Sudbury skaters protest against CCAA process at Laurentian

Skaters mobilize against insolvency process at LU A group in Sudbury organized a skate-in protest Tuesday as Laurentian University marks one year since declaring insolvency.

The Tri-Cultural Committee for University Education at Sudbury organized a 'skate in' to protest Laurentian entering Creditor protection one year ago.

"This process isn’t over it’s continuing to tear our community apart and we think it time to bring it to an end and to look at alternatives," said Monique Beaudoin, a committee member.

Beaudoin said the committee supports the concept of a francophone university, an Indigenous university and a democratic Laurentian University that restores arts and humanities for the English-speaking community.

"It’s important to fight against the CCAA because it’s an undemocratic law. It has essentially suspended the rights of workers, the rights of francophones, the rights of Indigenous people, now they want to sell off the lands," said Beaudoin.

Nickel Belt MPP France Gelinas said people are looking for transparency and an end to the insolvency process.

"The CCAA process comes with huge walls all the way around it. None of us know that really happened. None of us know what will happen going forward," Gelinas said.

She said those unanswered questions have sparked anger in the community.

Organizers of the 'skate in' said it’s important to peacefully protest Laurentian’s decision to adopt the CCAA process. One they said has had and will continue to have catastrophic consequences.

In response, Laurentian President Robert Haché said in part:

"If we want to succeed in making Laurentian stronger for decades to come, we must be flexible and nimble. That is why we undertook the difficult but necessary work to align our academic programming with student interests and market demand. The post secondary space is highly competitive, and we cannot ignore the practical reality of having program and course offerings that reflect what students are interested in studying."