U of O's Stéphane Émard-Chabot thinks the secrecy laws are just fine

U of O's law professor Stéphane Émard-Chabot thinks the secrecy laws are just fine.

Émard-Chabot is a former chef of staff of president Allan Rock and, as such, was subjected to an access request in the past (link) (link). The important stuff was never disclosed.

Recent article:
Editorial: The shroud of secrecy at the Ottawa Police Services Board (LINK):

That makes the exemption sound broad, but Stéphane Émard-Chabot, a municipal law expert at the University of Ottawa and former city councillor, says it’s actually quite a high bar.

“The fact that you’re dealing with contentious issues, that’s certainly not a reason in itself to go in private,” he says. “You have to show the ‘outweigh’ factor: the fact that keeping it private is paramount or of such importance that it outweighs the principle of keeping things open.”

U of O breaks gender-washroom apartheid

Finally, something we can all get behind.

U of O Watch endorses this new institutional opening allowing more student freedom. Just don't be calling in the police every time there is a hiccup.


New 'all-gender' washrooms set to open at University of Ottawa: 'We are leaving it up to individuals to use the facility they feel most comfortable with'
-- CBC News, 1 May 2016

Critical examination of Romeo Dallaire's role in Rwanda and connection to Allan Rock

Former Liberal Party of Canada heavyweight U of O president Allan Rock's previous stint was to push military interventionism, as Canada's ambassador to the UN. He then used the university to promote the "responsibility to protect" (R2P) doctrine directly to students and to the Canadian public.

Recently author/researcher Yves Engler critically exposed how R2P has been propped up by biased media coverage of former Liberal senator Romeo Dallaire's role in Rwanda:

"While two decades old, the distortion of the Rwandan tragedy continues to have political impacts today. It has given ideological cover to dictator Paul Kagame’s repeated invasions of the Congo and domestic repression. In addition, this foreign policy myth has been used to justify foreign military intervention as is the case with the current political crisis in Burundi. The myth of Dallaire in Rwanda is also cited to rationalize the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, when, in factm the true story illustrates the inevitable duplicitousness of foreign interventions."

Yves Engler, Romeo Dallaire in Rwanda: The Myth Continues, Dissident Voice, 28 December 2015.

New president named to fill Allan Rock's shoes: Speech-regulation-law administrator Jacques Frémont

The next president will be: Jacques Frémont. From Allan Rock's overt Zionism to a new social engineering for speech regulation. Progress never ends.

The U of O put out its announcement today: HERE.

The media are invited to attend a ceremony on Friday: LINK.

Mr. Jacques Frémont's official U of O bio is HERE.


At first sight, the new direction could signal a coming SPEECH CODE (code of conduct) for campus...? Mr. Frémont is a champion of expressly victimless "hate speech" provisions in provincial human rights codes:

Interviewer: "Imagine the situation where... a young man who is intimidated by his classmates because he's Muslim, for example, in what way will the addition you are making to the Quebec Charter of Rights help him, will protect him?"

JF: "Technically, if it's one young man who gets intimidated because he's Muslim, that's already covered by the Charter -- you are quite right. It's when we have general statements -- general, hateful statements, inciting hatred, etc. -- where there is no particular, individual victim -- it's the group in general that is the victim -- that's what we're targeting with this addition."

National Post View: Quebec hate speech bill would re-establish bureaucratic despotism:::

The bill takes its inspiration from recommendations made public by the QHRC in November 2014. Jacques Frémont, the commission’s president, explained that he planned to use the requested powers to sue those critical of certain ideas, “people who would write against … the Islamic religion … on a website or on a Facebook page.”

Frémont is an unabashed legal activist, who sees the QHRC’s mandate as “provoking a social change” and “making the law.” ...

The details of Bill 59 are chilling. Article 6 would “give the QHRC the power to initiate legal proceedings before the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal without having to wait for complaints from the public.” Article 3 allows members of an identifiable group as well as people outside the group to make complaints triggering suits for hate speech before the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal.

