Franco Mariotti is a member of a group advocating Laurentian  keep all its green space

THE SPIRIT OF YOGI Berra burns bright in Sudbury, Ontario. The ongoing broad public mobilization to “Save Our Sudbury” proves the truth of Yogi’s famous insight: “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.”

Laurentian University (LU) administrators declared the university insolvent last February 2. Save Our Sudbury is the ongoing public effort to explore and expose exactly  how that happened and to lessen the damage to the university and the city because of it.

‘Restructuring nighmare’

The “restructuring” of the university is being carried out under the terms of the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA). The first move on April 12, 2021 was to slash 69 LU programs and fire 190 faculty. The Save Our Sudbury mobilization to challenge exactly how far the CCAA restructuring can go has never wavered since.

Save Our Sudbury supporters marked the one year anniversary of resistance to the CCAA on February 1 with a Zoom teach-in and an outdoor skate-in.

Close to 40 people attended the teach-in. It was hosted by the Tri-Cultural Committee, a coalition representing members of the community, former and current Laurentian faculty, along with the Canadian Federation of Students.

Economist David Leadbeater  was one of the professors fired by Laurentian on April 12. He told the teach-in: “A year ago today, the CCAA was unleashed on Laurentian. ... Through the calculated actions of the president and board of governors, Laurentian was transformed into a shadow of its already impoverished self.”

Indigenous and Francophone programs cut

The LU program cuts included the Indigenous and Francophone studies programs. Leadbeater said these cuts revealed disrespect for Indigenous rights and Franco-Ontarian minority language rights.

Leadbeater said the Tri-Cultural Committee demands include: the scrapping of the CCAA process, that the current leadership at LU step down, and that government funding for Francophone and Indigenous programs go to the new Indigenous and Franco-Ontarian universities to be created to make up for the gaps left by the  CCAA cuts.

Organizers of a skate-in on Ramsey Lake asked members of the public to bring along “a sign or banner and skate with it to protest Laurentian’s choice to adopt CCAA as a means of restructuring in the face of its insolvency.”

Former University of Sudbury Indigenous Studies professor Will Morin built a snow sculpture of a dragon on the skate path, inviting people to “come slay the dragon on thin ice,”—a reference to the ongoing insolvency restructuring proceedings.

Morin said the idea of a dragon on the ice was to represent a beast partially hidden from view—just like the CCAA restructuring.

“We don’t see most of it, because it’s beneath the surface, hidden from us,” he said. “We need to have it surface so that we can slay it from tip to toe, from head to tail.”

The Ontario auditor general’s office has been attempting to learn more about how the publicly-funded institution got itself into this mess. The university refused all access to its books. But a court ruling on January 27 directs the university to hand over documents, as ordered by a rare speaker’s warrant that was unanimously approved by the Ontario Legislature.

Green space on the block?

Meanwhile, supporters of Laurentian green space continue to fight the possible sale of university lands.

Franco Mariotti is a graduate of Laurentian. He’s a member of The Coalition for a Liveable Sudbury, a group advocating for Laurentian to keep the green space.

“It’s hard to believe when I was a student here, this was all black rocks,” he said.

“It was a moonscape. We were the butt of stand-up comedians across the country, the city that looked like the moon.”

Mariotti says if the property is sold, it could undo years of efforts of regreening.

Mariotti said what happened at Laurentian was “tragic.”

“But then to impact the community like this, in search of a financial answer? Selling green space is not the answer to solving the university’s problems.”

In its latest court update, the university administration said no decisions have been made about the possibility or desirability of selling off university lands.

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