U of O Watch mission, in the words of Foucault...

"One knows … that the university and in a general way, all teaching systems, which appear simply to disseminate knowledge, are made to maintain a certain social class in power; and to exclude the instruments of power of another social class. … It seems to me that the real political task in a society such as ours is to criticise the workings of institutions, which appear to be both neutral and independent; to criticise and attack them in such a manner that the political violence which has always exercised itself obscurely through them will be unmasked, so that one can fight against them." -- Foucault, debating Chomsky, 1971.

U of O Watch mission, in the words of Socrates...

"An education obtained with money is worse than no education at all." -- Socrates

video of president allan rock at work

Monday, November 9, 2015

Corporate lawyer and Air Canada boss Calin Rovinescu named chancellor of U of O


The new chancellor Calin Rovinescu is going to fit right in... Compare: "Air Canada nearly doubles CEO Rovinescu’s pension" (Globe & Mail, April 21, 2015) and "Faculty association asks province to investigate raises given senior uOttawa administrators" (Ottawa Citizen, October 6, 2015)(and-this)(and-this).

A corporate lawyer who has made it a practice for Air Canada to disregard passenger rights and to use the courts in insisting on disregarding passenger rights will be the figurehead of the University of Ottawa: University-press-release.

Here is just one example of how Rovinescu instructs his Air Canada legal team to operate against unsuspecting travelers (Link-to-judge's-findings):

90 ... Air Canada failed to comply with an obligation that its customer service agent initially acknowledged existed, and instead acted as if some other form of compensation was appropriate for what had happened. It ignored, in other words, its own Tariff.

91 To add insult to injury it took the position that Mr Lachance was “mistaken” as to what flight he was on when he left Toronto for Vancouver. I think too I can take judicial notice of the fact that Air Canada presents itself to the public as a professional carrier which can be relied upon to provide positive travel experiences to its customers; to treat them with respect; and to honour their booked and confirmed itineraries to the extent possible. Air Canada recognized when it entered into its contract of carriage with Mr Lachance that a long and unexpected delay spent in an airport is neither a pleasant nor a happy experience, and that such a delay would cause some distress to him. (Indeed, this understanding is reflected in the fact that the compensatory damages payable under Rule 245AC increase with the length of the delay.) This then is an appropriate case for damages ...

This, in turn, is only apparent in the relatively few cases where the traveler goes all the way to a trial, and exposes the Air Canada lawyer tactics.

One more step in Allan Rock's corporatization of the institution. Shameful regression in our opinion.

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