Canada: The Spanish Inquisition Makes a Comeback:::

• Some readers will remember the disputes during the last decade when the journalists were hauled before the farcical "Human Rights Commissions" of Canada and asked to explain why they had ever said anything that the state commissars did not agree with. Best of all is that the members of the Commission do not have to wait for anybody to complain to them before they act.
• The Commission is allowed to head out all by itself and search for things that are offensive. One must wonder whether it may just – wholly unforeseeably – be a government department which continuously finds work to justify its existence?
• The Tribunal is planning to keep a publicly available list of people found guilty of "hate speech" — like a sex-offender database. Presumably this means that members of the public can check that they are not living in the proximity of anybody who is likely to express him-or-herself with words.
• I am sure that Monsieur Fremont will agree that the safest thing to do is either not to report an attack on the Canadian Parliament or to ensure that all papers or individuals who mention such an attack are immediately fined $10,000 and put on the Hate-Speech-offenders list for doing so.
• The Human Rights Tribunal will be able to decide on each occasion how much money it wants. Might it not in fact be more convenient for the Tribunals if they simply put all writers on a system of direct-debit and levy the fine on absolutely everyone after any terrorist attack?
• We had hoped that the country had learned that for most of the civilized world, blasphemy laws are meant to be a thing of the past. But after the latest events in Quebec, we will no longer be fooled. The whole world will be able to see that in Canada blasphemy laws are a thing of the future.

U of O culture of intolerance apparent in nonsensical attack against yoga class

Free Ottawa yoga class scrapped over 'cultural issues' (LINK)

By Aedan Helmer, Ottawa Sun

First posted: Friday, November 20, 2015 08:58 PM EST | Updated: Saturday, November 21, 2015 02:12 PM EST 

It's all about a free yoga class offered by an alumnus to a class of sixty students or so, which has been offered every year since 2008.

These are Canada's future politicians...:

"Ahimakin said the student federation put the yoga session on hiatus while they consult with students "to make it better, more accessible and more inclusive to certain groups of people that feel left out in yoga-like spaces. ... We are trying to have those sessions done in a way in which students are aware of where the spiritual and cultural aspects come from, so that these sessions are done in a respectful manner.""

Faculty association asks province to investigate raises given senior uOttawa administrators --Ottawa Citizen (media)

Faculty association asks province to investigate raises given senior uOttawa administrators (LINK)

Blair Crawford, Ottawa Citizen 

Published on: October 6, 2015

The University of Ottawa faculty association is asking the province to investigate a $132,000 raise given to a senior university vice-president, a raise that came, the association says, while the university was required by law to keep salaries frozen.

In a letter to Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities Reza Moridi, the association urges a “transparent public investigation” into the raises given to vice-president of research Dr. Mona Nemer and to Dr. Jacques Bradwejn, dean of the School of Medicine, the person who approved the raise.

Nemer’s pay jumped to $392,058 in 2014, from $259,754 in 2012 according to Ontario’s sunshine salary disclosure list, an increase of 50 per cent in two years. The association complained about the increase to the university’s board of governors this summer.

The university says $120,000 of that increase comes from four years’ worth of a $30,000 annual stipend that was paid in a lump sum to Nemer for her work as a cardiovascular scientist and is not related to work as an administrator.

“The salaries provided to our executives remain compliant with provincial law,” university president Allan Rock said in a July 13th letter to the Board of Governors. [...]

And the shared 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics goes to... CARLETON UNIVERSITY

The shared 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics goes to... CARLETON UNIVERSITY, not University of Ottawa: 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics: Canadian Arthur B. McDonald shares win with Japan's Takaaki Kajita, CBC News, Posted: Oct 06, 2015 (LINK).

The recently announced Nobel Prize in physics is for a discovery (neutrino physics) done by physicists at Carleton University, and Queens University, and the National Research Counsel of Canada, excluding any physicists of the University of Ottawa.

This is the 2002 journal article of the discovery itself: "Direct Evidence for Neutrino Flavor Transformation from Neutral-Current Interactions in the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory", Q.R. Ahmad et al. (SNO Collaboration), Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 011301 – Published 13 June 2002 (LINK).

