Province confirms it will fund rebuild of B.C. elementary school destroyed in suspicious fire

Families in Port Coquitlam are pleased to finally hear that there will be provincial funds to rebuild an elementary school that was destroyed in a suspicious fire in October 2023, despite expressing frustration with the process.

On Wednesday, School District 43 Chair Michael Thomas said in a Facebook post that the district had received notice from the province that capital funding had been approved to replace Hazel Trembath Elementary.

"We have spent the last 18 months advocating non-stop to the province to get Hazel rebuilt," he wrote. "There must be a better process for extraordinary situations like this."

The news came a day after the 2025 B.C. budget was released, which listed $4.6 billion to be spent over three years to seismically replace or upgrade schools across the province. Hazel Trembath wasn't listed.

That infuriated Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West, himself a former Hazel Trembath pupil, who also had a son attending at the time of the fire, which occurred overnight and did not cause any injuries.

Not seeing money in the B.C. budget for the school, West said he pondered pressure tactics such as not collecting school taxes on behalf of the province.

"If the province is failing this community, maybe they should collect the school taxes on their own and not depend on us to do it," he told CBC News. "Those types of things to try and ... really hold their feet to the fire."

On Thursday, Infrastructure Minister Bowinn Ma confirmed in a statement that there is funding in Budget 2025 for the replacement of Hazel Trembath Elementary but did not provide amounts or a timeline.

"We are working with the school district on next steps," said Ma.

Shortly after the fire, the school district said it would take three years to rebuild the school unless there was an expedited timeline.

Shawna Comey, a parent with two children who would be at the school if it was still standing, said Wednesday's announcement from the school district came as a "shock and a relief."

Since October 2023, her children have had to bus for about 20 minutes to the Winslow Centre in Coquitlam to attend a makeshift school set up there for affected families.

"It's a good temporary solution," said Comey, who added that it comes with challenges. "There's been a bit of loss of community that way and a sense of … school spirit."

Comey said that despite advocacy and a petition from the community to have the school rebuilt, there was no certainty it would actually happen or whether the land the school was on would be sold and a school would be built elsewhere.

"We didn't know what was going to happen."

School district chair Thomas also wrote that "families shouldn't be left in limbo when disaster strikes their neighborhood school, but that's a conversation for another day."

RCMP say they continue to investigate how the fire started but believe it was human-caused.

In March 2024, police said it was criminal in nature and were looking for suspects.