PORT HAWKESBURY: A planned facility for Cape Breton University (CBU) will benefit the entire island, according to its president.
During the regular monthly meeting of Port Hawkesbury Town Council on March 2, CBU president Dave Dingwall told elected officials about their proposed Centre for Discovery and Innovation.
Dingwall is seeking a letter of support from the town and other local municipalities for the planned multi-purpose facility which will be in the middle of the campus.
The current building in question is 53,000 square feet, is 50 years old, contains asbestos, and is “antiquated” Dingwall said, noting that a new structure would provide professors and students with more space, newer labs and a better overall education experience.
“Our infrastructure on the campus is crumbling,” he told council.
Dingwall said CBU provides an overall value to the island of $185 million, paying $11.2 million in taxes to the province, while hiring in excess of 100 new employees.
Even more important, Dingwall said the university is helping address Cape Breton’s population challenge.
After looking at jurisdictions around the world and the country, Dingwall said PEI provided a great example when it used international students to grow the population, resulting in 13,500 more people on PEI, as well as the best GDP growth in Canada.
In recent years, Dingwall said there has been a population increase in Cape Breton, which was confirmed by Thomas Storring, the director of economics and statistics with the Department of Finance, who pointed out that increasing numbers of university students was a main factor.
He said the municipalities, institutions, residents and associations of Cape Breton can work together to keep the momentum going, and support from the town will help move the project along.
“It will provide necessary new collaborative spaces. It will enhance better access for our nursing, in terms of trial simulations that are absolutely necessary in order to fight the pandemic,” Dingwall said. “We are one of one of four schools in the country, in the country, that offers a public health program. What is the world looking for, is more on public health.”
Town councillor Hughie MacDougall said in viewing Dingwall’s presentation to Richmond Municipal Council, it was noted that some of the reasons international students are staying in Cape Breton are due to the lifestyle and because of low COVID-19 cases on the island.
“We have the best COVID in the western world,” he replied, “in terms of the incidents of COVID. That is a staggering figure.”
Dingwall said another advantage is the local environment, like the prestigious Bras d’Or Lake, and welcoming communities. He said 77 per cent of international students polled said they would like to stay in Cape Breton.
Another factor working in CBU’s favour is that the island is considered safe, which Dingwall said is a big factor for parents and students in other parts of the world looking at places to study.
“In many parts of the world, universities are not safe,” he told council. “We’ve never had any incidents at Cape Breton University. But that is such a strategic advantage for all of us in terms of our population growth.”
One area where Cape Breton needs improvement, Dingwall said, is in the realm of succession planning, and he said students have a role to play.
“We have a large number of individuals who are working, who are up there in age and would like to step aside, but if they did, their business would go under,” he noted. “How can we bridge that with some students, who want to stay here, who are younger, who have a degree, who have access to money, who want to invest? We’ve seen about 25-30 of them who have done that here, just around the campus itself.”
In response to a question from Mayor Brenda Chisholm-Beaton about when they would need the letter, Dingwall added the “sooner the better” since they are in talks with the federal and provincial governments, as well as Atlantic Canadian ministers for post-secondary and infrastructure funding.