Ms. Lisa MacLeod: My question is to the Minister of Education. Minister, I spoke to your policy advisor this morning, just to indicate and give him some background on my question.

The Barrhaven and Riverside South communities of Nepean-Carleton are two of the fastest-growing communities in all of Ottawa, if not all of Canada. In Barrhaven alone, our population has risen from 2001 to 2006 to 52,000. It's nearly doubled, and is expected to double again to over 100,000 within the next five years. That means there's been a demand on the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board and the other three in my riding for more public education.

The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board has reached its capacity at four of the seven schools in Barrhaven, and they've requested provincial assistance to build a new elementary school. I guess my question, Minister, is will you approve the funding request from the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board?

Hon. Leona Dombrowsky: It is interesting: It is a spend question. I find it-the first question from the Conservatives this morning was, "Should we cut spending?" However, in the second half of question period, they have a different strategy.

What I can say to the honourable member is that we have worked with school boards across Ontario since coming to government to assist them to meet their capital needs. That is why this government has actually built 400 schools since 2003 in the province of Ontario. There are another 100 schools in the works. That is in stark contrast to what the previous government did when they closed 500 schools, so I believe we have a record.

We do pay very close attention to the capital requests that come to us from school boards. We will be looking very carefully, obviously, in the Ottawa region; wonderful representation there. We-

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Supplementary?

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: It's unfortunate. I did take the opportunity to contact the minister's office beforehand. This is important to my riding. It's important to parents and it's important to the students in my community. I thought I'd get better than a political response.

In 2008, I first brought to the attention of the previous Minister of Education, Ms. Kathleen Wynne, who I was fortunate to be able to work with, the need for a new high school in the Riverside South community due to high growth in that community. The population in Riverside South is growing by 52% per year and the Steve MacLean elementary school right now needs to be expanded to accommodate the population pressures. High school students right now in that community are either being bussed out of our neighbourhood or they are turning over to the Ottawa Catholic school board so they can stay in their community.

Minister, my next question for Riverside South is: Will you commit to keeping up with the population pressures in Riverside South by expanding the Steve MacLean elementary school and building a new public high school in Riverside South?

Hon. Leona Dombrowsky: Again, I would say to the honourable member that our commitment to build schools in the province of Ontario has been a priority. That will continue to be the case.

What I do know, though, that parents in the riding of the honourable member are most interested to know about, is that in the year 2012 we have announced eight schools that will be getting full-day kindergarten.

Their commitment is not to move forward with that. That is what the people in the community are very concerned about. So we listened to all of the people on all of the issues. Accommodation is a very important issue, as well as the commitment to full-day kindergarten, and we are-