Members of the Ontario legislature voted unanimously Thursday afternoon in favor of an appearance warrant for Laurentian University, a motion very rarely passed at Queen’s Park. The establishment will have until February 1, 2022 to submit documents it deems privileged to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts – a parliamentary cell made up of deputies from different parties – otherwise two of its senior leaders risk jail.
“It is shameful that Laurentian University has placed the Legislative Assembly in this position,” responded Government House Leader Paul Calandra of the Progressive Conservative Party. The political party has made little comment on Laurentian’s case in recent months, wanting to wait for the end of its restructuring.
On February 1, 2021, the university took shelter from its creditors due to major financial problems. Almost 70 programs were cut and around 100 professors lost their jobs in the process. 28 of these programs were in French, leading to an ongoing investigation by the French Language Services Commissioner of Ontario, Kelly Burke.
Both the Standing Committee on Public Accounts and the Auditor General of Ontario are trying to understand how the university got into this situation. But the establishment – citing attorney client privilege – refuses to share certain information that could shed light on the case. The mandate represents the “nuclear option,” according to Stéphanie Chouinard, assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the Royal Military College of Canada. The motion is little used since it allows the assembly to exercise a strong power, according to the deputy of Nickel Belt France Gélinas, a member of the committee.
In April, the group of parliamentarians commissioned an audit on the financial state of the post-secondary institution, but Laurentian refused to share certain documents necessary for the investigation according to Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk. In court on Monday, lawyers for the university argued that section 10 (1) of the Auditor General Act did not require the institution to send it privileged documents, such as bills from lawyers. An Ontario Superior Court judge will rule in the coming weeks.
When the Auditor General informed the committee in October that she was unable to get her hands on the documents, the group of parliamentarians themselves requested access – a measure permitted under the Legislative Assembly Act – which he was denied by the university.
The committee called the president of the university, Robert Haché, to testify behind closed doors on December 1. But her answers were unlikely to please MPs who asked assembly members on Wednesday to vote in favor of the appearance warrant, a process independent of that of the Auditor General.
“Once we ask the Auditor General to do the audit, we no longer get involved,” said NDP MP France Gélinas. “Once the committee has the documents, we decide what to do with them,” she said.
The university said it was “very concerned and worried” about the motion at Queen’s Park. This would constitute “an attempt to preempt and interfere with an ongoing legal process”, according to the post-secondary institution. But France Gélinas recalls that parliament is the “highest court in the province”. “We have absolute power over what happens at the provincial level, since the university falls under our authority,” she said.
Culture of fear
In interview with The duty On Tuesday, the Auditor General said she initially believed she could do her job without having access to privileged documents, but it quickly became clear that the university’s position would also have an impact on its communications with employees. of the university and its ability to obtain non-privileged documents.
A system has been created at the university to ensure that inside information is not released to the Auditor General and her team, according to Bonnie Lysyk. “The message to university employees is that before you provide information to the Auditor General’s office or speak to her team, you must speak to the university’s lawyers outside”, she explains. It would have created a “culture of fear,” says his office.