As the controversy around the Northern Ontario School of Medicine continues, the mayor is standing with Lakehead University’s leadership.
The province has separated the school from LU and Laurentian University, and both universities say they were not consulted beforehand.
The President and Vice-Chair of LU sent a letter to the province’s minister of Colleges and Universities and other officials including the Premier. In it, Moira McPherson asks for answers, saying she doesn’t even know if there will be a NOSM campus in Thunder Bay or in Northwestern Ontario.
Bill Mauro got City Council to add their support to that letter, as he notes the way the school was made independent “doesn’t pass the smell test.”
“So that is why there is great concern at this point, hopefully unfounded. But to repeat, the university is very concerned, our university is very concerned, [the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association] has taken a position, and First Nation communities will be,” he says.
Mauro agrees there’s a lot of uncertainty about the situation right now.
“At this point, most of us are not certain where this is going or why it has occurred to this point, and why there would have been no consultation with the Chairs and Vice-Chairs of NOSM, which happen to be both of the Presidents of Lakehead University and Laurentian University,” he points out.
