Hindley says Carlyle school will see construction sooner than some other projects
March 30, 2026, 9:49 am
Nicole Taylor Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Saskatchewan Minister of Education Everett Hindley told the World-Spectator on Thursday that even though Carlyle’s new school won’t go to tender this spring, the project is in the advanced stages compared to some other school capital projects in Saskatchewan.
“There are 20-some projects across Saskatchewan right now in various stages, whether it’s pre-planning, design, development or even construction. For example, there’s a school in Regina at Harbor Landing that’s well underway in construction. There’s one in Saskatoon well underway in construction. There are a number of other ones that still have quite a bit of work to be done. For example, we’re working on a school in Pinehouse way up in Northwest Saskatchewan, and it’s very much early in the design phases,” he said.
“The Carlyle project is more advanced. There are dollars in the education budget for all of our capital projects, as part of the $123 million global funding for capital projects this year for them all to advance. So the project is still moving forward, as are all of them across Saskatchewan. With Carlyle, we’re working our way through to the next stages and can assure people that project construction, when the time comes, will begin and that school will be built.”
He says the ministry is slowing down the tendering process.
“We’re not in a position to go to tender this spring. The reason is we’ve spent quite a bit of money on new school builds across the province, and continue to do that right now as we speak. As projects are completed, and they move from a construction phase and a capital phase, they then move into operating. And what that does is that frees up money within the budget to be able to advance other projects that are in various stages of design and development.
“For example, we had seven new schools that we opened last fall, and they start with a limited amount of funding at the beginning to help with things like land procurement, land purchase, the actual design drawings for the school, which is minimal dollars in comparison to the actual construction phase.
“When they move to the construction phase, that’s when the tens of millions of dollars start to get spent.
“So that’s what’s happening in this case. As we have other projects that are completed, that frees up funding for projects like Carlyle.
“In the meantime, work continues on refining this particular project.
“Myself and the MLA for the area, Daryl Harrison, have been in regular contact on this. He’s been raising it with me as we’ve gone through the entire project. We had a good meeting the other day with the mayor of Carlyle, as well as the school board chair and the vice chair—who is the trustee for that area—about the path going forward, and I think we have a really good plan on the next steps of this.
“There were some questions raised by our officials just with respect to the land that’s been selected for it. It looks like there might be some additional work that needs to be done there. So we’re working through that and looking forward to getting to the next step.”
Hindley said he was unable to give a timeline for construction.
“I’m not in a position to narrow down a timeline at this point. We’re trying to advance it as we can with respect to sequencing it along with every other project that’s happening in the province right now when it comes to new school builds and major renovation projects.
“We’ve got some refining and some work we have to do around the actual site, and we had a very productive and a great conversation the other day with the mayor and the school division about what needs to happen there.
“Once we get into a better position of knowing what that timeframe will be, we will then make that information public.”
Hindley said, of all the school projects that have been approved to go ahead, Carlyle is one of the more advanced projects.
“Carlyle is very much advanced in terms of the design, so it’s getting close to the beginning of actual construction, but we have to be able to deliver these in a financially sustainable way, and we have to be mindful when we announce new projects, and how we stage them out. We have to be able to pay for them. But I would say that the Carlyle is further ahead than some of the other projects that we’re seeing in Saskatchewan.”
Even though there is money in the budget to build Carlyle School, Hindley said the government can’t proceed with all their builds right away.
“As a government, we’re not looking at just schools. We have to look at the overall capital budget for the entire province, and that’s where my ministry comes in, but that’s also where the ministry of Sask Builds and Procurement comes in, because they have to look at the global provincial spend for capital projects for the provincial government,” he says.
“So that’s schools in the education sector, that’s hospitals and long-term care homes in the Ministry of Health, that’s highways in the Ministry of Highways, there are probably some builds in Social Services and Community Safety, if you look at projects in those particular ministries.
“So we look at the overall picture. But having been a minister in this file and others for some time, I’ve also seen a number of projects that get announced by government and—for a variety of reasons, and we’re all seeing this, and nobody’s immune to this, we’re seeing it in the construction sector as well—we’re seeing projects that have a price tag identified to them, and then as things go on, the price goes up, and that’s as a result of escalating costs. Coming out of the pandemic, it was sometimes supply chain factors. Sometimes now it’s tariff related, because that’s one of the key issues that’s impacting construction costs these days. Other times it’s labor.
“And what we’re talking about today are just the public sector projects. There are 60 private sector projects happening in Saskatchewan right now totaling approximately $60 billion. At the end of the day there’s a limited labor pool that can actually complete these things.
“So what happens is, when you have that competition, economics would say that drives the price up. So when we have money in the budget, we want to make sure that these projects all continue to move ahead. And are some moving ahead faster than others? Certainly. As I said, there’s a couple of projects right now that are in the middle of construction in Regina and Saskatoon, but as the funding frees up for those projects in the construction phase, then we can redirect it to other places. But we need to make sure that we flow money to identify any challenges or issues that might have been identified and address those so we can get these to the construction phase.”
Hindley said it’s common for tenders to come back higher than the budget for projects.
“I don’t know if I’ve seen a project that’ has come to me as of late, or in the past two or three years, where we’ve had an item come back and it’s either on budget or it’s under budget. That just is not the case. A lot of these are coming back and requesting 20 and 30 per cent more funding in government funds. It’s not an unlimited pool of money for the government, either. We have to be very mindful of this, and so that’s why we have to be cautious in terms of how we advance these projects going forward.
“If you think of it in personal terms, you have to be careful that you’re not carrying a mortgage and a car loan and a loan for a second property and a loan for a recreational vehicle. That becomes unsustainable. There comes a point where the bank says, ‘You know what, you’re maxed out.’ So we just need to be mindful of where we’re spending this money. And there are instances where—whether it’s materials, whether it’s work that has to be done to the land to service it to make it adequate for a project—sometimes those issues come up along the way, and then we have to take the steps to say, ‘Okay, let’s work our way through this. Is this the actual cost? Do we have to refine it in some way, or is there a path forward?’ So those are some of the things that we have to take into consideration.”
Hindley stressed that the government is committed to seeing the new school built in Carlyle, even if earth isn’t turning this spring.
“The government is committed to this project. It is absolutely going ahead,” he said. “There has been a ton of work done on this. There have been some hiccups along the road, as there is with any project. Nothing ever goes perfectly according to plan, and so sometimes when those come up, you have to find a path through it.
“I’m very grateful for the meeting that MLA Harrison and myself had with the mayor, with the board chair, with the trustee for the area as well, earlier this week, to identify some of the issues and to provide reassurance that we’re going to get this done, and there will come a day where we are going to start doing some work out there, some ground work, and construction will begin.
“And there will also be a day when we’re cutting the ribbon on a new school in Carlyle, I can assure you of that, and we’re going to get through this phase and make sure that it gets done.”
