The Yukon government is promising there will be an elementary school in downtown Whitehorse, even if the current one moves elsewhere.

The Yukon Party government voted in favour of an opposition motion last week, to commit to a downtown school.

It’s been an issue since the previous government announced in 2022 that the current École Whitehorse Elementary School building downtown was aging, and would be replaced by a new facility to be built outside of the city’s downtown, in the Takhini neighbourhood. The old building was to be torn down.

The opposition NDP decried that decision at the time, saying it would leave the city’s downtown residents without a local elementary school. NDP MLA Lane Tredger then put forward a non-binding motion, calling on the government to ensure that the downtown continues to have an elementary school. That motion passed in 2023, with the unanimous support of opposition MLAs and no votes from the governing Liberals.

Last week, Tredger tabled a similar motion. They said it was important to hear whether the Yukon Party, now in government, still supported the idea.

The motion passed unanimously, which Tredger called “a really good start.”

“I’ve heard so much excitement and relief from people downtown. This is something that people downtown have been fighting for, for years now,” Tredger said.

“The heart of a community is really its children. And to tell children and families that they’re welcome in a place means there needs to be a school for them.”

Location ‘speculative at this point,’ minister says

Education Minister Scott Kent said the details about what and where a new downtown school might be located are “speculative at this point,” as it depends on what happens with École Whitehorse Elementary School.

Within months of taking office, the Yukon Party government scrapped the previous government’s plans to build the new Whitehorse Elementary in the Takhini neighbourhood and instead proposed three other potential locations, including the school’s current site. The other two proposed sites are outside the downtown — one near the Kopper King, and one near the Canada Games Centre.

A public consultation is now underway to choose one of those locations. Kent says more than 1,600 people have so far responded to a survey, showing “a lot of interest, obviously, in where that school should be located.”

Kent says if the new Whitehorse Elementary School is built outside of downtown, that’s when planning would begin for another facility, somewhere in the city centre.

“The numbers of youth in the downtown area aged, you know, birth to 18 years old is over 800, which is a significant amount. So I think obviously there’s a population in that attendance area,” Kent said.