Mr. Speaker, a few short weeks ago, a number of MLAs went to the Yellowknife Aurora College campus, and we were there to hear from the students. As we expected, we heard a number of various concerns, and if I might rightly put them in different categories, I would call some of them city issues, ECE issues, and certainly Aurora College-specific issues.
While listening to these concerns it came to me: Has the college ever undertaken an opportunity to listen and certainly meet these students? So I posed the question, has anyone met their Board of Governors to talk about their concerns? Not surprisingly, but disappointingly I must admit, there was a resounding no. I was informed that they only have one student as student rep on the Board of Governors who yet has to still be appointed, and this one student rep to the Board of Governors represents all three campuses. An impossible task, if I may add.
I undertook to write a letter to the Board of Governors suggesting that they should meet with these students, they should talk to them and hear their concerns. As promised, I wrote the letter. So, what do you do with the letter? You try to send it. So I go to the Aurora college website and I looked for the e-mail of the Board of Governors. Impossible to find. I called the president’s office. What do you think they say? They say, well, there are no e-mail addresses for the Board of Governors, but if you have a letter to send us, send it to the president of Aurora College.
This is failing the public and certainly failing the students. When you have to send a letter of inquiry to the Board of Governors and it has to be vetted through the president’s office, the first question that came to mind to me was: What level of accountability is this? Are they screening letters? Who knows? Their intentions may be good, but they do look terrible up front.
If you’re a student at this college, if you’re a person of the public and you want to reach out to your Board of Governors, it’s impossible. As the stewards of this institution, an important institution to our territory, we must be able to endow these governors with an e-mail. There must be some level of accountability to these students. There must be some level of accessibility to these students to hear their concerns.
So, I would tell Cabinet and I would certainly tell the Minister of ECE, let’s start by appointing a student rep who is only appointed for one year, and let’s get these governors’ e-mails so they can communicate with these students, because right now they’re anonymous. This style of business may be everyday business in Ottawa, but I can tell you it doesn’t hold water here in the Northwest Territories. Stop failing our public and help our students. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
