New West Councillors at BC Legislature to Push for Permanent Queensborough Bus Funding: City Hall Motion Introduced to Support Students

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New Westminster NWP City Councillors Daniel Fontaine and Paul Minhas are at the BC Legislature this week to continue their push for permanent Queensborough school bus funding.  With a pilot-project ending in June, Councillors are reminding MLAs of the NDP government’s 2024 promise to make the service permanent and free for parents.

Councillors Fontaine and Minhas have also introduced a Motion for next week’s City Council meeting, calling on New Westminster’s current Mayor and CF Councillors to fully step in and stand up to their Party’s political leadership in Victoria.

“Queensborough students and families have waited too long for the NDP government and their municipal cousins in New Westminster to deliver a permanent solution for this vital service,” said Councillor Fontaine. “It is only thanks to the advocacy of local residents and students that we will eventually ensure children are not continuously forced to overcome a never-ending obstacle course of overcrowded buses and missed connections just to go to school.”

Over 230 Queensborough students and families rely on the bus service to attend New Westminster Secondary School in a safe, secure and timely manner. Without it, student journeys are three times longer. Many are passed over by buses, causing students to arrive late - if at all.“The current Mayor and CF Council should have unlocked funding from senior governments when they accepted this density,” said NWP School Board Trustee Candidate Anita Dunn.  “While we can’t go back in time, the CF Council can support the NWP motion calling on the BC Minister of Education to make the bus service permanent and without cost to families until a Queensborough school is constructed.”

A pilot service launched by the School District in January 2024, at cost to parents, ends June 30, despite a 2024 promise by the NDP government to make the bus service permanent and free.

A full copy of next week’s New Westminster City Council motion is available below.  

Councillors Minhas and Fontaine pay their own way to-and-from the BC Legislature, where they will be advocating for issues local residents have been identifying as priorities during recent NW City Matters meetings and through our on-line survey at www.nwprogress.ca.   

After a successful neighbourhood meeting last week at the Queensborough Community Centre, Councillor Fontaine is inviting local residents to participate in the next NWP City Matters neighbourhood meeting in Sapperton. 

Location:        Pensioners Community Hall, 318 Keary Street

Date:               Wednesday, March 4, 2026

Time:              6:30-8:00pm

New Westminster City Council Motion from Councillors Daniel Fontaine and Paul Minhas

WHEREAS over 230 Queensborough based students and their families rely on the Queensborough bus service to enable students to attend New Westminster Secondary School in a safe, secure and timely manner, without which journeys take three times as long and students are often passed over by overcrowded buses causing them to arrive late or not at all; and 

WHEREAS a pilot service launched in January 2024 at cost to parents is slated to end on June 30, 2026, despite a campaign promise made on October 8, 2024, that if the NDP government were re-elected, this service would be made ‘permanent and free’; and 

WHEREAS New Westminster is the second most dense city in Canada, with only one high school, and the acceptance of this density should have already unlocked new funding from senior orders of government;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT the Mayor be requested to write to our three government and opposition MLAs asking they advocate to secure the necessary provincial funding to ensure the Queensborough school bus program becomes ‘free and permanent’ as previously promised; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED the Mayor write to the Minister of Education and Child Care requesting that additional funding be granted to School District 40 for the Queensborough school bus service to continue and be made permanent (beyond June 30, 2026) and without cost to local families until such time as a new high school is built in the Queensborough community.