Thank you, Madam Speaker. I recently received what I can describe as a brush-off letter – don’t worry, we’ve got it under control – from Aurora College Board of Governors. Of course, if you look at the top of the letterhead, it says from the Office of the President for the board of governors.
This really kind of annoys me because this highlights further what I talked about the other week, which is about their independent thinking about being able to do things without having it go through the office of the president.
The letter highlights many concerns I raised here the other week about trying to get the board of governors to meet with the students and not treat them like they’re some infectious who knows what. The letter tells me about, oh well, we have processes they can follow so we can meet with them, and while they may be misinformed from our discussion they had a few weeks ago, don’t worry, we’ll straighten out that thinking.
The college is vested into the success of the students. I’ll be tabling the letter later today and I think the public will be both disturbed and disgusted by the response of this letter by the chair of the Aurora College board.
Quite frankly, I think the board of governors should be doing anything in their power raised by the students to ensure their success, but while it’s quoted as we have some information that’s misinformed and certainly we have to make sure that they receive the proper information on the topics which impact their lives, what’s more important to the college than the essence of the students and their needs?
This is very frustrating when I see this. I asked the Minister, under Section 7, to use his authority to give the college direction, meet the students, find out what matters to them, but of course the letter tells me in their response, and again, I’ll be tabling it later today. It says the Aurora College Board of Governors’ manual specifically states that board members should be encouraged to continually talk to people like MLAs, Ministers, board members. My goodness, if you have to have a manual to tell people how to communicate, I mean, something there should be a red flag already saying it must be so off the rails that we have to tell them how to talk.
These students are humans. They have real concerns, whether it’s child care, whether it’s getting loans, whether it’s class times, whether its buses or whether it’s a school facility, and the Aurora College Board of Governors needs to hear this. How do they hear this? They hear this through a meeting.
So, I will be having questions later today in question period. But let’s be frank. They need to meet the students to know what matters to them. It’s about time that gets done.
Mr. Hawkins, last week in this House we have had quite a bit of subsequent discussion, and may I characterize it as fallout, over the way that the performance of deputy ministers was characterized.
Here again today we have some motives or some thoughts being imputed to a very small group of people, the board of governors of the college and, I would say, some very disparaging remarks about the chair who has penned this letter you are referring to.
I just want to again remind Members that these are people that are well known in the Northwest Territories. They are not here in this Chamber to respond or to defend themselves, and I think that Members should be very cautious in… I refer specifically to Mr. Hawkins saying that someone considers the students to be an infectious something. I think that that may be putting words in someone’s mouth, and again, this is a group, a fairly small group in the Territories that everyone knows, so please be very cautious about that, Mr. Hawkins.
The Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
