tag for the 12 buses is higher than the $4.4 million sum the province announced for the purchase of 42 gas-powered school buses in August of 2019.
So for comparison, the Province purchased 42 new school buses in Aug 2019 for $4.4 million. https://t.co/fnszENsBtV
— Stuart Neatby (@stu_neatby) November 9, 2020
Education Minister Brad Trivers acknowledged the higher up-front cost of the electric buses, which is partly due to the additional cost of installation of charging stations.
“In the long run there is an 80 per cent energy cost reduction as well as a 60 per cent reduction in maintenance cost,” Trivers said. “It’s a win-win-win. Our education system is going to win as we have this transportation for our students and it of course is going to have huge benefits for the environment.”
As of 2018, P.E.I. emitted 1.7 megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year. Transportation accounts for almost 50 per cent of these emissions.
The P.E.I. government pledged in October to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2040. This target has not yet been enshrined in legislation, but a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 1.2 megatonnes per year, 40 per cent below 2005 levels, was passed in the legislature in the spring of 2019.
Funding application for three schools under review
An application has been submitted by the provincial government to Infrastructure Canada for funding expansion of West Royalty Elementary school.
The provincial government announced in October that expansion plans for three schools – West Royalty Elementary, Eliot River Elementary and Montague Consolidated – were imminent.
However, Infrastructure Canada later said they had not received an application for funding for the projects under the federal COVID-19 Resilience Stream.
The provincial government announcement occurred in the midst of a byelection campaign in Charlottetown-Winsloe.
Charlottetown MP Sean Casey told The Guardian Monday the application has since been received for funding for the West Royalty project
“The real good news here is that … educational institutions do qualify for funding,” Casey said.
Infrastructure Canada later confirmed an application for funding under the COVID-19 resilience stream has been received for West Royalty Elementary. However no application has yet been submitted from the Province for Montague Consolidated or Eliot River.
West Royalty Elementary parents have said classrooms are overcrowded, while concerns have also been raised about ventilation at Montague Consolidated.
