New BrunswickA district education council said they were taken by complete shock over changes the province made to its school bus repair services. N.B.’s Vehicle Management Agency told school districts reduced services began Nov. 4Sam Farley · CBC News · Posted: Nov 19, 2025 4:12 PM EST | Last Updated: 2 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 5 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.The province told school districts that if a bus breaks down on the side of the road, a spare bus will not be sent to pick up its students and mechanics will be unavailable to assist if it’s outside business hours. (Ingrid Blakey/Submitted)Members of a district education council said they were taken by complete surprise when they learned about changes the province made to its policy for school bus repair services.If a bus breaks down on the side of the road during its route, the department will no longer send replacement buses out to the field, said Dominic Vautour, chairperson of the Moncton region’s Anglophone East District Education Council. Mecahnics will also be unavailable to assist if a breakdown happens outside of business hours, which Vautour said are being reduced to 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.The province’s Vehicle Management Agency implemented the changes beginning Nov. 4, but Vautour said his council only found out about the new policy on Nov. 18. He said the council never recieved written notice informing them the policy change was coming. “We didn’t hear about it. You know, we didn’t have time to plan, we didn’t have time to mitigate the circumstances to ensure that our system continues to function,” Vautour said, calling the move “outrageous.”WATCH | ‘It’s a human resource thing,’ says transportation minister : Province promises kids won’t be stranded with bus breakdown policy changeThe province’s Vehicle Management Agency told school districts that if a bus breaks down on the side of the road, a spare bus will not be sent to pick up its students and mechanics will be unavailable to assist if it’s outside business hours. Vautour questioned what would happen if a bus broke down past 4 p.m. as the district does still have some buses running past that time of day.“[The department] is no longer sending mechanics on the side of the road. It’s -20 [degrees], it’s a snowstorm. We don’t know what the circumstances could be. We cannot leave those students there.”’Your children are being taken care of’This announcement comes a year after the province’s auditor general slammed DTI for not having an effective system to ensure school bus safety. When asked by reporters at the legislature on Wednesday, transportation minister, Chuck Chiasson, described the decision as a human resources matter.“What it boils down to is we have a lack of licensed mechanics in our shops,” Chiasson said.He said the department recently signed an agreement with the union to raise pay for bus mechanics, which he said will hopefully make it easier to recruit and retain them. The mechanic shortage is “pretty much province-wide,” he added.Anglophone East District Education chair, Dominic Vautour, said the district wasn’t given enough notice about the change. (Dominic Vautour)“We’re certainly not going to leave any children stranded on the side of the road,” Chiasson said.“We’re going to work with the district to find a way to get a driver to pick up a bus or to get a bus out to them, we’ll work with the district in those types of situations for sure.”School district has work-around planVautour said his school district has been able to come up with a work-around plan of hiring a fleet manager for the school buses as well as runners who can bring replacement buses to the sites of breakdowns if need be.But there is no room in the district’s budget for this, Vautour said, so the district will seek reimbursement from the Department of Education in the future.He stressed to families that, at least for his district, service levels will be maintained.“There is nothing to worry about. Your children are being taken care of,” Vautour said.Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Minister, Chuck Chiasson, says the department increased wages for school bus mechanics to recruit more people into the job. (Tara King-Stewart/CBC)“This is just a bureaucracy that has to sort itself out on who’s going to pay for what and what services are going to look like in the future.”Anglophone West School District Spokesperson, Paul MacIntosh, said no one was available for an interview on Wednesday, but in an email statement said the district is already seeing an impact.“When a breakdown occurs, the reduced services mean response times are longer, which can result in students waiting on the roadside or at school for an extended period,” MacIntosh said. “Breakdowns are not uncommon — we typically see a few each day — and without timely support, even routine issues can disrupt routes and create delays across the system.”But a spokesperson for another district — Anglophone North — said in an email statement that there have been minimal impacts to busing this year and they have “open lines of communication” with DTI.Meredith Caissie said the district has 15-40 backup buses on hand and had plans in place to deal with mechanical issues.”However, there may be situations that occur that require additional response time,” Caissie said.”Everyone agrees that the safety of our students is a top priority when it comes to their transportation, so we are confident that the departments and decision makers involved will find a solution that supports that safety and security .”CBC News reached out to the other Anglophone and Francophone school districts but did not hear back. ABOUT THE AUTHORSam Farley is a Fredericton-based reporter at CBC New Brunswick. Originally from Boston, he is a journalism graduate of the University of King’s College in Halifax. He can be reached at sam.farley@cbc.ca
Education council shocked by outrageous move to reduce school bus repair, breakdown services
