to imagine a successful private university managing it. In a university system in which the existing institutions were locked in a perpetual competition for interested students, how would a (secular) private institution lure them with no reputation, higher tuition costs, and a foreign view of education? The answer to this question remains a central issue in the Canadian university system, but it was quickly moot in Brantford, where the city’s civic officials and the public advocates for a university turned their attention to the Laurier initiative. The two plans for a private university are now forgotten, though one aspect of their trajectory intersected with the Laurier initiative when one of the original City College professors, Edmund Pries, took up a position at Laurier Brantford.
Within the Laurier community, the Brantford cause was pushed by a determined Professor Copp, who returned to visit Brantford after city council voted to sell the Icomm Building to RPC Gaming. In the course of his private campaign to push the university in a Brantford direction, he met with city officials, took eye-catching photos of the Carnegie Building and the square, and did his best to create some enthusiasm for an elegant “campus around the Square.” In Waterloo, the university’s chief academic, Rowland Smith, warmed to the idea that Brantford could be an innovative campus with the potential to allow Laurier to develop a university education that would distinguish it from other Canadian universities. Laurier’s longest-serving dean, Art Read, was looking for a new challenge and began to discuss the Brantford possibility with Copp, Smith, and President Rosehart.
As the Laurier community discussed what the university might do at Brantford, the fate of the Icomm Building hovered as an unsettled detail in the background. City council had granted RPC Gaming an option to buy the building, but this did not end the debate. Financially, the construction of the building had been supported by many Brantfordians who believed that downtown revival should include a new home for the Bell archives. They had a personal stake in what happened to the Icomm, which seemed to be headed in a very different direction than the one that they envisaged. A member of the Grand Valley Education Society who had contributed to the project told me he felt “betrayed” by the city’s actions. With emotions running high, the disposal of the building became a matter of controversy and debate. The proposal that it become the site of a Laurier campus only added fuel to the fire. Council had voted to give RPC Gaming an option to purchase the building but it had not been ratified and now they were being inundated with objections. The mayor, some council members, and a host of critics began to argue that the city should withdraw its commitment to the option.
Some of those objecting to the sale of the Icomm opposed the proposed price — four million dollars for a building that had cost twenty-four million to construct. A city-wide referendum had voted in favour of a casino, but many more commentators objected to the sale on moral grounds. Letters to the editor of the Brantford Expositor argued back and forth. Dale Fisher, president of District 5 of the Ontario Secondary School Teacher’s Federation, wrote that teachers were concerned that a casino would wield a negative influence on their students. He did not convince another letter-writer who argued that casino jobs were the most important part of the equation. Someone else wrote that a university would, in the long run, be more valuable than a casino.
Max Sherman, a former city councillor, proposed a compromise between the two sides, suggesting that the Icomm be sold to the casino, but that some of the proceeds be used to support a university. When it was argued that the university had expressed its interest in the Icomm too late — after the RPC option was finalized — Councillor Starkey obtained and circulated an internal Laurier memo that proved otherwise. At a heated council session held to discuss the Icomm sale, the vast majority of the delegations loudly opposed the sale. President Rosehart followed the debate from Waterloo, refusing to be drawn into it. He was still interested in the Icomm, but his experience as a university president had taught him to keep his head low in the midst of public controversy.
Despite all objections, which included Mayor Friel’s arguments in favour of the university option, the pro-casino forces prevailed on April 15, 1998, when city council ratified RPC’s option to purchase the Icomm. The decision required the company to purchase the building before January 1, 1999. For some, including President Rosehart, this kept alive a glimmer of hope that the sale would not be consummated. In the meantime, a resolute mayor and University Committee continued to court Laurier. After a meeting with Professor Copp on April 20, Friel and the city’s chief administrative officer, Geoff Wilson, began to work earnestly on a plan that would give the university the Carnegie Building.
The agreement had to be worded in a way that managed some sensitive concerns on both sides. In a city full of doubts about itself, some worried that Laurier had ulterior motives in pursuing Brantford land and funding. Some argued that the university could sell any building it acquired, and use the proceeds to fund operations back in Waterloo. There was some illogicality in this line of reasoning — it is difficult to see how the university could have made a profit selling a building that no one had been willing to purchase for almost a decade — but it was an emotionally charged suspicion deeply rooted in the Brantford psyche. As fate would have it, this was not a barrier to an agreement because of the university’s own insecurities — it did not want to own property in Brantford. Instead, the university preferred the ownership to remain in Brantford, as this would make it easier to leave if the new campus did not take off.
On May 14, city council tried to reconcile the Icomm sale with the Laurier initiative, agreeing to dedicate two million dollars, half of the proceeds, to the development of a local Laurier campus. At the same meeting, council approved a draft agreement among the three participants: the city, the Grand Valley Education Society, and Laurier. The agreement offered the university the Carnegie Library on the understanding that the city would renovate the building to make a suitable building for a campus. The provincial courthouse attached to the city hall, two buildings down the street, was identified as a location that could accommodate future expansion.
The city’s proposed agreement included appendices designed to show support for a Laurier campus. Appendix A was the business plan for “Brant University.” Appendix B was a description of the Sanderson Centre and other community facilities. Appendix C included letters of support from the local member of Parliament, Jane Stewart; the County of Brant; Six Nations of the Grand River Territory; and some supporters who had little connection to post-secondary education (as a joke, someone told me that the Brant Synchro Club and Gatquatic Divers, who were in reality trying to be supportive members of the community, signed up in the hopes that some classes would be held in the Grand River). In return for its support, the city’s proposed contract required Laurier to: commence operations by September 1, 1999; offer “a distinctive full university degree program within the community”; report annually on the progress of the campus; and ensure community involvement and participation in its operations. The desire to create a truly Brantford institution was evident in a proposal that the university “set up the operations of the Brantford campus as a Federated independent college with autonomy and independent decision-making capabilities within 10 years.”4
At Laurier, President Rosehart struggled with some details of the plans. He was impressed by the strength of Brantford’s desire for a university, most evident in its willingness to provide financial support for a campus. But he did not like old buildings and was not captivated by the neoclassical grandeur of the Carnegie Library. He preferred the Icomm Centre or, even better, a campus made up of new buildings. In order to maintain the momentum he had generated in Brantford and accommodate these preferences, he insisted that the proposed agreement outline two phases of development. He was willing to accept buildings around “beautiful Victoria Park” as “Phase One” of a Laurier campus, but he did not envision them as the campus’s final site. That was expressly outlined in a proposed “Phase Two,” which would “identify and procure green space of approximately 50 acres and undertake fundraising to construct brand new facilities of approximately 30,000 square feet. The greenfield site that would house Laurier’s final campus would incorporate, as much as was possible, space for future growth, ready access to transportation routes, sufficient on-site parking, close proximity to existing parks and recreation facilities, easy site servicing, and a view
