Francophone students in Smithers will learn and play in a new school and gymnasium built with prefabricated technology while long-term plans are made for a larger home for the École élémentaire La Grande-ourse community.

“Francophone families in Smithers deserve to have access to education in French, one of Canada’s two official languages,” said Rachna Singh, Minister of Education and Child Care. “I am pleased to see funding now in place to construct a prefabricated school for students and their families while plans for a permanent home are made.”

The Province is providing the Conseil scolaire francophone de la Colombie-Britannique (CSF) with $5 million to build a prefabricated, five-unit school and a gymnasium facility on a newly acquired property at the southeastern corner of Vancouver Street and Third Avenue in Smithers.

The prefabricated school will provide the amenities needed to facilitate a safe, functional and positive learning environment for students. The new school will replace the leased facility that École La Grande-ourse has been operating in since 2019.

“I am proud of the work we are doing to support Smithers’ francophone students and their families,” said Nathan Cullen, MLA for Stikine. “Our government is taking significant and creative steps to ensure francophone students and their families in Smithers have a school of their own to call home.”

École La Grande-ourse offers classes from kindergarten to Grade 7 to the francophone population in Smithers and surrounding communities. In November 2022, the Province provided CSF with $2.1 million to purchase the land where the new facility will be built.

“We are delighted at the announcement of this new funding, which will allow the francophone community in Smithers to benefit from a newly built school and gym, adapted to the needs of students, on a permanent school site, with the purchase soon to be concluded by the CSF,” said Marie-Pierre Lavoie, board chair, CSF. “We thank the Province of British Columbia for its valuable collaboration on this project and its commitment to French-language education provincewide.”

Since September 2017, the Province has provided the CSF with more than $58.9 million for site purchases in Burnaby, Kamloops, Penticton, Victoria, Pemberton and Smithers, as well as more than $18.1 million for École Beausoleil in Victoria and a new gymnasium addition (École des-Deux-Rives) in Mission. The Province also provided funding to help CSF establish a capital project office to more efficiently co-ordinate and deliver capital projects for francophone students and their families throughout B.C.