BUNTEP was an award-winning, innovative program dedicated to helping educate northern aboriginal communities in ways they did not previously have access to. The program has delivered courses throughout northern Manitoba since 1974, with professors travelling to community centres across the north, and later the south as well, to deliver the Bachelor of Education program, as well as various science and arts courses that could be carried over to a university degree in those fields. Now, after 38 extremely successful years, the program is being shut down.
“It’s being cancelled, in short, because of politics,” said Dr. Bill Paton, BUNTEP negotiator, BUFA.
“There was a long-time pressure on the NDP to provide a postsecondary education to northern Manitoba, and there was for some time a program which tried to deliver courses by distance called University College of the North (UCN). In 2004, we at BUFA became aware that Premier Gary Doer desired that the resources committed to BUNTEP be turned over the UCN. In the late summer of 2005, we learned from a Free Press reporter of a speeded up timetable for the transfer of the northern teaching mandate. The new deadline was to be July 2007.”
“As a consequence, BUFA informed the Brandon University President Visentin that we would like to discuss the matter. Our correspondence was ignored, deferred by BU Board Chair Jake Janzen, and the matter was therefore addressed to the Council on Post-Secondary Education (COPSE) at their annual meeting with BUFA in November 2005.
There were strong verbal assurances given that jobs would be protected, that the BUNTEP faculty and staff were badly needed by UCN, that the students currently in the program would earn BU degrees, but it was also clear that no transition plan was in place and nothing in writing to assure our members of any  job security,” continued Paton.
“In November, BUFA addressed the matter to the Brandon MLA’s Caldwell and Smith and in December Advanced Education Minister Diane McGifford responded to our concerns. She advised of a December 5, 2005 meeting involving the Presidents of BU, UCN, COPSE officials (in a supporting role) and senior administrators from each institution. A mandate transfer document was drawn up by these parties and finally shared with BUFA in January 2006. This document proposed a transition committee made up of three administrators from BU and UCN, and one representative from the unions involved: BUFA, MGEU (BU) and MGEU (UCN). The first meeting of this group occurred on February 24, 2006. Clearly a very large number of issues were identified that needed to be addressed. BUFA had a large number of concerns with respect to the process and especially the commitments of Brandon University to its employees.”
In a communication to BUFA from Diane McGifford in 2005, she noted that the intent of the Provincial Government was to divide the Access resources for BUNTEP into two pools, a northern sum to be managed by UCN and the remainder to fund BUNTEP South at Brandon University.
“It is a major travesty that Mr. Jerry Storie (former NDP MLA for The Pas, vigorous proponent and founding Board member of UCN) as Acting Dean of Education at Brandon University, took it upon himself to deny this ongoing employment to BUNTEP members,” said Paton.  
“Minister McGifford assumed that he was acting with full authority of the BU Board.”
Paton says the closure of BUNTEP is a huge loss to Manitoba and Canada. The program has recorded more than 650 graduates who went on to work as teachers in northern communities while acting as outstanding role models for the communities, while the number of students who continued studies from the science and art courses offered was never tracked.
The loss of BUNTEP has left 10 staff members irrelevant, while four have been transferred to work with UCN.
“It’s very unfortunate. Brandon University was a pathfinder in this area; we are still on the record as part of the ‘Build 20’ plan to promote access to education for aboriginal students, but our flagship has been sunk. The movement of the mandate to UCN will create a distinct void at BU, already being felt by the Department of Native Studies and the Faculty of Education,” said Paton.
“If Canada wants to meet the needs of the future, it’s important that more people get the education to allow them to participate.”