>> Jeyan: Laurentian university entered creditor protection last February.
It raised a lot of questions and so far for those asking them it's been tough to get answers.
Here to explain from Sudbury, Nick Dunne who covers the northeast for Ontario hubs.
>> Nick: Hi, Jeyan.
>> Jeyan: It's been nearly a year.
I hope you can refresh our memory with how Laurentian got into this predicament.
>> Nick: Right.
Well, Laurentian had been operating on deficits for a number of years and it had done
on a big capital spending spree around 2010.
We don't know the entirety of the situation.
Which is what we're trying to find out right now.
But effectively in February they went into insolvency proceedings under the creditor protection
act.
And, you know, since then we've seen around 70 programs cut.
We've seen about 100 faculty and staff laid off.
And since then we've seen about a 30% chance drop in first-year enrollment.
So that's kind of where we're at with Laurentian right now.
>> Jeyan: Now, the Auditor General's office is trying to get to the bottom of these
troubles.
How are they exactly doing that?
>> Nick: Right.
So at the end of April, the legislature requested the office of the Auditor General to
conduct a value for money audit.
This audit is to look at the finances of the university for the past ten years.
To figure out two things.
First of all, how did Laurentian go insolvent?
And, two, what can we learn from Laurentian's situation to avoid this in the future for other
universities?
And this has been ongoing since may.
But unfortunately for the Auditor General, this has been a very difficult process.
Because the university is under certain confidentiality orders during the creditor protection
process.
So there are some competing interests between what the Auditor General is trying to do
and what the university says it can properly send over to the Auditor General for this audit.
>> Jeyan: For your article for tvo.org, you wrote about Speaker's warrant.
What exactly is that and how much power does that have?
>> Nick: Right.
So the Speaker's warrant is a legislative tool rarely used.
The last time was around 2012 for the Ontario legislature, any way.
It effectively is a warrant granted by the legislature.
Similar to a court warrant.
This compels whoever's been handed this warrant to appear before the legislature or
provide certain documents.
This was issued because the Auditor General has really struggled to get a lot of
information from Laurentian because of this confidentiality issue and solicitor/client
privilege.
So the legislature, in assisting the Auditor General has submitted this Speaker's
warrant.
To try to compel the university to hand over this information.
>> Jeyan: Now, Bonnie LYSICK Auditor General for Ontario has come out and side the reasons
why this is necessary.
What did she tell you?
>> Nick: Right.
This is a significant public institution, Laurentian university.
It's received at least well over $80 million a year -- on average -- for several years
now.
So, you know, going back to Laurentian's existence, this is hundreds of millions of dollars.
It has had a significant impact on the region.
And, you know, as a broader public sector institution, you know, it is a great concern to
the public.
And to the -- to Queen's Park that this has kind of unfolded.
That an institution has gone insolvent.
So figuring out precisely what happened and how public funds were used is important.
As is potentially protecting these other institutions.
The other problem, why this has become necessary, you know, the Auditor General going to court
on top of the Speaker's warrant itself over certain documents is, she mentioned the fact that
up of the documents that they're looking for or sets of being dos say a whole set of e-mails from
a former president.
You know, that contains a lot of non-privileged information and privileged information.
So often these sets of, you know, documents or e-mails or files are kind of all mixed
together.
So it's been a challenge getting hold of some non-privileged information because it is mixed
with that apparently privileged information.
So that's what the Auditor General has said as far as the primary challenges with this
audit so far.
>> Jeyan: Do we know why Laurentian university is refusing to turn over those
documents?
Is it because it's just mixed up with a tangle of privileged and unprivileged sort of documents?
>> Nick: Right.
So Laurentian is claiming client-solicitor privilege for a lot of these documents.
And they're also bound to confidentiality due to the creditor protection process.
This is a court mandated situation.
So they do run the risk of being in contempt of court by just disclosing this confidential
information as the creditor protection process is underway.
Again, as I mentioned there are two competing interests between the Auditor General's function
and, you know, giving the public information on how this happened, why it happened.
What kind of, you know, mistakes were made financially.
And, you know, the confidentiality and the effective continuation of this
insolvency proceeding that Laurentian is under.
>> Jeyan: All right.
So let's talk about sort of the next steps.
I don't imagine, you know, OPP is going to be barging into the university to get these
documents.
But I imagine there are some dates that the university has to comply with.
So what are sort of the next sort of steps there?
>> Nick: Right, yeah.
A fun little fact there is the last time someone's been imprisoned by a Speaker's
warrant was I believe in 1916.
That was under the federal legislation.
It's been a very, very long time since any kind of significant arrests, imprisonment or police
action has been involved mere.
But the Speaker's warrant compelled Laurentian to hand over the requested information
by February 2nd.
However, on December 23rd, Laurentian filed a motion to put a stay on the Speaker's warrant.
So they're going to the courts to see if this can be suspended until the courts figure out a
few key matters involving Parliamentary privilege and its limits, whether or not the
Auditor General has the authority to compel this information.
You know, whether the courts even have any kind of jurisdiction in this matter.
So there are a few things that kind of have to get sorted out.
The motion will be heard on January 18th, I believe.
So we'll have to see what happens there in the coming weeks as far as the warrant goes
for February 2nd.
But these matters are often settled -- you know, the battle lines are drawn between the
school and -- or whatever institution and the legislature and they eventually sort out
what does the ledge slate you're need, what are the needs of the other institution or individual.
So there are a number of way this is can play out.
But I think the next key date to see is January 18.
>> Jeyan: Now, we should mention, while this is kind of happening in the background, you
know, school is still going on at Laurentian.
I'm curious, how are things at the university now for students and faculty?
>> Nick: Mm-hmm.
Well, I don't know how much the Speaker's warrant is affecting students, faculty, the community
in Northern Ontario or the education sector more broadly.
But this Auditor General's audit is a pretty significant deal as I mentioned.
We're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars given over the decades.
We're talking about, you know, almost 70 programs being cut as a result of this.
So understanding exactly why this happened, how this happened, who's responsible for
what, is of major interest to the people who've been affected by this.
This is the first insolvency that's ever occurred for a public institution like a
university.
So I think there are many questions about how exactly we got to this point given the fact
that, you know, there are annual financial statements that the university has to make and that
there are various checks and balances.
So I think a lot of people are very concerned about what happened.
Think they want to know why it happened and they would like probably some accountability as
to who is responsible for what and how we move forward.
>> Jeyan: A lot of questions to be answered and some key dates to keep our eyes on.
Thanks for the update, Nick.
>> Nick: Thanks, Jeyan.