Laval University professor Patrick Provost, who has been suspended twice for controversial remarks on anti-COVID vaccines, has received a third sanction.
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He will be suspended without pay for one day following the sending of an email intended for a hundred leaders of the establishment, in which the identity of a person who lodged a complaint against him was revealed.
In March 2022, management sent Mr. Provost a letter asking him to no longer send mass emails without prior authorization from the University.
Last November, the establishment ruled that the professor had contravened this directive by sending an unsolicited message to more than 90 leaders of the establishment. The email included several documents, including the name of a person who had filed a complaint against him.
At the end of February, the University informed Mr. Provost that he would again be suspended without pay, for a single day this time, May 24.
Mr. Provost disputes management’s interpretation, saying that the email sent did not constitute a mass mailing or a public disclosure of the identity of the complainant, since its recipients “were bound by confidentiality implicitly” by their functions. .
The latter sees it rather as relentlessness on the part of management, which has already suspended him twice for controversial remarks on anti-COVID vaccines, for a total of six months without pay. These two suspensions are contested by the Union of Professors of Laval University, through a grievance.
Invited to react, Université Laval reminds us that it cannot comment on an employee’s personal file.
The processing of complaints is done in accordance with the standards and policies in force in the establishment, indicated its spokesperson, Andrée-Anne Stewart.