CPA Ontario fines former KPMG Canada partner $50k over Laurentian University audit

TORONTO, Dec. 7, 2025 – The financial collapse of a northern Ontario university has led to the professional discipline of a former auditor with KPMG Canada. Chartered Professional Accountants of Ontario announced this past week that Laurie Bissonette, a retired partner with KPMG Enterprise in Sudbury, Ontario, reached a settlement agreement in which the CPA would pay a fine of $50k, two-thirds of the costs of the investigation, and could no longer use her fellowship designation (FCPA, FCA).

The collapse of Laurentian University sent shockwaves through the post-secondary sector and led to an investigation by the former auditor general of Ontario. Almost 200 faculty and staff lost their jobs and roughly one thousand students were affected by the sudden closure of programs.

Bissonette was the lead audit partner for Laurentian’s financial statements for the year ending April 30, 2020, just months before the university filed for insolvency. She retired on September 30, 2020. Just months later, on February 1, 2021, Laurentian announced commenced its court proceeding under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA).

Bissonette’s ties to Sudbury ran deep

According to CPA Ontario’s settlement agreement, Bissonette had led the annual audits of Laurentian’s year-end financial statements since 2005, but her ties to the Laurentian and the Sudbury community ran deeper. Bissonette attended Laurentian as a student and, in a donor profile, said that “Laurentian is family to me.”

A scholarship recipient, Bissonette donated to the university, saying “Most of my scholarships have been provided for future accountants and I have had the distinct pleasure of meeting and working with some of the recipients.” She obtained her chartered accountant designation in 1987 and was a partner in KPMG’s Sudbury office from 2005 until her retirement in 2020, and she held a public accounting licence throughout her career.

According to the settlement agreement, Bissonnette “failed to exercise an appropriate level of professional skepticism to reduce the risk of using inappropriate assumptions in determining audit procedures and evaluating the use of the going concern assumption” and “failed to perform her professional services with due care.”

In her Special Report on Laurentian University, former provincial auditor general Bonnie Lysyk pointed out that, for almost a ten-year period, Laurentian’s audit committee did not have a financial expert as its chair. Lysyk would go on to state: "given knowledge of the University’s significant financial struggles and ongoing discussions regarding the possibility of filing for CCAA as early as March 2020, it is alarming that Audit Committee members did not mention anything about including a “going concern” note in the financial statements prepared by Laurentian for the year ended April 30, 2020."

In June 2020, Bissonette was advised via text message that Laurentian was working with the law firm TGF, but “chose not to pursue this information.” TGF stood for Thornton Grout Finnigan LLP, a Toronto-based firm that specialized in insolvency proceedings, and made “made no effort to determine TGF’s retainer mandate.”

KPMG Big Four rival Ernst & Young (EY Canada) was appointed to assess Laurentian’s financial situation, which led to the CCAA filing, after the projection of multi-million dollar shortfall. The university emerged from restructuring in 2022 and is now audited by BDO Canada. Among the mitigating factors listed in the agreement, Bissonette had no prior discipline record with CPA Ontario and was cooperative throughout the Investigation. 

Colin Ellis is a contributing editor to Canadian Accountant. Title image: Toronto office of the Chartered Professional Accountants of Ontario, iStock photo ID:1171623994.