An exclusive library

The Vanier College Learning Commons is a library only to be used by students and staff. It is a clarification the director of communications and corporate affairs at the CEGEP, Darren Becker, had to make after the federal MP Emmanuella Lambropoulos said otherwise in a video.

In the bilingual short piece, recorded at the Learning Commons and posted May 17, Lambropoulos promotes a 12-year, $180-billion federal infrastructure funding package for projects across the country.

“For St. Laurent, investments like these translate to places like the Learning Commons here at Vanier, which offers hundreds of new study spaces for students as well as for the community of St. Laurent, since it’s accessible to the public,” declares the young MP.

However, Becker says the Learning Commons, which opened in 2017, is in fact reserved for Vanier students. “This video was posted in good faith by [Lambropoulos]…and contained erroneous information about whether the library was open to the public,” Becker said, adding the college got a few calls from residents about the inaccurate declaration.

After a call to the MP’s chief of staff, the text below the video was corrected, but the video itself remained up a week after the original posting.

Lambroupoulos’ communications director, Claude Bricault, says the video will be edited to fix the error.

Lambropoulos “had the impression that [residents] had access to the library even though they could not borrow books,” said Bricault, describing the error as “a typo.” Although he couldn’t say exactly when the video would be changed, Lambroupoulos’ office will notify the college when it will be done.

“We’re extremely proud of our library, but…there are 9000 of us and it’s already bursting at the seams,” said Becker. “There are great [public] libraries all over the borough.”

Emmanuella Lambropoulos is sorry her video could have misled Saint-Laurent residents.