By Philip Croucher

An end to the controversy over who should train police cadets in Atlantic Canada will come shortly, says Holland College president Alex MacAulay.

The optimism comes two weeks after an article published in the Guardian P.E.I. Attorney General Wes MacAleer as stating "there's a good chance a resolution in the matter could be reached within the next month."

"I agree with Wes fully," MacAulay says. "I'm quite certain it will be settled shortly." "But the support isn't written down in stone."

For almost two years, P.E.I. and Nova Scotia have been embroiled in a battle over the police cadet training. P.E.I. became concerned last year when Nova Scotia began training its own cadets out of the Halifax area because of the growing speculation that the province would start its own police-training facility at the Nova Scotia Community College in Truro.

Since the '70s, Holland College, through the Atlantic Police Academy, has been training police cadets from the Atlantic Provinces. MacAulay says there's no reason this shouldn't continue in the future. "There's a long history of the provinces sharing resources in the training of students," he says. "It would be absurd to see all four Atlantic provinces require their regions to train its own lawyers, doctors ... oceanographers."

An important step to a possible agreement came this past summer when Nova Scotia elected a majority Progressive Conservative government.

"I was quite certain a new government would take a fresh approach," MacAulay says, "and do whatever it takes to resolve the matter."

While any agreement will need the approval of both provincial governments, MacAulay says the only acceptable move is that Nova Scotia re-commits itself to the regional approach of training police cadets.

Despite the optimism, Holland College still has legal action pending against the province of Nova Scotia, the City of Halifax and the former Nova Scotia Justice Department executive director of policing services, Bob Barrs. MacAulay and the Academy are upset over comments made during the implementation of the pilot project which they feel hurt the Slemon Park school.

Although the fact the dispute has raged on for almost two years, MacAulay says it has done nothing to affect the quality of education offered at the Atlantic Police Academy.

"It hasn't affected the quantity or quality of the school in anyway whatsoever."