By Brian McCutcheon -- The University of Northern Canada could be huge It would focus on our issues: climate change, et al.

Every three or four years the vision of a university for Canada’s North gets dusted off and discussed. Most recently, Governor General Michaëlle Jean stepped up to say she was struck by what she saw on a recent visit to the University of Tromso in Norway. The northernmost university in the world sits on the 69th parallel and has grown to 9,000 students and a faculty of 2,400 since it was founded in 1968. It is now the driving force that has made Tromso the economic and cultural hub of northern Norway.

Her Excellency has proposed a northern Canadian university with satellite campuses and an open admissions policy to encourage students from southern Canada, as well as Northerners, to enroll. “The idea met with some resistance [in Norway] at first,” she said, “but now it’s recognized as one of Norway’s greatest successes. If it’s possible in Norway, why wouldn’t it be in Canada?”

Cabinet members in at least the last three legislative assemblies of the Northwest Territories have given voice to the dream of a Northern Canadian university. In 2003, Jake Oates, then NWT education minister, met with representatives of an Alberta university to talk about bringing a university to the North as a satellite campus. In February 2007, the next NWT education minister, Charles Dent, proposed that the North should develop its own university within the decade.

Advanced education continues to be on the agenda of both the Yukon and Nunavut, too, and now NWT Premier Floyd Roland has endorsed the idea, telling the Slave River Journal recently, “A Northern university is something I think needs to be discussed.” Not exactly fighting words, but perhaps something to build on.

When the University of Tromso was launched 40 years ago, the area population was less than the population of either Whitehorse or Yellowknife today. But within a few years, Tromso’s population tripled and today the city of 64,000 is home to graduate and undergraduate programs in marine science, biomedicine, telemedicine, physics, indigenous studies, and a number of cultural and cross-cultural programs.

Tromso is certainly worth a close look because there are many lessons to be learned. The first, and probably the most important, is that from the beginning the university set out to be a world-class institution focused on academic research and specific programs with Northern relevance. It did not try to be everything to everyone. Nor did it focus primarily on training Northern residents for labour, construction and trades jobs. It invited Norwegians, and eventually the world, to come to Tromso and study how to address Northern challenges, advance knowledge, and eventually to go deeper in graduate degree programs. In the process, the University of Tromso has become a focus for Norwegian intellectual and cross-cultural learning and attracts staff and students from around the world. And that may be the greatest difference between visions of a University of the North and the University of Tromso.

That’s not to say current Northern college programs are not needed. Of course they are. Across all three territories programs in teaching, nursing, social work and business administration are meeting important needs. So are programs in construction skills, mining equipment operation and oil and gas services. But they were never intended to generate the critical mass that attracts students from other regions of Canada. That would take a university.

Perhaps there is a fear that a university would increase the gap between those who currently do not finish high school and those who continue their education. The indications from elsewhere, however, are that the presence of a university – and the immigration and creativity that universities attract – actually leads to increases in overall high school completions and eventually higher incomes. And the evidence is that universities committed to fully developing human potential raise the economic wellbeing, incomes, and spin-off employment opportunities of the regions in which they are located.

The University of Northern Canada would face enormous challenges, not the least of which will be territorial rivalries and competing social and political agendas. Does one of the territories have the will to take the lead in a way that can be inclusive of the other two? How will aboriginal organizations and governments participate, or can they lead? What about business? What role can resource industries like mining and oil and gas play? It will take more than talk.