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Fort Smith has its say on Aurora College

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Janie Hobart holds protest signs at a June 11 public meeting in Fort Smith on a controversial report on the future of Aurora College. Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

Fort Smith has put up a spirited defence of its role as the centre of post-secondary education in the NWT.

On June 11, Education, Culture and Employment (ECE) Minister Caroline Cochrane visited town for a public meeting on a controversial report that calls for Aurora College to become a university with its main campus and headquarters in Yellowknife.

Janie Hobart holds protest signs at a June 11 public meeting in Fort Smith on a controversial report on the future of Aurora College. Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

About 200 people showed up at the meeting, and many took turns blasting those ideas and what they said was a negative picture painted of Fort Smith in the report.

Jack Van Camp, a former senior instructor with the Environment and Natural Resources Technology Program at Thebacha Campus, dipped back into history to explain Fort Smith's right to host the college headquarters.

"This really goes to the founding principles of the Northwest Territories, and among those founding principles was an agreement that was made in the very early days back in the '60s that the capital would go to Yellowknife and the centre for higher education would be in Fort Smith," Van Camp said.

That was a federal decision, Cochrane responded. "The promises that were made were a federal government promise."

That answer did not go over well with Michael Miltenberger, a former Thebacha MLA and cabinet minister, who said that, if Yellowknife's role as capital was challenged, Cochrane would defend it under the historic agreement.

"We're saying there was an agreement to us, like a treaty, like a land claim," said Miltenberger. "There was a commitment."

Cochrane suggested several times that Fort Smith was fighting for educational facilities at the expense at Yellowknife and Inuvik, which have the other two campuses of Aurora College.

"It's not about making sure that Fort Smith is the end all, and all of the education comes to Fort Smith, because that's not fair to communities, either," she said at one point. "So we have three campuses and we need to make sure that all three campuses are vibrant and that the programs are appropriate."

A fired-up Miltenberger objected to the suggestion that Fort Smith wanted too much.

"And you make it sound that because we're in Fort Smith we're a bunch of yokels, we can only think of Fort Smith," he told the minister.

Miltenberger said he agrees with fixing problems at the college.

"What we don't agree with is the arrogance of Yellowknife once again coming here to tell us that it will work better if you move the headquarters to Yellowknife," he said.

Miltenberger also dismissed the very idea of a Northern Canada Polytechnic University in the foundational review report on the college released in late May.

"There's not a hope in hell that you're ever going to get a university," he said. "You can't even run a college."

Many others took turns slamming the report.

Businessman Don Jaque called it an embarrassing waste of over $400,000.

"I'm surprised someone as competent as you is supporting this report when there's been no investigation into potential student numbers that would come to a university in Yellowknife," he told Cochrane, adding are also no price tags in the report.

Denise Yuhas, president of the Thebacha Chamber of Commerce, said the business community is "very alarmed" at some of the foundational review's recommendations and the open-arms acceptance it appears to be receiving from Cochrane.

Yuhas and others questioned Cochrane's earlier comment that she was "ecstatic" with the report and its 67 recommendations.

The review by a southern contractor began on March 2017 under former ECE Minister Alfred Moses, while Cochrane has been the department's minister for about a month.

"When I first got the report, I remember saying to the department, "I can't table this. This is not a good thing,'" she said, noting it is never good to identify the truth so bluntly, and she felt it was harsh on college leadership.

However, she said she had to table the report in the legislative assembly because it had been promised by the previous minister.

"I'm ecstatic about the report because it tells us that we need change," she said.

Salt River First Nation Chief Frieda Martselos and a number of others called the report a flawed document which painted an inaccurate picture of Fort Smith.

"I know you want to make Yellowknife into a bigger city, but we want to still exist," Martselos said.

Former mayor Janie Hobart rejected the argument that a new university would have to be in Yellowknife to be close to government decision-makers, noting modern technology makes that unnecessary.

"The communication issues I think are a red herring," she said.

Cochrane said the problems at the college have been many decades in the making and every program needs to be reviewed.

"It's not about Fort Smith or Yellowknife. It's about making three campuses strong and vibrant," she said, adding she recognizes Fort Smith relies on the college to sustain the community.

Cochrane said no decisions have been made on a university, and construction would be four or five years away.

The report's recommendations will be studied and the department's response will be given in the fall.

Near the end of the three-hour meeting, Cochrane apologized to any GNWT employees who feel they can't speak out on the college issue for fear of repercussions at work, which had been suggested by a number of people.

The minister said employees should let her know if that happens.