Ontario's Premier Accountability Dashboard · Queen's Park Watch
Robert Haché
Laurentian University
Estimated cost to Ontario
>$2.0B
President of Laurentian University at the time of its February 2021 CCAA bankruptcy filing — the first public university insolvency in Canadian history. The Ontario Auditor General's April 2022 report found Haché and senior administration had pursued CCAA creditor protection as a deliberate strategy to avoid paying full faculty severance and to evade public accountability processes available for distressed universities. Administrative costs had grown 75% from 2010 to 2020 under his leadership.
Connected Scandals
In January 2019, Ford cut OSAP by $670 million — eliminating free tuition for low-income families, dropping 24,000 students from the program, and shifting the system from grants to loans. When the federal government doubled student grants during COVID, Ontario clawed back $400 million instead of passing it to students. The tuition freeze Ford extended repeatedly was never accompanied by restored aid or compensated operating grants — Laurentian University went bankrupt in 2021, the first public university in Canadian history to do so. In February 2026, Ford announced a second wave: grants capped at 25% of OSAP packages (down from 85%), with 75% as loans — and told students choosing the wrong programs to stop picking "basket-weaving courses." Hundreds protested at Queen's Park.
Led Laurentian University into Canada's first public university insolvency. The Auditor General found administration costs grew 75% over a decade under his watch, that the university refused provincial financial assistance that could have averted the crisis, and that the CCAA process was used strategically to shed faculty contracts. Over 100 positions and 69 programs were eliminated, and Laurentian's francophone and Indigenous programming was severely curtailed.