Laurentian University will finally have to submit certain documents to the Ontario Parliament by February 1, an Ontario Superior Court judge determined in a decision released Thursday.
In December, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts — a cross-partisan parliamentary cell — called on the Ontario Legislative Assembly to issue a warrant for the appearance of two senior university officials to force them, on pain of prison, to submit a array of documents. This includes emails between university officials and their lawyers, as well as expense reports. The committee wishes to shed light on the financial troubles of the university, which sheltered itself from its creditors a year ago.
Part of the documents will finally have to be submitted, despite the challenges of the university’s lawyers. “We are pleased that the court recognized the ability of the democratically elected Legislative Assembly to obtain documents for Ontarians,” House Leader Paul Calandra said in a statement.
The documents sealed by the court in the context of the restructuring — two letters exchanged between the rector Robert Haché and the Ministry of Colleagues and University of Ontario — and those related to a mediation order will not have to be returned for the moment. A hearing on their possible disclosure will take place in February or March. According to Justice Geoffrey Morawetz, it is not yet clear whether the Legislative Assembly can compel the production of documents subject to a court order, as is the case with these documents.
“The question of whether the Assembly can compel the production of this information or whether it goes beyond the privilege of the National Assembly is a serious question which has not yet been studied,” he wrote. . Their disclosure, he said, could cause “irreparable harm.” On February 5, 2021, the court appointed a third party to mediate discussions between the university and various stakeholders in connection with the restructuring. The mediation order stated, among other things, that all notes, statements and documents of the mediator were to be kept confidential.
Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk, who requested the mediation documents as part of her own Laurentian investigation, told the Duty that lawyers in his office were trying to determine which documents were covered by the mediation order. “We have a lot of lawyers at Queen’s Park who will examine what the language says,” said NDP MP France Gélinas, a former member of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.
This story is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.