The closure of Aurora College’s community learning centres will leave plenty of vacant buildings. Here’s what we know about what will happen to them.
College leaders and MLAs discussed the broader consequences of the college’s decision to close the centres at a Thursday briefing.
One of the opening questions for the college came from Dehcho MLA Sheryl Yakeleya, who wanted to know what happens to those buildings once the community learning centres – or CLCs – close in June this year.
“Almost all of these buildings are GNWT-owned assets, and so we’ll be going through the process of asset management and the transfer of these buildings back over to GNWT,” said college president Angela James.
“I believe quite a number of requests are coming forward to the GNWT and also to Aurora College about how we could potentially access these buildings.
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“That’ll be part of the ongoing talks and discussion on how these buildings can be of service to the community.”
Asked by Yakeleya if Indigenous governments were being approached to look at taking over any of the centres, NWT education minister Caitlin Cleveland said the territory has a process to go through “for assets that are no longer in use.”
“We have had a tremendous amount of outreach from different communities who have different plans for how they would like to see those facilities used,” the minister said.
She gave the example of the buildings offering classroom space for existing schools – a purpose some CLCs already serve.
“We’re going to work through the process with the Department of Infrastructure and, of course, speaking with community governments as to how they’d like to see them used,” said Cleveland.