Carleton University physicist authors on the article include: I. Blevis, F. Dalnoki-Veress, J. Farine, D. R. Grant, C. K. Hargrove, I. Levine, K. McFarlane, C. Mifflin, V. M. Novikov, M. O'Neill, M. Shatkay, and N. Starinsky.

National media had touted another researcher as the likely winner, who has done most of his career research at the National Research Council (in Ottawa) prior to moving to U of O: LINK.

But it was not to be.

Little Carleton University beat "Canada's university", as U of O likes to call itself (LINK).

Allan Rock predictably sends out his director of communications rather than answer for his own record, caught making blatantly false spin

The U of O has taken a massive hit in its institutional reputation under Rock (LINK).

Rather than take responsibility and make a realistic assessment, Rock has sent out his director of communications to cry about the crash in the public media (LINK):

But some schools aren’t happy with that explanation. “We are disappointed by this change as it does not properly reflect our strengths and excellence,” said Patrick Charette, director of corporate communications for the University of Ottawa, which fell 66 spots to 284.

“Our university still ranks among the best universities in Canada and uOttawa researchers continue to excel,” Charette told Yahoo Canada News in a statement. “For four consecutive years, the University of Ottawa has been ranked among the top 200 universities worldwide by Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings, for example.”

The school also ranked in the top-ten for reputation among Canadian universities according to the QS Rankings, Charette said. ...

Charette's last point is blatantly false spin. Oooops. The QS Ranking has U of O in 13th place among Canadian schools, behind the leaders (LINK):

24. McGill University
34. University of Toronto
50. University of British Columbia
96. University of Alberta
115. Université de Montréal
149. McMaster University
152. University of Waterloo
192. Western University (University of Western Ontario)
204. University of Calgary
206. Queen’s University
225. Simon Fraser University
277. Dalhousie University

U of O has, under Rock's leadership, dropped from being in the top ten Canadian schools, after almost eight years of Rock.

Furthermore, no other comparable Canadian school has fallen 66 spots. And the QS evaluators made it clear that:

... Simona Bizzozero, a spokeswoman for QS — whose annual rankings are considered among the three most influential in the world — said only about 30 per cent of the University of Ottawa’s decline was attributable to the new approach while the rest “reflects a genuine deterioration in some indicators.”

By misleading readers in this way, Rock through Charette does not give a good example coming from an institution of higher learning...

U of O crashes under Rock

U of O tumbles in world university rankings

Don Butler, Ottawa Citizen

Published on: September 15, 2015

“As a result, our ranking has changed significantly,” Charette said. “We are disappointed by this change, as it does not properly reflect our strengths and excellence.”

But Simona Bizzozero, a spokeswoman for QS — whose annual rankings are considered among the three most influential in the world — said only about 30 per cent of the University of Ottawa’s decline was attributable to the new approach while the rest “reflects a genuine deterioration in some indicators.”

President Allan Rock re-invented the school using his own people from outside rather than value the inside people, and has generally taken a confrontational approach with all the staff and student unions, rather than trying to include and work together.

The Rock approach has deeply eroded the university. A fish rots from the head down.

The last two VP-Academics have left. Professors are expected to jump onto Rock's bandwagon of globalization schemes, or be ignored. The Medical Neurology Department has been told that it could be closed by the College of Physicians. The professors' union has often noted unjustified increases in executive salaries. The school is being sued for millions because Rock dismissed the entire Gee-Gees hockey team without regard for the lives of the athletes, over criminal charges that involved two players. And when controversies have hit, Rock has systematically hidden behind someone or some committee, not hesitating to throw whoever under the bus (a VP-Academic, a coach, an entire hockey team...), and often made a point of being out of town. Now the francophone associations are calling for the creation of a real francophone university in Ontario. ...

Meanwhile Rock has a hand in a new family business of growing medical marijuana.

