In honour of former Simcoe North MP Bruce Stanton, Lakehead University is offering a new bursary for students who engage in public service.
Community members, school officials and public officials of the past and present gathered on campus Thursday evening to kick off the Bruce Stanton Public Service Bursary with a fundraising event.
Stanton served as Simcoe North MP from 2006 to 2021 and was the House of Commons’ longest-serving deputy speaker in parliamentary history.
The university’s goal is to raise $25,000 for the bursary’s endowment, which will allow for a bursary of close to $1,000 annually to be given to a student who demonstrates a commitment to public service.
The first bursary will likely be granted for the 2023-24 academic year.
The bursary came at the suggestion of longtime friend Duncan McDonald shortly after Stanton announced his retirement in 2020.
“The new Bruce Stanton Public Service Bursary will be awarded to a Lakehead student studying in the faculty of humanities and social sciences based on financial need, and preference will be given to students who have made their contributions to the community in important ways,” said Michael den Haan, Lakehead’s vice-president of external relations.
“This will ensure that Bruce’s impact … will be felt for generations of students to come pursuing a post-secondary education long into the future.”
Among the evening’s speakers was Warren Kinsella, a lawyer, political consultant and commentator whose work has appeared in many major Canadian newspapers. He spoke of increasing challenges public servants face with the rise of vitriol on social media.
“Make no mistake, Facebook is the principal cause of civil society’s incivility. It is gasoline on fires that had been merely smouldering,” Kinsella said. “If you feel like in public service things are a little bit worse these days, it’s because they are, and I think I know the culprit. For public servants, and for great people who are drawn to public service, like Bruce Stanton, they’re getting the worst of it.”
Kinsella lamented the loss of Canada’s “brightest and best” who choose not to serve in the public sphere as it grows increasingly divisive.
Stanton hopes the bursary will provide students with the help they need to finish their degrees and get involved in public service.
“Today more than ever, the needs are there. We are in this very divisive time,” he said. “All of this calls for the very best of people who can take on work in public service and bring the kind of leadership and richness and perspective that we need to make good decisions on behalf of people in our country.
“One of the ways that we hope to do that, perhaps in a small way, is a bursary that can help people … check the box and get their degree, get that foundation that they need to move into a program that’s going to help them take a career in public service.”
Lakehead student Aaron Hiltz, who recently ran in the provincial election, called the bursary a “real opportunity” for students thinking about careers in public service.
“It’s instances like these where I find myself incredibly grateful and overwhelmingly proud of the school that I’ve called home for these past few years,” he said.
“Lakehead students, staff, professors, everyone here has encouraged me to be that change, to be the person who’s willing to do the hard work, the necessary work, in order to adequately address these complex issues that, collectively, we all face.”
Kinsella, who is also a painter, has donated his Wild Mustard painting to support the cause. People can bid on the painting here.
Donations for the bursary can be made here.
