Gallons of ink have been spilled about the ongoing budget woes at Capilano University.
Painful program cuts have been made and there's no relief in sight.
However, the major factor left unsaid throughout all of this was how the North Shore's only post-secondary institution - already one of the lowestfunded schools in British Columbia - came to be forsaken by the province.
After months of planning in 2007 and 2008 on the assumption that Cap would receive both one-time transitional funding and new base funding upon becoming a university, the province had a last-second change of heart and left Cap's leadership with a take-it-or-leaveit offer with no new funding.
After seeing the revelations in the 2012 Avison report, we were frankly shocked.
When pressed for why the ministry would wait until the last second and then pull the rug on funding, the only response was that both parties agreed to the deal, as if that was the question being asked.
Meanwhile, the province has been all too happy to stand back and watch the current administration take the blame for the financial mess.
It might very well be true that going ahead and becoming a university was still right for Cap to do, but we have a lot of unanswered questions.
Why did this only come to light now? What have our own MLAs been doing to go to bat for Cap over all these years? And, most importantly, why must Cap be condemned to be the poor cousin in B.C.'s post-secondary system?
