Timmins MP hopes bill will prevent another LU crisis

Timmins-James Bay MP Charlie Angus says he wants to make sure a disaster such as the Laurentian University insolvency never happens again.

He’s introduced a private members bill in the House of Commons, since LU declared insolvency under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act, a federal statute.

"Our concern is once you establish a precedent like this, it could be used in another situation,” Angus told CTV News.

His bill would ensure public institutions exhaust alternatives before declaring insolvency under the CCAA.

"Whether it’s hospitals, whether it’s universities, health care centres, that this can not be a tactic used by right-wing governments at the provincial government to undermine public investment in key institutions like what happened at Laurentian University,” he said.

Angus said administration at LU deliberately gutted programs and staff, them like ‘discarded items at a garage sale.’

Peter McInnis, of the Canadian Association of University Teachers Association, said it will take years to repair the damage.

“Just recently documents made clear that senior university administrators deliberately chose the CCAA to avoid paying out severance and pensions and to be able to conduct mass layoffs,” McInnis said.

“This was an engineered outcome to privilege the few over the many.”

Fabrice Colin, president of the Laurentian University Faculty Association, said what happened at LU caused “irreparable damage.”

“I’ve seen the lives of friends and colleagues shattered,” he said.

The second reading of the bill will happen at the end of January.