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With the first day of school less than a week away, overcrowded schools and the proliferation of portable classrooms in Surrey was a hot political topic on Tuesday.

Surrey is the largest school district in the province, with an estimated 71,350 students starting classes next week — about 1,000 more than last year. The district has an inventory of 273 portables, roughly 250 of which are expected to be used as classrooms for about 6,250 kindergarten to Grade 12 students.

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“I think that’s unacceptable. My colleagues think that’s unacceptable. Parents, teachers, trustees think that’s unacceptable,” B.C. New Democrat leader John Horgan said during a news conference, which was held in a park adjacent to Katzie Elementary School. Katzie opened two years ago and has eight portables.

Horgan said education in Surrey is in crisis and Premier Christy Clark has ignored the issue.

“We have to have a total removal of these portables over the course of the next four years. We need to start by reducing them by half in the first two years of the next mandate of the next B.C. government,” he said. “It strikes me that if you’re going to say that education is important, you have to demonstrate that education is important.”