Читать книгу Reinventing Brantford - Leo Groarke - Страница 13

| 4 | A NEW DIRECTION

According to a local story, Winston Churchill bought his cigars in Brantford. Like many urban legends, this one contains some strands of truth. Churchill did go to Brantford. He visited on January 3, 1901, while on a lecture tour he had arranged before taking his seat in the British House of Commons. In the United States he met with President McKinley, Vice-President Theodore Roosevelt, and Mark Twain. In Canada, he came to Brantford. You can still see his signature on the registry at The Brantford Club, an exclusive downtown club (for most of its history, too exclusive to allow women members).

Churchill became a serious cigar smoker during a trip to Cuba in 1895. Afterward, he smoked eight to ten cigars a day, so he must have smoked in Brantford. His iconic image as a cigar-smoker was established by a famous portrait by Yousuf Karsh in which he scowls after Karsh has taken his cigar away. In Brantford, Churchill must have smoked cigars. It is possible that he smoked a Brantford-made cigar, but he did not come to Brantford to buy cigars; he imported them from Cuba. The Brantford legend ties together a local visit, a popular image of Churchill that made him the world’s most famous cigar smoker, and one forgotten facet of the city’s manufacturing past: Brantford was once the home of a number of successful cigar manufacturers — the Alexander Fair Cigar Company, S.W. Cornell and Company, Halloran and Haskett, and Bunnell and Busch.

Other local folklore is relevant to the rise and fall, and the subsequent rebirth, of Brantford’s downtown. In the end, the turnaround downtown, which began with the saving of the Carnegie Building, was rooted in the idea that Brantford should have a university. This was an idea that represented a major break from the city’s past. When I went to Brantford and asked why the city did not already have a university, I was told two stories. One attributed the lack of a university to Brantford’s industrial, blue collar past, and, more particularly, to the wealthy owners of Brantford’s manufacturing interests who were said to vehemently oppose the development of a university because they did not want to deal with an educated workforce that might not do what it was told. The second pointed the finger at the provincial government, which was alleged to have rejected Brantford’s requests for post-secondary education in favour of other cities in Ontario — London, Guelph, St. Catharines, Peterborough, et cetera.

When I looked for evidence that might support these accounts, it was difficult to avoid the conclusion that they are, like the story of Churchill buying his cigars in Brantford, the stuff of urban legend. Historically, Brantford’s focus on industry and especially manufacturing made it a city that showed little interest in universities. So as far as I can determine, it was city, not provincial attitudes that made Brantford a place without a university. The historical record suggests that the key attitude was indifference — Brantford had no university because it had, in the course of its history, shown little interest in having one. It was only when the city’s industrial base began to collapse that those who cared about the city showed some interest, but this was too late, long after the government had founded the province’s most recent universities in the 1960s.

Through most of its history, Brantford saw higher education as unnecessary or, at most, a vehicle for technical training. In a study of post-secondary trends in Brant County from 1784 to 1933, Walter Szmigielski argues that this emphasis on practical utility reflects a uniquely American influence on education in Brant County.¹ One might debate the view of British and American education he assumes, but it would be difficult to deny Szmigielski’s claim that Brant County adopted a view of education that emphasized vocational opportunities. This is evident, not only in the kinds of educational institutions that operated in Brant County, but in histories of Brantford and Brant County, which show little interest in higher education. The most advanced education that merits comment in F. Douglas Reville’s classic history of Brantford, written in 1920, is industrial classes and technical training.

Historically, the institution in Brantford that most resembled a university was the “Young Ladies’ College” (officially, the Ladies’ College and Music Conservatory). Founded by the Presbyterian Church in 1874, it was established at a sumptuous three-and-a-half-acre property that was owned by the Honourable E.B. Wood before he left Brantford to become the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Manitoba. The college was well-known, attracting well-heeled students from across the country. It incorporated a Preparatory Department for women under fourteen, and a Collegiate Department that granted teacher and university-level certificates. It was notable also for the quality of instruction and a highly regarded music conservatory. Alexander Graham Bell attended the musical performances. The conservatory continued to operate after the college closed in 1900, and was affiliated with the University of Western Ontario in 1911, but its operations dwindled gradually and ceased in the early 1930s.

The curriculum at the Ladies’ College emphasized the classics, the fine arts, and “elevated” sensibilities: “Through the prominence given to English, the Classics and History, it aimed to cultivate a taste for the reading of a pure and elevating literature which in after years, shall continue to be a source of pleasure and profit.”² It is not difficult to imagine a sequence of steps that could have turned the college into a university (or a college of a university), but this never came to pass. Instead, the Ladies’ College flourished as a centre of women’s learning and art and music for a quarter century, and then closed its doors. Afterward, the most advanced education available to women (and men) in Brantford was found at the local high school, the Brantford Collegiate Institute.

