Two research institutes that became inactive as a result of mass layoffs during Laurentian University’s insolvency have now been officially closed by the university.
Many of the researchers who made up all three research institutes were terminated in 2021 as a result of Laurentian’s restructuring under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act . “I'd also like to say that these three motions that we're dealing with are an indictment of what happened here, and I'd like that in the minutes, actually.”
“We're following the policy to go through to confirm, are the centers still active, are they still doing work in line with the policy, and if not, then we do need to move to closure so we also create space for new ones to be created,” she said. “Unfortunately, again, a large number of francophone faculty who were working in the social sciences humanities area that were doing work with IFO were terminated as part of the CCAA, including the director,” Eger said.
Senate member David Leeson suggested during the May 21 meeting it was premature to close the nearly 50-year-old IFO as an LU research centre, adding that he hadn’t heard in Eger’s presentation about any attempts to reach out to Miville.