The damage will take some time to repair. The politician who was called "ethically challenged" by the Ottawa Citizen in 2003, before being shipped off to the UN and then landing on the steps of Tabaret Hall, moves on to greater things in 2016.

"[Rock's] behaviour since the Irving affair became public has revealed him to be ethically challenged. […] it took Rock days to apologize. And he only grudgingly did so after Labour Minister Claudette Bradshaw rose in the Commons and offered an unqualified apology for accepting a ride on the Irving corporate jet three years ago. She also announced she was reimbursing the family for the flight."
– Ottawa Citizen, November 8, 2003, page 1.

Gee-Gees hockey team has a new head coach, no players yet

At today's press conference, a nervous new head coach, Patrick Grandmaitre, said he wants to "establish a continuity of success". Too late for that.

Grandmaitre also said he wants to produce "good-character people". Hopefully these well-produced people will not later behave like Allan Rock who was willing to summarily throw an entire team under the bus, goalie, jerzees, and all.


From the media report:

The Gee-Gees hockey team dates back to 1889, some 125 years of ‘Garnet and Grey,’ mostly quality programs at this quality post-secondary institution – all of which came crashing to the ground when a couple of players were criminally charged in connection to an alleged sexual assault in Thunder Bay in February 2014.

In a classic example of over-reacting to a public scandal, the entire hockey program was shut down for the remainder of the 2013-14 season and all of 2014-15; innocent players paying the price of having university careers radically altered or prematurely ended.

A year and a half later, there is still no resolution in the criminal matter, and a class action lawsuit has been brought against the school. Stay tuned for developments.

Meanwhile, out of the ashes of this scorched earth comes the relaunch presented Wednesday: a fresh-faced new coach named Patrick Grandmaitre and a public boost from some high-profile hockey people in Jacques Martin, the former Senators head coach and Cyril Leeder, president of the Senators.

Source:
Scanlan: Gee-Gees relaunch hockey, with a boost from Martin and Leeder
Wayne Scanlan, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: July 29, 2015 | Last Updated: July 29, 2015 5:22 PM EDT

Professors' union rebukes U of O for irresponsible increases in executive salaries

Jennifer Dekker, President, APUO (professors' union)

The University of Ottawa, under the control of Allan Rock, has been exposed by its employee unions for playing an unethical "shell game" to cover up an alleged illegal and arbitrary salary increase. This is the opposite of sound public management. It is the kind of thing political parties are known for, not publicly funded service institutions.

The matter was initiated with THIS open letter, and developed as reported here:

“We don’t accept it as a valid argument,” said Jennifer Dekker, president of the APUO, which represents 1,250 employees at the university, including professors, counsellors and librarians.

“When she was originally hired as vice-president of research, one would expect that her portfolio as a researcher would have been taken into account in her terms of offer,” said Dekker. “And so to say that she’s getting an extra stipend for doing things that would normally be expected of a (vice-president of research) doesn’t make sense to us.”

The university declined requests for interviews with Nemer and the board of governors’ chair.

The Association of Part-Time Professors of the University of Ottawa, the Support Staff University of Ottawa and the Canadian Union of Public Employees local 2626 also stand behind the APUO’s position.

In a open letter published July 16, the APUO alleged that Nemer’s annual stipend was paid out in a lump sum “retroactively during a period of wage and benefit freeze” for university vice-presidents, contrary to the Strong Action for Ontario Act (Budget Measures).

“I would characterize it as a shell game,” said Dekker. “The money obviously all comes from the same source and goes to the same source.”

She said what Nemer earned last year “far exceeds” what senior university executives ought to be paid per year. And she said the extra yearly payments are troubling amid the administration’s “rhetoric” about a structural financial challenge at the university, claims the APUO disputes.

Source:

Professors' union rebukes University of Ottawa over 'redundant' pay for top exec

Adam Feibel, Ottawa Citizen

Published on: July 26, 2015 | Last Updated: July 26, 2015 6:18 PM EDT

"Free Speech is Dead in Canada (video)"--Brave The World

A video report about the St. Lewis v. Rancourt lawsuit at the University of Ottawa, by Julia Tourianski of Brave The World, was published today: LINK.

