CBU promotional sign near causeway stirs controversy

A new sign promoting Cape Breton's only university — located 130 kilometres away from the school's Sydney campus — is fuelling debate in communities near the Canso Causeway.

Nova Scotia Public Works officials erected the large sign in late September near the recently closed visitor information centre at the Port Hastings rotary.

The sign is positioned to greet vehicles as they enter Cape Breton via the causeway.

Department spokesperson Gary Andrea said that the province provides a free highway sign to "any post-secondary institution that requests one."

He added that its specific placement is designed "so it will not interfere with our plans for the visitor centre."

In August, the department confirmed to CBC News that the visitor information centre would be demolished within the next two years to make way for a new traffic roundabout to be completed in 2029.

The centre and a nearby gift shop were permanently closed following budget cuts earlier this year.

That decision was criticized by Cape Breton tourism groups and municipalities that said the centre is an important source of information for tourists.

The installation of the sign has further fuelled that criticism.

Richmond County Warden Lois Landry said "it was a bit of a surprise" to see the sign go up at a site that she and her fellow Cape Breton municipal leaders hoped to revitalize.

"I think it was a little bit disheartening to see it placed there in a way that blocks off the visitor information centre," Landry said.

"I think we still kind of had that hopeful conversation about a path forward there, you know, that [the provincial] government would do more when [it] can do more, that if the budget situation improved, [they] might have an appetite to revisit that.… So this sign at the rotary seems to fly in the face of that."

Residents differ over sign's content, location

In social media posts, some residents questioned why there wasn't a sign promoting the Nova Scotia Community College in Port Hawkesbury. Others criticized the lack of tourism promotion at the causeway and claimed that a Sydney-based university had no right to take up advertising space at a key Cape Breton entry point.

River Bourgeois resident Tammy Boucher welcomes the CBU sign. She's the mother of a CBU graduate and thinks the university deserves to be promoted and celebrated throughout Cape Breton. (Submitted by Tammy Boucher)

But Tammy Boucher, a Richmond County resident whose daughter got her accounting degree from CBU and now works in Sydney, likes the sign.

"The university doesn't belong to Sydney alone. When she was speaking to me earlier, my daughter said, 'It's not Sydney's university, it's Cape Breton's university.'"

Boucher said that the online furor over the sign is "just something for people to fight about."

She added that many people in the area have children attending CBU.

"So why wouldn't you like to see a sign up, advertising the school that your child is currently in? They might not be from the Sydney area — they might be from River Bourgeois or St. Peter's or Isle Madame. So why is the sign such a big issue?"

When reached for comment about the sign, CBU officials referred to a statement issued by university president David Dingwall shortly after it was installed.

"This is something we have envisioned for many years as Cape Breton Island's only university, and we are delighted to see it come to life in such a meaningful way," Dingwall said in the statement.

The CBU president pointed out that the sign includes the Gaelic phrase "Théid Dìcheall Air Thòiseach," which translates into CBU's motto, "Perseverance Will Triumph." He also noted the prominence of the Mi'kmaw eight-pointed star, which inspired the chevron in the CBU logo.