Brantford’s next endeavour in post-secondary education was a satellite campus of Mohawk College, which opened in 1970. It took applied career training to a higher level but still reflected the city’s focus on vocational education. The quest for a university, which represented a step in a new direction, came later. In a Brantford context, it is tempting to search for the person who came up with the bold idea that the city should have a university. But the truth is more complicated. Over the course of more than twenty years there was a whole cast of Brantfordophiles — citizens, mayors, would-be mayors, councillors, government officials, business leaders, professors, and educators — who pushed Brantford in this direction. Many others opposed their proposals, which went against the grain of history, and they themselves proposed conflicting plans that sometimes came to naught. Their differences notwithstanding, their joint efforts ultimately culminated in the moves that brought Laurier to Brantford.

Lobbying for university education began in 1975. At a time when the local economy was beginning its slide downhill and the downtown was already in a state of shambles, a group of concerned citizens established a Council on Continuing Education. The membership included prominent local figures, among them Mary Stedman, the head of the eminent Stedman family, and Mike Hancock who was destined to become the Brantford mayor.³ Stedman remembers that many outside the group were skeptical of “high falutin’” ideas about higher education. Not so their members, who worried about Brantford’s low level of educational attainment, a feature of the city that distinguished it from its more successful counterparts in Canada. Endorsing education as the ultimate solution to Brantford’s many problems; the Council organized a literacy project and initiated discussions with McMaster University and the University of Western Ontario, which taught courses in the city. More courses were offered, but continuing students had to transfer to their home campuses in Hamilton and London. Neither university sustained their operations. The Council’s most enduring success was not local university courses, but an annual lecture series that featured prominent intellectual figures, among them Margaret Atwood, Linus Pauling, W.O. Mitchell, and David Suzuki.⁴

Mary Stedman has been a major supporter of the development of post-secondary education in Brantford. She, her family, and the Stedman Foundation have been generous supporters of Laurier Brantford.

Mike Hancock, in the mayor’s office, sits with three student politicians who played a prominent role in the Students’ Union in Brantford: Zachary Mealia, Amanda Flanagan, and Melissa Burke. Mayor Hancock and Mayor Friel were strong supporters of post-secondary initiatives downtown.

The concerns about the future that had motivated the work of the Council on Continuing Education were magnified as Brantford suffered through the collapse of White Farm and Massey Ferguson. As the economy and the downtown spiralled downward, a number of prominent figures promoted higher education as a solution to Brantford’s problems. ⁵ The most significant initiative was orchestrated by Robert “Bob” Nixon when he served as provincial treasurer. He and his father, Harry Nixon, were a Brant County political dynasty, having represented the region in the provincial government for seventy-two consecutive years. His daughter, Jane Stewart, was part of the dynasty, representing Brant in the federal government. At the apex of her career, she served as a minister in the federal cabinet and was touted as a candidate for prime minister before she was mired in a scandal about the operation of Human Resources Development Canada, an agency in her portfolio. Popular sentiment in Brantford saw her as the victim of a backfired attempt to clean up issues that others had ignored.

The Nixon family had deep roots in Brant County. Their farm, located outside St. George, raised Holstein cattle, a milking breed that played a key role in the development of agriculture in the region. It was St. George and then Brantford that served as the home of the Holstein Association of Canada, which oversaw the propagation of the breed. When Bob Nixon retired, he moved into a small heritage home on the family farm, where he took up painting, producing canvases that won him some acclaim. After his daughter gave up her political career in federal politics, she lived in a different house on the farm, and began commuting to New York City, where she works for an international labour organization associated with the United Nations.

During a long career as an elected politician, Nixon established himself as an influential member of the Liberal Party of Ontario, but found it difficult to interest the provincial government in Brant County. He sighed and rolled his eyes when he told me so. In 1985, after he was re-elected and became the treasurer in a Liberal government, he was determined to do something for Brantford, which was in a state of financial turmoil. In 1987–88 he sent one of his treasury managers, David Trick, to a series of meetings with a local committee interested in bringing a university to Brantford.⁶ Mohawk College and McMaster University were included in the discussions. Trick was struck by all the empty buildings downtown and suggested that they house the new post-secondary endeavour.

The stage seemed set for a university initiative in downtown Brantford. An influential cabinet minister backed the idea, the local committee was eager to support it, and the downtown was discussed as a possible location. But the possibility was never realized and the trajectory of the discussions moved in a different direction under the influence of Mohawk and McMaster. McMaster was not interested in an independent university in Brantford or a satellite campus. Mohawk viewed the situation as an opportunity to expand but argued that a downtown campus would, like George Brown in Toronto, be landlocked and unable to expand. Others accepted the argument that it would be too expensive to renovate vacant older buildings. Like most of Brantford, the committee had given up on the downtown.

The end result was a proposal that did not recommend a university campus, but a new campus of Mohawk College. As a concession to the idea of a university, Mohawk agreed that it would make arrangements with already existing universities, allowing them to offer programming in Brantford. When the idea of a Brantford university resurfaced a decade later, Caroline Freibauer recounted the discussions:

Back in the 1980s … Mohawk had its satellite campus downtown in the Beckett Building on Colborne Street where adult upgrading and retraining classes were held in six classrooms and a conference room. Other job readiness and retraining courses for women were offered at the YM-YWCA. The Brant-Elgin campus, then called Braneida, was gaining a reputation for industrial training. Nursing programs were run out of the Brantford General Hospital. The next logical step was to unite all these campuses.