Allan Rock is lucky to dodge this bullet, for the suspension decision was an unjust and irrational response to the known facts--National Post

FULL COMMENT
Barbara Kay, National Post
July 15, 2015

... As a case in point, you may recall that in 2014, when two players from the University of Ottawa hockey team were charged with one count of sexual assault each while partying during a trip to Thunder Bay, the whole team was suspended and the rest of their season cancelled. Twenty-four team members, who had nothing to do with the incriminating sexual incidents, are seeking a combined $6 million for damage to their reputations.

The U of Ottawa sought to have the lawsuit dismissed, but an Ontario court has just found that the suit’s claims that the school was negligent are admissible for trial, and also found the decision to suspend the hockey team was outside the university’s broad discretion to manage academic affairs.

The proposed suit would have charged U of Ottawa president Allan Rock with malfeasance in public office, but the court ruled the charge was not sustainable. Rock is lucky to dodge this bullet, for the suspension decision is down to him in the end, and it was an unjust and irrational response to the known facts surrounding the sexual incidents. ...

Use the labels below to find all related blogposts.

Alan Rock has had a long career of dodging "ethically challenged" bullets, both in parliament and on campus. See partial and not-up-to-date list HERE.

Christian Detellier suddenly departs after a single term as second boss man at U of O

The July 8, 2015, uOttawa Gazette announced after-the-fact that Christian Detellier's mandate as VP-Academic (second in command below Allan Rock) ended on June 30, 2015: LINK.

Allan Rock will have seen four (4) different second boss mans during his watch: Robert Major, Francois Houle, Christian Detellier, and whoever Rock will name next.

This is the second unannounced sudden departure of a VP-Academic under Rock. Houle was suddenly paid out in mid-mandate over a dispute about the institution's bilingualism, and following the Ann Coulter media fiasco in which Rock hid the truth that he had asked Houle to write the controversial letter of threat to Coulter, until everything was disclosed via access to information as reported by the National Post.

The VP-Academic position tends to be the only position in which Rock can't simply parachute someone in from outside the institution, as he has hand picked everyone.

Detellier's sudden departure, without a search for a new VP-Academic having been announced prior to the departure, follows a June 9th CBC News report that Christian Detellier may have been unfair to students: LINK.

Detellier said: "I have research grants and contracts, including an NSERC Discovery grant, until July 2017, when I will retire." (Gazette)

In any case, word in the halls has it that Detellier was not particularly on top of things, and that the real doer was his chief of staff Ms. Rachel Ouellette.

Rancourt loses Ontario appeal in defamation case

The decision of the Court of Appeal for Ontario was released on July 8, 2015, and is posted on CanLII here:

St. Lewis v. Rancourt, 2015 ONCA 513 (CanLII), <http://canlii.ca/t/gjxxd>


The Court of Appeal's rendition can be compared with the appeal factums of the two parties:

• Rancourt's (Appellant's) factum: LINK

• St. Lewis's (Respondent's) factum: LINK

• And with the Appellant's court-filed Notice of Constitutional Question: LINK

The summary of Rancourt's factum, on its page-1, is:

In this defamation trial, among other errors, the judge circumvented the jury by saying that the defendant (a blogger) had “no defence”. The judge said: “The defendant here has not introduced any evidence establishing a defence. Therefore, there is no defence for you to consider.” In fact, the defendant had explained his defences to the jury on the first day of trial and more than sufficient evidence to establish his defences was entered by the plaintiff while the defendant was present.

