No Alarm Bells?

It must be horribly unsettling, to say the least, to receive hatefully abusive messages in an anonymous manner through email at one's place of employment. Messages that those in administrative control claim cannot be traced. So that the sender remains anonymous. While the receiver of those odious messages remains a victim without recourse to justice.

Perhaps it is not all that surprising that such an occurrence takes place in a government department. But it most certainly is horribly disappointing.

To be characterized in an email as a typical 'blood-sucking Jew', with a message to the employer that the employee must be discharged or the email sender "will make her go slowly and painfully! It's your choice!!!" is the stuff of which nightmares are made.

But it happened to a woman occupying a middling-echelon position in the public service, on a secondment from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade to Passport Canada, where she would lead an important project.

It seemed clear enough to the victim, the woman who was a convert to Judaism, and practised a devout, Orthodox type of Judaism, that only someone with direct knowledge of a personal kind could have written the emails in question. And that person would have to be someone working within the Passport Canada agency who obviously took exception to her presence and took it upon themselves to anonymously declare their deep anti-Semitic pathology.

Her direct supervisors were unhelpful when she approached for assistance, recommending that she report her concerns to the police. Which seems typical enough for the usual Ottawa bureaucrats disinterested in having their lives complicated and who would far prefer to let things slide than being burdened with yet another problem. But this woman's problems went beyond the troubling emails.

The employee, Valery LaBranche, as an observant Jew, was entitled to time off for Jewish holy days and early Friday leave for the Sabbath, as long as she accumulated time to be set aside for that purpose. This is actually a legal requirement for government under its collective agreement, for an employee's religious obligations for time off, as long as the work hours are 'repaid'. It would appear that Mrs. LaBranche's leaves, while legal, were noted and resented.

To the extent that when a new administrative assistant was brought in, she took it upon herself to question Mrs. LaBranche's right to take her religious holidays, or take early leave from the office on Fridays. The formerly casual arrangement suddenly took on formal dimensions with the insistence of the administrative assistant that application forms be completed before continuing leaves could be countenanced.

Moreover, the assistant took it upon herself as well to inform Mrs. LaBranche that those with whom she worked looked askance at her deliberate isolation from her co-workers; that she was expected to participate in "dress-down Fridays", and to bring herself along to restaurant outings. And when Mrs. LaBranche complained about this subordinate's presumptuous behaviour her supervisor held her, not the administrative assistant to account.

It transpired that the emails attacking Mrs. LaBranche were immune to tracking despite investigations by the RCMP, CSIS and Foreign Affairs itself. The affair was brought before an adjudicator who expressed her opinion that "The grievor (LaBranche) was left with the impression that the agency was more concerned with protecting its reputation than with her well-being."

Mrs. LaBranche is seeking damages for pain and suffering along with other costs, and a clear admission by government that her rights had been violated. The adjudicator's ruling affirmed the belief that Mrs. LaBranche deserved compensation, giving the two sides 3 months to reach an agreement on compensation. Mrs. LaBranche's secondment to the Passport Canada bureau was ended, despite her wish to continue in the post.

"The severance of the grievor's employment after receiving anonymous correspondence was not only another indication that the employer condoned the discrimination, but it was the culminating event of its discriminatory behaviour", according to the adjudicator. And here, we rest under the delusion that this kind of situation does not occur in the Canadian public service.

So much for tolerance, diversity and a pluralist, accepting society.