Describing the Trent DNA Cluster project as "a vacuum that sucks money away from other important initiatives" watchdog groups have called upon the Auditor General to review the project, as well as the role of its primary partner and tenant, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. (Also see related Arthur article).

In a Peterborough Examiner article of on February 11, 2005 a spokesperson explains that the project is being "built on economic quicksand... The government had been duped to put money in, and that has to end. With a funding crisis in education and health care, you just can’t put money into this kind of research.”

The project continues to lack a business plan yet it has received in excess of $10.7 million of public funding!

The Examiner reporter has apparently been told that Trent's Board of Governors "discussed" a business plan in their November 26, 2004 meeting. The meaning of "discussing a business plan" is very different from being presented with a business plan, or approving a business plan. (Perhaps there reporter was referring to a business "model", rather than a plan as noted in the minutes below?)

No mention a business plan existing appears in any agenda or in any minutes posted on the Trent website as of the date of the Examiner article. In fact, the absence of a business plan is specifically noted in the posted minutes of the Oct 1, 2004 open session (emphasis added);

Site for DNA Cluster Building. The Chair of the Finance & Property Committee noted that although the administration was not quite ready to propose a business plan for the DNA Cluster building, the Committee was recommending approval of a site for the eventual facility, if and when a project involving construction of a facility was approved by the Board. This move would allow necessary planning and site preparation work to continue. The University had been approved for approximately $8M of CFI and OIT funding for the Trent component of the research facility and was facing a tight time line (December 2005) for the use of these funds. The proposed site, located behind Otonabee College , had been identified after much consultation as the site that would best satisfy the goals and selection criteria for the project. The President provided updates on design, consulting, costing and steering committee work in progress and on the three potential business models that could be presented for committee consideration before the next Board meeting.

To date, the Trent board has not "approved" a business plan for the project, if indeed one exists.

Lakehead University president Fred Gilbert claims that Trent's DNA lab cluster is in fact going to duplicate some of the forensic work they can do there. One presumes that Trent's board is aware of this duplication, but there's been no mention of it from the Trent board or administration.

OurTrent reiterates our invitation to Trent to be transparent and accountable. Disclose to the public the details of the DNA Cluster project so that we may conduct an independent analysis into the alleged benefits for Trent and Peterborough. If such an analysis validates the benefits, we will have no trouble actively supporting the project.

Here is the Examiner article:

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Wildlife groups not wild about Trent DA plan
Activist blasts focus on rabies research; project chief says work will be varied
By Steve Ladurantaye, Examiner City Editor
Peterborough Examiner – Friday February 11, 2005

Environmentalists have launched an attack on Trent University’s planned DNA research facility, saying it will be a vacuum that sucks money away from other important initiatives.

“This is going to be a building built on economic quicksand,” said Donna DuBreuil, president of the Ottawa Carleton Wildlife Centre. “The government had been duped to put money in, and that has to end. With a funding crisis in education and health care, you just can’t put money into this kind of research.”

In November, Trent’s governing body approved the construction of a $19.5-million DNA research and teaching facility. As of then, $10.7 million of funding had been secured each from the City of Peterborough, and the federal and provincial innovation funds and $1.3 million from an Ontario rural initiatives initiative.

At the meeting the board discussed a business plan for the centre, which is also expected to include laboratories, office space, space for graduate students and a home for the Trent Fleming bachelor of science and forensic science program.

Part of the business plan calls for rabies research to take place in the facility, something that has raised the ire of the Ontario Wildlife Coalition’s spokeswoman Liz White. Her group is comprised of 80 environmental and animal welfare groups across the province.

“Raccoon rabies research is big business in Ontario,” she said, saying only one person has died of the disease in 50 years. “To put the virtually non-existent rabies risk in perspective, consider that 60 people die from lightning strikes and 40 or more die from hornet and wasp stings annually in the US.”

The National Centre for Infections Diseases states the number of human deaths from rabies has decreased to two per year in the 1990’s from more than 100 per year in the early 1900’s. The centre estimates that number to be as much as 100 times higher in some countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

It’s those types of numbers that Denis Ferkany, who is leading the project at Trent, focuses on when he considers the facility’s potential.

“There are countries where literally tens of thousands of people a year die of rabies,” he said. “What we’ve done right here in our backyard has the potential to save lives.”

DuBreuil isn’t impresses with the international threat, saying those countries have more pressing needs and our governments have more local issues to worry about.

“Taxpayers of Ontario will be on the hook forever if this goes up,” she said. “Rabies is a problem in countries in Asia and Africa and they have people dying of hunger and AIDS. (Rabies) is not even a big problem there.”

The organizations are calling on the provincial government to reconsider its commitment to the project.

Ferkany doesn’t discount the centre’s interests in rabies research, but said it’s important to realize there is more the centre than one area of study.

“I don’t know these folks, but I look forward to speaking with them and understanding their concerns,” Ferkany said. “The DAN cluster is a far broader economic development and technical transfer opportunity. It transcends rabies, rabies is just a small part of the big picture.”