Thus a campaign began — the first of several — to bring a full-fledged post-secondary school into Brant, a community with half as many university graduates as the provincial average. In 1987, a $24-million facility was proposed.… By 1988 the price tag for the dream campus had grown to $35 million. At that time, Mohawk’s president Keith McIntyre began negotiating with universities to offer degree completion programs in Brantford.… In 1989, the effort switched to an expansion of the existing campus and the price tag went up again, to $38.9 million.⁷

In the end, the effect of the Nixon initiative was limited. The provincial government rejected the plan for a new Mohawk campus, which it deemed too ambitious and expensive. As a kind of consolation prize, it provided a grant (of $6.2 million) to expand the college’s operations on its Brantford campus, which was located in a warehouse district away from the downtown.

A number of prominent Brantford figures continued to push for a university. John Starkey was a colourful city councillor in love with Brantford history. He had gained a reputation for speaking his mind, not hesitating to criticize his fellow councillors, the mayor, or the city government. One avid reader of the commentaries Starkey had written for The Expositor told me that he had used Starkey as his “crap detector,” counting on him to illuminate civic issues by playing devil’s advocate.

Starkey was deeply committed to all things Brantfordian and believed in radical reform. In 1994, he ran for mayor on a platform that included a commitment to a university. In his speeches he argued that the money spent on attempts to reinvigorate Brantford’s economy had been wasted, and that tax dollars should be put to a different end: “Brantford needs a university.”⁸ This position was emphasized in his campaign:

As a community, we should make a commitment to begin raising funds and accumulating assets to enable Brantford to eventually attract or establish a local university. This will make our city more competitive as an attractive place to live, locate, and invest, and provide the option of a higher education to those who cannot afford to go away to school. The importance of leadership is essential to the success of such a crucial project, and so from the Mayor’s 1995 income, I pledge the first $40,000 to establish the “University for Brantford Foundation.”⁹

Others began thinking of post-secondary education as a solution to the downtown’s problems. One of the problems was the empty downtown mall, a nondescript brick fortress that sprawled over more than two downtown blocks, protecting its interior space from the deteriorating downtown beyond its walls. One city manager I talked to complained that the mall was not “porous” enough to create an integrated downtown. “It functions,” he said, “like a constipated brick in the middle of downtown.” The mall’s fortress-like walls might not matter if it had successfully created a vibrant retail market, but it quickly failed. By the 1990s, it was eminently usable downtown space bereft of stores and customers. In an effort to promote downtown revitalization, a group associated with Mohawk College proposed that the college move into the empty space. Skip Stanbridge, the vice-president in charge of Mohawk’s Brantford campus, said that administrators were willing to discuss all possibilities. “There are people in the city of Brantford and at all three levels of Brantford,” he said, “who feel there’s a natural link between the revitalization of the downtown and the development of post-secondary education in Brantford.¹⁰

The success of any of the plans for Brantford post-secondary initiatives required popular support. A long and involved attempt to establish a broad community consensus on Brantford’s future began with a mayor’s task force on the future of the city. It proposed a county-wide strategic plan that was undertaken by a not-for-profit group (a local Community Futures Development Corporation), which hired a planning company and a local coordinator who played a key role in subsequent developments. John McGregor came to Brantford after working on development issues in the Kalahari Desert and the Northwest Territories and on projects with Six Nations. He was staggered by Brant County’s profound pessimism when he arrived, which struck him as more negative than the attitudes he had experienced in his work in the Kalahari and the North. He saw an underlying defeatism as the principal barrier to change, and welcomed a strategic plan that might get the city talking and thinking in a more positive way. In an effort to push in this direction, the discussion material he and the planning committee produced presented the city and the county as a community driven by “a fierce independence and unshakeable pride” and a “continuing tradition of genius” rooted in a proud history.¹¹

The strategic planning exercise was an ambitious endeavour that began with a detailed survey of seven hundred residents and fifty community leaders, and twenty workshops attended by three hundred people. The final strategic plan, released in April 1997, noted that the county’s levels of post-secondary education were lower than the provincial average and listed “brain drain” as one of its major problems. In its positive recommendations it encouraged the establishment of a university in Brantford as a way to “provide an opportunity for young people to get an education locally,” and to “raise overall education levels in the County.”¹² Other recommendations supported the proposal that Mohawk College move into the empty Eaton’s mall, promoted lifelong learning and formal education (in particular, the use of new technology and distance education), and advocated programs focused on business training.

The details of the Brant Community Strategic Plan were not realized. The proposed Coordinating Committee which was supposed to oversee the achievement of its various components never materialized. It is difficult to see how such a committee could have managed the sweeping scope and the myriad details of the plan’s proposals. But at the same time, the creation of the plan did what good strategic planning does — it made Brantford and Brant County rethink what they could be. In the aftermath, BOBB — the Big on Brantford/Brant Committee — organized a series of local forums on key strategic issues. In May 1997, one discussed the idea that Mohawk College should move to the downtown core. In September, another discussed the need for a Brantford university. The notion that Brantford needed post-secondary downtown had by this time taken root.