Lapointe raises LifeLabs closure concerns with health minister

Although outside of federal jurisdiction, Sudbury Liberal MP Viviane Lapointe met with Health Minister Marjorie Michel recently to express concern regarding the impending closure of Sudbury’s LifeLabs laboratory.

The laboratory serves the Sudbury region, and its impending closure will put 40 local medical laboratory technologists out of work and mean local samples collected will now be tested in Toronto and Mississauga facilities.

“We know the Ontario Ministry of Health has complete oversight over health laboratories,” Lapointe said in a media release.

“They have jurisdiction over the operating and licensing of labs in Ontario. But LifeLabs’ decision to close the specimen analysis work in Sudbury will have a direct impact on patient care. Delays in receiving test results creates an inequity, where people in Sudbury and Northern Ontario won’t have equal access to care.”

Lapointe also said she’s concerned about the loss of lab technicians’ expertise in the region.

“These technicians have a specialized certification, and they work in a specific field,” she said. “Their opportunities to find new lab processing work in our region is limited. Sudbury has the skilled workforce to do the work that LifeLabs requires.”

Lapointe is pushing for the province to review LifeLabs’ planned closure “to determine LifeLabs’ ability to meet provincial requirements in light of this closure.”

Although LifeLabs has said they’d find “new logistics routes to ensure timely and reliable specimen transportation,” Medical Laboratory Professionals’ Association of Ontario member Jessie Clelland told provincial officials during a 2026 pre-budget consultation session in Sudbury on Thursday that there’s no chance local tests will not be affected.

Between road closures and flight delays, she said the local laboratory’s closure will affect Northern Ontarians and will result in certain tests needing to be re-taken when delays happen.

Lapointe’s comments join a chorus of local support to keep the LifeLabs laboratory open.

Sudbury East—Manitoulin—Nickel Belt Conservative MP Jim Bélanger said “Northern Ontarians deserve timely efficient health care and economic stability” in his statement.

Alongside local NDP MPPs France Gélinas (Nickel Belt) and Jamie West (Sudbury), Mayor Paul Lefebvre urged the province to intervene in order to keep the laboratory open. The local MPPs have been speaking up in Queen’s Park on the matter since mid-December, when they first learned about the impending closure.