It took two premiers and more than three years to get from the stage of announcing a new Thompson campus for University College of the North (UCN) in March 2007 until the funding and project details were finally laid out April 12, but the NDP provincial government stayed the course and deserves full credit for doing so.

Especially so since half way between the initial announcement and last week’s crowning touch came something called the Great Recession in September 2008, which in many parts of the world proved to be the steepest and quickest economic decline since the Great Depression of 1929 to 1937.

While economic recovery appears to have been under way since last summer, albeit tentatively and in a non-linear fashion in much of the world, times are still tough and no one believes we’re going back to the halcyon days of 2007 anytime soon. Manitoba, with a well-diversified economy, was spared much of the pain inflicted on Ontario, its neighbour to the east with its automotive-intensive manufacturing sector. At the same time, Manitoba’s estimated $555 million budget deficit for the fiscal year that ended March 31 and projected $545 million deficit this year attests plainly enough that we have not been spared from the aftershocks of the global financial meltdown and economic freefall that swept much of the world between September 2008 and March 2009.

Most economists, regardless of their theoretical framework, came to believe in a near consensus view in late 2008 that massive government intervention in the economy, including infrastructure spending, was the only thing that would save many countries from imminent economic disaster.

“We're all Keynesians now,” U.S. president Richard Nixon’s famous 1971 quote in reference to British economist John Maynard Keynes and his influential 1935 book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, was again apropos.

The University College of the North is the successor of Keewatin Community College as the main post-secondary education institution in Northern Manitoba. Its main campus is in The Pas, with other regional campuses and satellite operations throughout the North.

Keewatin Community College was established in 1966. Its Thompson campus was created in the early 1980s.

The University College of the North was created on June 10, 2004 when the University College of the North Act received royal assent. Keewatin Community College, as established by Section 2 of the Colleges Establishment Regulation, Manitoba Regulation 39/93, was continued as the university college.

From the outset, UCN was set up to provide “post-secondary education in a culturally sensitive and collaborative manner” that “is fundamental to the social and economic development of Northern Manitoba.”

The act also stipulates “post-secondary education in Northern Manitoba should be learner and community centred and characterized by a culture of openness, inclusiveness and tolerance and respectful of aboriginal and Northern values and beliefs.”

The new Thompson campus for the University College of the North fulfills a commitment the provincial government of former NDP premier Gary Doer made in a very different economic world. That shows courage. Kudos to our new Premier Greg Selinger.

It also shows vision. While it is a sensible economic infrastructure investment in Keynesian terms, even more importantly it is a superb visionary investment in the potential of human capital, both aboriginal and non-aboriginal, as a true academic home for all Northern Manitobans.

Should we be concerned the cost has skyrocketed to $82 million – three times the $27 million originally projected and committed by the province in 2007? Yes and no, but mainly no. The reality is that construction costs have gone up considerably over the last three years. Does anyone actually believe we can build the new campus today at 2007 prices? Of course not.

One of Mayor Tim Johnston’s greatest fears during the three-year delay, he said more than once, was with construction costs increasing steadily in Northern Manitoba, that the province’s $27 million was not going to go nearly as far in 2010 as it would have originally. Johnston said he had some concerns the province might try and shrink or downsize the project to make the original numbers work, which he suggested would be shortsighted.

Apparently the province agreed because Johnston’s fears have been allayed and far from downsizing the project, it is actually bigger today than what was announced in 2007. It will easily by the largest public-sector capital project ever undertaken in Thompson in the city’s 54-year history

As Steve Ashton, Thompson NDP MLA and the longest-serving member in the Manitoba legislature, first elected in 1981, noted April 12, the project going forward today is more than simply a replacement for the old Thompson UCN campus, which is centred on the old Polaris Inco building on Princeton Drive sold to the province for UCN for $1 back in the early 1980s.

For one thing, today’s UCN project reflects a growth on the skilled trades and apprenticeship side training that wasn’t completely envisioned when the new campus was first announced in 2007. Better to build it bigger and get it right now. Adding to the campus as an afterthought later you can bet is not going to be cheaper.

And speaking of Steve Ashton, while Selinger, as we noted, rightly deserves kudos for moving ahead with the new Thompson UCN campus, no one is more deserving of kudos here than Ashton, now minister of infrastructure and transportation. As minister he will be directly responsible for the physical plant of UCN. But beyond simply his portfolio, UCN could not have had a more determined and passionate advocate over the years.

A project like the new UCN campus here is the result of collective vision and effort. But it will also stand as an important part of Ashton’s individual political legacy to Northern Manitoba.