The media reports are based on a reading of the Court of Appeal's decision:

Ex-U of O prof loses defamation appeal

Chris Cobb, Ottawa Citizen

Published on: July 8, 2015 | Last Updated: July 8, 2015 5:53 PM EDT 

Libellous academic loses appeal

By Tony Spears, Ottawa Sun

First posted: Wednesday, July 08, 2015 02:21 PM EDT | Updated: Wednesday, July 08, 2015 02:28 PM EDT 

Another report was posted at this URL:

http://www.canadianlawyermag.com/legalfeeds/2783/appeal-court-upholds-defamation-finding-in-law-prof-case.html 

 

VP-Academic Christian Detellier and VP-Research Mona Nemer may have been unfair to students -- CBC reports

Published today:
Institute of Population Health to close after uOttawa senate vote
Senate vote on Monday spells end of interdisciplinary health program
CBC News

"This is definitely a pattern of doing things behind closed doors and not fulfilling promises," PhD student Reed Beall told CBC's Ottawa Morning, pointing to a 2014 letter from the vice president of research and vice president of academic programs, assuring students they would be consulted if the decision to cancel the program came around again.

"They've gone behind our backs and gone directly to the senate with this vote today," said Beall, who Beall is one of about 40 PhD students studying topics in epidemiology and health trends at the institute. "They never consulted us and we were promised that in writing."

The VP-Academic is Christian Detellier. The VP-Research is Mona Nemer.

In a statement, the university said the school will still offer a PhD in Population Health.

Waaaa -- Habitual dishonesty -- Turns out Allan Rock did it again -- based on the Globe & Mail article of today

With the hockey team distributed-discipline machination this time...

Remember when Allan Rock let VP-Academic Francois Houle take all the heat for a letter he instructed Houle to write to Ann Coulter (LINK)? That was something. Took him weeks to come out and admit it, after it was disclosed through access to information...

Well now the national media are reporting that Rock's "independent report" about the hockey team was (not just a disingenuous public-image maneuver as students claimed but) actually a covert preemptive tactic against anticipated lawsuits.

There you have it. Hockey team members participated in good faith in what they thought was an independent investigation, which was actually the work of Rock's hired lawyers preempting any legitimate legal action that those same hockey players might need to take to repair the damages caused by Rock.

Then that so-called "independent investigation" was used to punish the entire team but without disclosing the report to them. That's a good educational example to give: "Take that and now go and ponder why I punished you!"

The Globe & Mail reported today -- "University of Ottawa hockey team probe was part of legal strategy":

Last June, university president Allan Rock told a news conference that independent investigator Steven Gaon had delivered a report. Rock said the university fired hockey coach Real Paiement based on the finding he did not inform school officials about the Thunder Bay incident.

In a subsequent letter to The Globe and Mail, Rock said the investigation also “disclosed widespread behaviour that was disreputable and unbecoming of representatives of uOttawa and suggested an unhealthy climate surrounding the team.”

Gaon was actually hired and directed by the law firm Norton Rose Fulbright Canada, which in turn had been retained by the university.

“Norton Rose Fulbright … retained an independent investigator to probe the facts underlying the allegations, in order to be in a position to give legal advice to the university on potential legal claims arising from the men’s hockey team matter,” the firm said in a submission to Ontario’s Information Commissioner in December.

The Canadian Press lodged a complaint with the commissioner’s office after the university refused to release any part of the investigation’s findings under the province’s freedom of information law.

In May, Gaon delivered not one, but two reports – one about allegations of sexual misconduct and the other on excessive drinking. Those reports were also prepared “for use in giving legal advice,” according to university lawyer David Bolger.

The university said in a June press release that Gaon’s findings would not be published “to avoid any interference with the ongoing police investigation and out of respect for the university’s privacy obligations.”

But in its submissions to the information commissioner, the university cites as its primary concern the fact that the records are considered legal advice.

Disclaimer: The statements herein about Allan Rock's "habitual dishonesty" are not statements of fact. The said Allan Rock's dishonesty has never been proven and is solely my opinion. These are my opinions based on the cited media and blog reports, and the public knowledge reported therein.

Reflections on 2014 with Allan Rock

Allan Rock handling rape culture and the hockey team.

In 2014, Allan Rock on the one hand denied that there was a rape culture at the University of Ottawa -- despite Michaelle Jean explicitly explaining it to him at a press conference -- while, on the other hand immediately suspended the entire university hockey team.

