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Many questions, not many answers from LU board at first meeting since creditor protection filing

LU faculty say they’re presented as ‘the enemy;’ board chair says time the only enemy in insolvency filing
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Laurentian University. (File)

While the president of the union representing Laurentian University’s faculty said his members have been presented as “basically the enemy” in the university’s creditor protection filing, the chair of LU’s board of governors says the only enemy right now is time.

Fabrice Colin, president of the Laurentian University Faculty Association (LUFA) said it was “quite distressing for LUFA members to see that in the filing, we were presented basically as the enemy, while in fact we are a member of the same communities, just like you.

“Our children are going to the same school as your children and grandchildren. That was quite distressing for many faculty members.”

Colin made the comments during a virtual meeting of Laurentian University’s board of governors Feb. 12.

It has been less than two weeks since the university declared it is insolvent and applying to the courts for restructuring under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA).

Laurentian’s CCAA filing has now been approved by the courts, and the university has until April 30 to come up with a restructuring plan.

Assisting in this task are the financial consultants Ernst & Young, who have been appointed by the courts as the monitor (a liaison between all involved parties), and Justice Sean Dunphy, who has been appointed mediator (working with stakeholders to do the background work for restructuring).

The faculty association president’s comments provoked a response from Laurentian board of governors’ chair, Sudbury lawyer Claude Lacroix.

“We are not enemies,” said Lacroix. “We need to work side-by-side to save this university. And Fabrice, I say this, and I know I speak for the board as well, the only enemy we have is April 30 if we can’t come to an agreement and a plan to go forward. 

“You are in the front seat with the (Laurentian) Senate and the mediator, and we understand that there is a lot of work ahead of us. Our hope is that we will all do our best to save the university.” 

The public portion of the meeting featured comments from both Laurentian president Robert Haché and Ernst & Young representative Sharon Hamilton, providing a recap of the CCAA process and mostly touching on points that have already been made public.

Following the presentations, members of the board of governors had a chance to ask questions and make comments.

Laurentian University Staff Union (LUSU) president Tom Fenske also expressed his membership’s dismay at the situation.

LUSU represents Laurentian workers, including clerical and secretarial employees, technologists, technicians, computer staff, maintenance personnel, library staff including library technicians and assistants, operating engineers, printing services employees and security.

“Our membership has felt gutted,” said Fenske. “They feel as though they’ve been betrayed. I have read all the documents. They were not prepared in the last couple of months, they have been prepared for awhile.

“And if you can imagine, we undertook our negotiations last summer, and those negotiations were happening potentially at the same time that this process was being looked at or explored.

“Under my leadership, we have shown over the last 10 years and before, we have worked with the university. We have hundreds of examples of how we’ve done this. 

“We are at a loss for words to find ourselves in the middle of this process. I don’t expect a comment, but I want you to know that the membership of LUSU feels betrayed by this body.”

Fenske asked Haché if the university is going to take actions against Laurentian University’s past auditors (in the financial years available on the university’s website, the auditors were KPMG).

The union leader also wanted to know “what steps are going to be taken to investigate former officers or former leadership for the practices that are described in the CCAA documents, either now or after the CCAA process is completed.”

Haché, however, didn’t provide a definitive answer to either question, saying it’s early days in the CCAA process.

“Thank you for the question, Tom,” he said, in response to the question about investigating former leadership.

“As you recognized, with the intensity and the short timeline we have now, we are at this very moment very focused on the next two-and-a-half months now. 

“That is absolutely a good question for which there may be an appropriate time, but at the moment we are absolutely, totally, 100-per-cent focused on achieving what needs to be achieved for the end of April.”

Board of governors member and LUFA vice-president Robyn Gorham asked if Laurentian boreal ecology PhD student Adam Kirkwood could speak in her place.

Although board chair Claude Lacroix allowed Kirkwood to speak, he later said that going forward in the meeting, only board members would be allowed to make comments. 

Kirkwood also spoke at the Laurentian Senate meeting earlier this week, making some of the same points. 

He expressed concern Feb. 12 about the impacts of research grant money being “wrongfully spent on operations,” an aspect of Laurentian’s financial troubles revealed during the CCAA process.

Asking for a “yes or no” answer, Kirkwood wanted to know whether (a) stipends for graduate students would continue beyond April 30; (b) if grad students will be forced to pay more tuition if their programs are extended due to delays to their research projects related to the CCAA process; and (c) whether administrators’ jobs and salaries are on the chopping block, as well as those of professors.

Haché did not provide any definitive answers to these questions either.

“You’ve asked a number of questions, all requesting a yes or no answer,” he said. “Unfortunately none of those questions have simple yes or no answers.”

He deferred to Sharon Hamilton as the representative of the court-appointed CCAA monitor, but she also didn’t provide definitive answers.

“I do appreciate the many questions that you and many of the other students and other stakeholders have,” she said.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have the answers to all of these questions today. They’re all great questions, all very relevant, but we don’t have the answers to these questions today.”


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