Consilient, RIP

Consilient closes its doors:

It received millions of dollars from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and private sources. Last week a major investor — Toronto's the Quorum Group — foreclosed on Consilient, leaving the company unable to pay its employees or its rent. At its peak, it employed more than 40 people.

Consilient was long a darling of the provincial government press release releasers, even getting a walk-on in the 2006 Speech from the Throne.

Apropos of nothing in particular, up to 2006, Consilient had been a very good, um, corporate citizen, donating $7800 to provincial political parties in Newfoundland and Labrador over the course of seven donations.

One of them, $900 in 2001, was even to the provincial Liberal party.

How much rent would that have paid? Oh well; it's all academic now.