Montreal City Weblog

Kate 13:53 on 2022-07-04 Permalink Reply  

• H. John 18:48 on 2022-07-04 Permalink

  Every time I see his name in another headline, I remember Rose Sheinin.

  Rose was Concordia’s Vice-Rector, Academic.

  She did everything she could to terminate Fabrikant’s contract.

  Under the collective agreement in place at the time, neither the Rector (Kenniff), nor the Vice-Rector could terminate a faculty employment contract (for any reason). Nor could the Dean of Engineering.

  Only the committee in his own department had that right.

  After months of escalating odd behaviour by Fabrikant, Rose chaired a meeting over lunch at the Montreal Athletic Club which included that departmental committee, the head of Health Services, and a psychiatric consultant (he hadn’t met Fabrikant and he only spoke about behavioural types).

  Rose begged the committee to consider his behaviour, and take action to end his contract.

  She spent two hours trying to move them.

  Their response was ‘he only gets difficult when it’s around the time of his contract renewal’ , and then it’s all fine.

• Kate 21:27 on 2022-07-04 Permalink

  H. John, that’s a story.

  At the time, I was doing some occasional work for the Concordia magazine and I was also occasionally working at the Nebula bookstore when it was around on St‑Mathieu.

  I knew about Fabrikant because he was an early adopter of email, sending out many angry emails to a long list of Concordia people including the person I was working for at the university. Typically, he blamed a range of people for his problems, repetitively and crankily. His emails spilled over a little onto the local internet, which was rudimentary in 1992 but did already exist.

  I was working alone at Nebula when I heard a lot of sirens nearby. Back then, the building on St‑Mathieu at de Maisonneuve was still a police station. (It may still have been called Station 10, which was also the name of a notorious bar nearby on Ste‑Catherine, but that’s another story.)

  I turned the radio on to hear about an ongoing incident at the Hall building, two blocks from where I sat, and where friends of mine were working that day in the MITE-Avista lab, as I knew. Of course, my thoughts flew to the Polytechnique massacre – but also, I remember thinking of Fabrikant, the university’s most prominent loose cannon.

  So it didn’t surprise me when I heard what had happened.

  Everyone knew the guy was angry and potentially dangerous. It was a powder keg situation and a lot of people knew it.

• H. John 22:11 on 2022-07-04 Permalink

  “Everyone knew the guy was angry and potentially dangerous. It was a powder keg situation and a lot of people knew it.”

  I couldn’t disagree more.

  You may have noticed I described him as “odd”. After HEC ‘odd’ made people nervous.

  No one thought that meant “powder keg” or “dangerous”.

  He’d been odd for a decade. There had never been violence or even a threat of violence.

  I personally asked every person he worked with if they had ever been threatened.

• Uatu 22:31 on 2022-07-04 Permalink

  Kate you used to work at Nebula? I was a regular there for a time. I used to come in weekly and even followed them when they moved to st. Catherine. Did you work with Keith Logan? I remember him because one customer kept on calling him Logan (I think he was a Wolverine fan). It was a great store and I even enjoyed perusing the books while the owner’s dog ran laps around the shelves. Good times.

• H. John 22:37 on 2022-07-04 Permalink

  I’ll stop with this for tonight.

  At the time, Concordia had a Code of Conduct. Complaints could be brought against any university member..

  No one complained about Fabrikant. No one.

  Fabrikant brought two complaints against the university: one for assault, and one for calling the police to search him at a university senate meeting.

  Both complaints were heard by panels of faculty members not in his department.

  He won both complaints.

  During his trial for murder, his students signed up to testify on his behalf.

  I don’t think “Everyone knew the guy was angry and potentially dangerous” is true.

• Kate 22:58 on 2022-07-04 Permalink

  H. John, I can’t cite anyone in particular, but although I was not a Concordia student I knew about Fabrikant before the shooting and the thought of him did cross my mind that day before we heard who the perpetrator was. My contact at the magazine had definitely mentioned him as a person of concern, shall we say. Maybe not quite dangerous but definitely a known weirdo.

  Uatu: I was basically on call and filled in for Claude’s regulars now and then. Never knew Keith Logan. The only person I still remember by name that I sometimes worked with was Tamu, but it was a small store and usually I would be working alone.

• MtlWeb 08:02 on 2022-07-05 Permalink

  I was a 20-something working in the ICU where one of the victims was on life support. He had suffered irreversible damage and the decision was made to withdraw treatment. Have never forgotten the young son, who they brought to say goodbye, standing at the foot of the bed, biting his lips while staring at his Dad amongst all the lines and equipment we had for him – that image broke our hearts then and rekindles those same feelings every time that name is in the news.