So, on the one hand, there is no rape culture according to Rock, while on the other hand it is necessary to suspend an entire hockey team and block hockey students from graduation events, their careers, and so forth.

It seems clear that Rock's behaviour, as usual, was entirely geared towards public image management rather than anything else. Immediate firing of the coach. Immediate suspension of a prized hockey team. Frantic creation of an outside expert committee to draw up hasty recommendations. Avoidance of dialogue with student and community groups and professional associations... The message was clear: Expect a management "solution". Don't expect maturity, leadership, or a long-term process involving learning.

In 2014, globe trotting Allan Rock announced that he will be leaving the presidency. He oversaw the building of buildings, the inauguration of pet projects to save the world, a string of public image fiascoes, and the dismantlement of collegial governance at the institution.

His latest creation: The "professional training program that is not an academic program and is therefore exempt from university senate oversight" program that is not a program program... Houaaah.

U of O's dreadful experiment with a star president, lawyer, and former politician is hopefully over. One lesson is: If you can't run a ministry you should not be allowed to run a university. You can't buy enough placements on rankings to fix the damage.

uOttawa's Allan Rock gets another well-deserved thrashing from the Globe & Mail -- Justice gets iced

Globe editorial

Justice gets iced at U Ottawa

The Globe and Mail

Published Sunday, Aug. 24 2014, 7:00 PM EDT

Last updated Sunday, Aug. 24 2014, 7:00 PM EDT

This is again about Rock's arguably greatest fiasco to date at uOttawa -- his incredible handling of discrete sexual assault allegations by collectively punishing the entire Gee Gees hockey team.

Unfreakingboleavable that this seemed to Rock like the thing to do, in addition to summarily firing the coach for not immediately giving a report to the president's office.

In the words of the Globe & Mail editorial:

"Mr. Rock’s decision is more inexplicable than ever today. It reeks of injustice."

Not bad for a former minister of justice. How much more damage to the institution's plummeting reputation will the Board allow?

Globe and Mail (not the National Post) teaches Rock a lesson about due process

GLOBE EDITORIAL

Due process on ice at the University of Ottawa

The Globe and Mail

PublishedSunday, Jul. 13 2014, 6:00 PM EDT

Allegations that some members of the University of Ottawa’s men’s hockey team committed sexual assault in Thunder Bay earlier this year are deeply disturbing. If they prove to be true, the young men involved are guilty of a serious criminal offence, punishable by up to 10 years in prison. But the university’s recent decision to suspend the entire hockey program for a full season is hasty and unjust to those players whose only fault is one of circumstance: They happen to play on the same team as the three alleged offenders. Twenty-one players are innocent of any crime – even an alleged one – yet they are being treated as though they are guilty by association. It’s a kind of collective punishment.

It’s a surprising verdict, coming from Allan Rock, the University of Ottawa’s president, who once served as justice minister. He justified the sweeping sanctions after an internal review – details kept confidential – showed some team members’ behaviour during the tournament in Thunder Bay “did not meet the university’s expectations of our student athletes” and “was not in keeping with the university’s values.” If that sounds vague, it is no more so than statements from the Thunder Bay Police concerning the alleged Feb. 1 incident. Their investigation is complete but they have not yet decided whether any charges will be laid. Perhaps the university’s investigators uncovered something the police missed, but unless Mr. Rock makes their findings public, it’s impossible to understand why he chose such a harsh course of action. Would it have made more sense to wait for the police to lay charges, and for those charges to be proven (or not) in court? It’s called due process, and one would think that Mr. Rock would get that.

The university’s suspension of the hockey program doesn’t just mean a couple of dozen players don’t get to play their sport. A group of people who had nothing to do with the alleged incident – some of whom weren’t even in Thunder Bay – have had their reputations tarnished, job offers revoked, and have been ostracized by peers. Mr. Rock should have waited; if any players are ultimately found guilty, the university can punish them (after the justice system does). But based on the evidence that’s publicly known, at least 21 other players have done nothing wrong. They deserve something else from Mr. Rock: the presumption of innocence.