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Message from Fabrice Labeau, Co-Acting Provost and Vice-Principal (Academic), Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) and planning chief for the Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) on behalf of the EOC

Dear members of the Macdonald Campus community,

On Friday I presented an interim update about what has happened since the Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) mobilized on January 31. If you were not able to make that presentation, you can watch the video, which is posted at the top of our FAQ page.

The EOC has received some further test results, and you can find information about that below in this email. First, I wanted to acknowledge that many of you have questions about what happened to cause dust containing asbestos to be found in the Macdonald-Stewart building.

Up to now, we have been focused on the emergency response, led by the EOC, to try to get all of you back – safely – to learning, teaching, research and administrative and support work. We have all lived through the shutdowns caused by COVID and we are very much aware of how disruptive a sudden and unexpected closure can be. We want to get you back as soon as we can. And first and foremost, we need to know that all the initial testing and required cleaning and re-testing is done so that the buildings are safe and that you will feel safe coming back.

The University is now turning to look at the events that led up to this closure. This process will involve, in part, gathering information from many different sources, including the external firms that worked in the complex. It will take time. I mentioned in my presentation that the University will hold a Town Hall around the time of the re-opening of Macdonald-Stewart. In that forum, we will answer as many of your questions as we can.

Once we firm up an expected date for re-opening, you will receive an invitation to that Town Hall. In the meantime, you can send questions or comments to macbldg.closures [at] mcgill.ca. We will answer questions, if we have the information to do so, and add many to our FAQs. Any questions we cannot answer right away will be added to the list for the Town Hall.

Test results for the Barton building

The EOC has now received results of the dust sampling done via microvac for the Barton building. Out of 50 spaces tested, dust collected in two corridors and one staircase tested positive for asbestos; the other spaces tested showed no traces of asbestos.

Floor plans showing test results:

• Dean Geitmann and I have received several requests to make available the internal working version of the floor plans of Macdonald-Stewart shown on Friday in my presentation, which colour-coded the positive / negative test results. You can now find the official plans from the specialist consulting firm that conducted the testing posted on the web (accessible to anyone at 69ÈÈÊÓƵ with a quick log-in). The version of the plans from Friday’s presentation are available in the video.
• The Macdonald-Stewart floor plans contain some spaces coded neither red (positive tests) or green (negative tests). At the time of testing, these spaces were inaccessible to the firm doing the testing. A plan is now in place to test those areas as quickly as possible.
• Floor plans of the test results in the Barton building have now been posted.

If you haven’t had a chance to look at the information about the testing that was performed and the results, I encourage you to read the February 17 message from Senior Director of Campus Public Safety Pierre Barbarie, scan the FAQs, or watch the video of my presentation.

While I recognize that this is not an easy time for many of you, I also know the community at Mac pulls together. Across our campuses, we have incredible students and employees – whether academic, administrative or support staff – who have (yet again) risen to the challenge of dealing with the unexpected. Thank you for everything you are doing and thank you for your patience. We are committed to getting you back in the buildings safely.

Fabrice

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