Chris Bentley, Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities in the centre delivers six-million-dollar gift to Canadore.
Canadore College got a back-to-school funding present Tuesday as part of the Ontario's small, northern and rural colleges program.
Chris Bentley, Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities was in North Bay to announce the expansion of funding under the program, and that Canadore will receive six-million-dollars in new sustained funding to allow the college to further develop programs.
“It’s the point of the small, northern and rural funding increase is to ensure that we can sustain programs and increase opportunities in places like Canadore,” says Bentley.
“This represents a 60 percent increase for Canadore over what it was two years ago, and at least that will continue in the future.”
The funds will be distributed across the province for schools that fit into the category with a section reserved for the six northern colleges, to decide how to use the funds.
“We basically leave it to the good judgement of the president and the heads of the institution to determine where the money goes,” explains the minister.
“From the tour of Canadore that I went on this morning, they’re spending it in all the right places. The tour of the trades facility for example, they have special relationship with the business community, so they actually designed these programs so they can directly supply students to the surrounding businesses. And help the businesses realise business opportunities.”
Bentley said part of the investment was recognising that the North has unique challenges that Southern Ontario does not and used his own riding as an example.
“London is a large community that’s surrounded by an even larger population base than North Bay, so they can benefit from things like economies of scale that you can’t in Northern Ontario.”
“So the magic of the small, northern and rural colleges funding enhancement is that it recognises those economic realities and it helps the other opportunities,” says Bentley.
Bentley said the 20-year-old funding formula was simply out of date and that it was time for the government to address the issues in funding facing the small, northern and rural colleges.
“Frankly it didn’t fully recognise the cost of delivering programming in the North,” he says.
“We knew we had to change and update the funding formula to recognise the population and other realities of the North, so that’s what we did.”
“We worked very hard with people like Barb Taylor to update the formula, then we applied the extra money and they’re going to get a 60 percent funding increase for Canadore.”
Nipissing MP Monique Smith called the investment one that will continue the successes the college has been forging.
“Six-Million Dollars given to Canadore today is a great news announcement,” she says.
“When you look at the entire fund for small, northern and rural colleges at 65-million-dollars and Canadore is getting six-million, that’s great news and a ringing endorsement for the work that Canadore is doing.”
The minister was also struck by the strong relationship that has been developed between the college and university, and Bentley says there is an opportunity for the rest of the province to learn from the spirit of co-operation developed by both the institutions.
“You seem to have a good working relationship with the administration, to the faculty to the students,” he states.
“I think when people are working together towards a common goal they’re more likely to go beyond it, so that’s a model I’d like to take elsewhere.”
