Seismic Mitigation Program

There is nothing more important than the safety of British Columbia’s students. That’s why this government has made a 15-year, $1.5-billion commitment to make our schools safer in the event of an earthquake. In fact, we are the first-ever government in B.C. to undertake a comprehensive school seismic upgrading program.

To date, 116 seismic upgrade projects are complete, under construction or proceeding to construction. We have spent about $400 million and have additional funding already committed to seismic upgrades, leaving more than half a billion dollars in our budget to continue to upgrade the high-priority schools in our province.

As part of the Province’s School Seismic Mitigation Program, boards of education assessed schools in 2004 to confirm the seismic risk and scope of required projects in their districts. Project engineers used retrofit design concepts in the risk assessments that were developed by the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of BC (APEGBC).