Gordon Campbell was reluctant to give us a university but it’s more important that he did

COLUMN — I remember when Gordon Campbell made the big announcement in 2004 that the University College of the Cariboo was going to become a real university.

The room, of course, was packed. Happy crowd. Lots of speeches. At the end of it, a bunch of people were joining him on stage for pictures. I hung back but he looked for me in the crowd and yelled, “Mel, come on up here!”

I appreciated the gesture. As mayor I’d been on the Friends of UCC committee that lobbied Campbell but others on the group were the driving force.

Campbell hadn’t liked the university idea. His government was still in a tighten-the-purse-strings mode and anything that sounded like spending money wasn’t popular in Victoria. Then-Advanced Education Minister Shirley Bond chewed me out once at a meeting at the Coast when I’d pitched the university, telling me we should be pleased with a college. She later backed it up in a speech in Kamloops, too.

In 2002, Campbell said, “It’s time university colleges and colleges were celebrated. I don’t think everyone has to be a major research university.”

A report commissioned by the government recommended university status for Okanagan University College but not for UCC.

But the committee, led by Al McNair and supported by our MLAs Kevin Krueger (who didn’t want it at first either) and Claude Richmond, talked Campbell into it. So I guess what’s more important than the fact he resisted giving us the university is that he eventually gave it to us.

The rationale for presenting Campbell with an honorary law degree is that he “is credited with British Columbia’s largest expansion of post-secondary education since 1965 during his terms as premier, including the establishment of TRU’s Faculty of Law.”

Who credits him and what the significance of 1965 is I’m not sure, and honouring him for approving a law school makes less sense than it would to honour him for signing the charter for the whole university.

The decision to give him the degree has ruffled some feathers. Some of that feather ruffling occurred when his nomination got to the TRU Senate for review. The cat was let out of the bag on that one — please forgive the farmyard bromides — by TRU Student Union President Dylan Robinson in a tweet yesterday.

“Many of us opposed it in Senate. Guy who helped destroy #bcpse and chronically underfund TRU,” it said. “Total embarrassment -_-”

Robinson soon deleted the tweet, apparently after somebody reminded him that Senate discussion of honorary-degree nominations is confidential.

TRU’s law school came about in somewhat the same way as university status — Campbell reacted to pressure from the community. In this case, it was a bunch of lawyers.

There’s nothing wrong with politicians listening to what people tell them and doing something about it. That’s what we pay them for.

TRU has made other interesting choices in bestowing honours. For example, Wally Oppal, who has no roots in Kamloops — wasn’t born here, didn’t grow up here, doesn’t live here, visits only occasionally — was appointed chancellor.

Some honorary doctorate recipients have been light on community service but have been around the university at the right time. Always, of course, they’re described in the most glowing terms, a lot of which is plain BS.

Campbell is not the least qualified to be honoured in this way. Not even close. People don’t generally like to show politicians kindness and that’s at the crux of the matter with Campbell. He was popular enough to get elected several times but apparently is not good enough to receive a framed certificate.

Gordon Campbell was an imperfect politician and like the rest of us is an imperfect human being but he was always kind to me. He was good to Kamloops, and gave us lots of provincial money (we wouldn’t have the Tournament Capital Centre facilities, for example, if he had’t kicked in an extra $6 million when we needed it).

So I can’t begrudge him his piece of paper and the nice words that will go into the TRU record about him.

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