The Growing Population in Glengarry-Prescott-Russell

The provincial deputy of Glengarry Prescott-Russell, Stéphane Sarrazin, discusses important issues in the region, including the construction of two new French-language schools at a cost of over $62 million.

Jade Laviolette - Local journalism initiative

Throughout the month of June, M. Sarrazin announced multiple investments in the education system. 5.3 million dollars was recently put into the extension of the St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic High School.

While the 5.3 million dollars will allow 230 more places to be made at the extended high school, another 62.2 million dollars was put towards financing the two new public French high schools the community had been eagerly demanding. One of those locations is in Rockland and the other is located south of Orleans. 

The voice of the community

“For me, to be the voice [of Glengarry and Prescott-Russell] is the main reason I decided to run. We need to have a strong voice because we’re so far from Toronto, [...] so I'm here to be the voice of the people of Glengarry Prescott-Russell” says Stéphane Sarrazin when asked about his goal for the region.

In addition, the voice of the community is important to our provincial deputy of Glengarry Prescott-Russel. An example would be when we asked about the French public high school and he told us: “There wasn't any francophone public [high] schools in Rockland and people have been waiting for that for quite a while. I remember when I was first elected, they came to me and said ‘You gotta work on this with the minister of education’ and this year we actually doubled the funding of schools in the province.” 

Adjusting to the growing population

The population of Rockland has been growing quite rapidly which is why the government needs to accommodate that population through the schools: “Especially here in Rockland there’s a lot of residential growth [and] at the end of the day we need to have the capacity to have these students be attending school locally so [they] don’t have to travel an hour away.” He says when asked about the new developments. 

As previously mentioned, M. Sarrazin believes that it’s important to develop new schools to accommodate the growing population, but he also says that the government is also working on new infrastructures. He specifically states that “Right now there’s money available to municipalities when it comes to infrastructures, close to 2 billion dollars. We think as a government, the best way to be able to meet our housing target is to invest in the municipalities to have these water and sewer projects.”