Despite the appointment of a special negotiator, talks between Quebec and school boards are still at an impasse. However, Prime Minister François Legault considers the present offer to be “reasonable”.
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On Wednesday, the government announced it was stepping up a gear to try to resolve the impasse with school bus operators, who are demanding a 20 to 25 percent increase in their funding due to the increase in costs associated with their activities.
Quebec has also appointed a special negotiator to “consolidate the parties to a common position.”
Nevertheless, it is clear to François Legault that the government’s offer is sufficient. On the sidelines of the presentation of his candidate at Bertrand in Sainte-Adèle on Thursday, the Prime Minister stressed that this offer had already been accepted “by certain school transport companies”.
“It’s a reasonable offer that covers inflation. Because we all understood that the price of diesel, the cost in general, has gone up with inflation. Our offer takes this into account,” said Mr. Legault.
On June 30, 60% of the contracts with providers in the school network expired. To date, only 15% of expired contracts have been renewed.
As of Wednesday, more than a quarter of school service centers — around 20 — still had contracts that were not renewed just ten days before the start of the school year, according to Quebec data.
For their part, school service centers are now preparing to go back to school without yellow buses by implementing mitigation measures.
However, they are asking for the cooperation of parents to ensure their children’s transport in the event of a service failure.