This touches me close to home. I've worked for over six years as associate regional director general in the Atlantic region. I've been in schools throughout the four Atlantic provinces. I've seen how well the communities who have a new school are using it. It goes right into the study into educational attainment, but it's also important to the community. Those are places for gatherings. In some places, they are emergency shelters for extreme weather. They are so important for communities.
I would say that one of the key things is that a lot of additional funds have gone into school builds over the last number of years. There have been a number of new schools built thanks to the dedicated funding, but there is still a huge demand. Part of that is related to inflation, COVID cost increases and supplies. There is a demand. There is a list of schools waiting to be built.
We have to prioritize what is built in co-operation with communities. Some of the things we look at are, obviously, health and safety and the condition of the current facility. We look at overcrowding. We look at accessibility of schools off reserve. That is one potential consideration. We look at the design and cost efficiency opportunities, because sometimes it might make more sense to build a new school than keep an old school running and try to do the repairs to it.
Those are some of the key prioritization principles we look at when we're trying to do the prioritization of what can be funded and what can't. Timing might also be a question that's looked at. When could the shovel be put into the ground?