Brandon Ellis, president of the students’ union at Cape Breton University, is furious the board of governors gave the school a passing grade on the way it handled a recent lockdown.
“The university was congratulated in how they handled the lockdown. We as a students’ union don't feel that congratulation should be extended. We think it could have been handled better,” said Ellis.
Ellis says the school has done nothing since the incident to ensure student safety.
A committee made up of the student body has been formed to investigate the university's response.
“We heard an overwhelming response from students that things weren't handled properly here,” said Ellis.
Ellis says school security received notice of a threat around 10 a.m. the day of the incident, with police arriving shortly after. But it was nearly lunchtime before the campus was evacuated.
Ellis says students were getting mixed messages on what was happening.
Student Roy Carem wonders what could have happened if the threat was real.
“We are very fortunate we live in a safe environment, but something could happen tomorrow and I still feel there would be no plan in place or safety measures,” said Carem.
Ellis says students’ union representatives and the head of school security were supposed to meet the day after the lockdown to discuss how to better protect the university, but when the school received word media would be attending the event, Ellis got an email saying the meeting was cancelled.
“I think that they recognize that there are some weaknesses here and how we handled the lockdown. I think they realize we could've done better,” said Ellis.
The university says a new plan is in place to ensure the safety of its students and will be shared with the community in the coming weeks.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Kyle Moore.
