Category: FBEC

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CHRC FBEC Proof

Tales from the Plantation #4

Burden of proof should be on those accused of discrimination not their accusers

Currently, people who file union grievances against their managers or make complaints of discrimination to organizations like the Canadian Human Rights Commission, alleging discrimination based on race, must prove two things: that discrimination happened and that it was based on race. This is almost impossible to do as most organizations require proof similar to that of the Human Rights Legal Support Centre (HRLSC). The HRLSC is an independent agency, funded by the Government of Ontario, to provide legal services to individuals who have experienced discrimination. Its website states:

“To prove discrimination, you must show that there is a connection…between negative treatment that you experienced and one of the personal characteristics (or prohibited grounds of discrimination) listed in the the [Human Rights] Code.

Put another way, to prove discrimination, you need to show…that you were subjected to negative treatment because of your gender, place of origin, family status or any one of the Code-protected personal characteristics.”

Meeting these requirements is next to impossible because, by definition, discrimination means someone doing something to you that they’re not doing to others. How do you prove they’re not doing it to others and that the difference is based on race?

One obvious way to get an answer to the first question in the workplace would be to ask your colleagues if they’re treated the same way. That works for very visible things like telework. For things like that, you don’t even have to ask as, if your manager denies your telework request, it’s pretty easy to see if she approved others’ requests because they’re not around. However, less visible types of discrimination are harder to deal with.

I had such an example recently where my boss called a meeting to engage in what I label “hyper critique”. Hyper critique is when a manager rarely, if ever, praises an employee’s work, but critiques it, most often in private meetings. Hyper critique is a common complaint of our Federal Black Employee Caucus members.

Proving whether my boss hyper critiques my colleagues is challenging. I could ask them, but most people are, understandably, reluctant to admit if they are subject to such things. They’re also often reluctant to admit if they’re not subject to such things as they may see that as admission that they’re getting preferential treatment.

So what can you do? Right now, not much. That’s why I recommend we push the public service to do three things:

  1. Shift the burden of proof to those accused of discrimination instead of their accusers; require the accused to prove that they’re not discriminating.
  2. Until the burden of proof is shifted from accuser to the accused, create a discrimination investigator function staffed with someone given the power to investigate claims of discrimination, including being able to mandate colleagues to reveal, in anonymous interviews, if they have been subject to the same treatment.
  3. Start collecting race-based data on who managers sanction.

People who are being harassed and discriminated against have enough to deal with. Let’s take one thing off their plate.

Note: The opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Federal Black Employee Caucus. To contact an FBEC spokesperson use the Contact Us page on FBEC’s website.

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#TFTP #wetoo 613-819 Black Hub FBEC Government of Canada Plantation tales

Tales from the Plantation #2

When I left off my story in Tales from the Plantation #1, the formal work action plan, and the manager who had imposed it on me, were both gone and I was back working in the buildings from which I had been banned, as if nothing had happened.

I worked like this for months, feeling a bit like Keanu Reeves’ character Mr. Anderson from The Matrix. All my colleagues seemed unaware that we worked in a place that bans people from buildings for asking questions.

In the summer, I asked for the opportunity to work with an organization outside the government on interchange. Most interchanges are for one year and the organization you go to pays your salary. Interchanges are one of the many privileges, like french training, travel and acting opportunities, that me and other Black employees would often see our white colleagues get but would rarely get ourselves. I asked to go for a two year interchange, paid entirely by ECCC, and they agreed.

I started on interchange with the Federation of Black Canadians (FBC) in January 2019. Around my third day, I was forwarded an email from an FBC steering committee member, who had decided to resign, who described problems with the organization in terms of lack of competency, transparency, accountability – and even basic humanity among steering committee members. I was shocked, as I had chosen to go on interchange with FBC because everything I knew about it, before receiving this person’s email, was great. They had co-organized the inaugural National Black Canadians Summit, in Toronto in December 2017, with the Michaelle Jean Foundation and their leader was Judge Donald McLeod who had a fairy tale back story having overcome the adversities of growing up in Toronto’s Regent Park to become a lawyer then a judge.

However, shortly after starting with the FBC, I saw examples of every issue the departing steering committee raised – and more. Like I had done at ECCC, I questioned behaviour that I felt demonstrated a lack of transparency, competence and connection to community concerns. On May 27, the FBC terminated my interchange. In their email to my department announcing my termination, the FBC made 10 allegations against me including that I had “physically threatened my direct report” at the FBC, a completely false claim.

My ECCC manager at the time responded to the termination of my interchange by launching an investigation – against me. She hired a consultant who used to work at Correctional Services Canada and the Canadian Border Services Agency and whose LinkedIn profile showed no evidence of any investigative experience. After a five month investigation, during which he interviewed only me and my two FBC accusers, he found all 10 allegations “founded”.

I am currently in the process of suing the investigator for libel in small claims court and the manager who launched the investigation has since left the department.

In February 2019, I also filed a complaint against ECCC with the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC). I was reluctant to do this as I saw the CHRC as being quite ineffective in dealing with race-based complaints. (I’m old enough to remember what happened to whistle blower Shiv Chopra.) However, a friend convinced me, saying that it was important to get such complaints on record as one measure of the magnitude of the problem. So, I filed.

At first, the Commission acted as expected and sent me a letter saying they would not deal with my complaint. As the letter they sent was missing a page, they sent another one that had a glaring contradiction. In one paragraph, it said the Commission would not deal with my complaint because I hadn’t exhausted my departmental harassment process then, right below, there was a paragraph explaining how I had exhausted my departmental harassment process. I responded with a letter saying that I was co-founder of the Federal Black Employee Caucus, that I felt the CHRC was useless, and that them sending me an incomplete letter, followed by one with a glaring contradiction, showed that, not only are they not paying attention to detail, they’re definitely not paying attention to larger things like systemic discrimination and anti-Black racism. Two weeks later, they sent me a letter saying they would deal with my complaint.

Things moved quickly at first, with us getting through the mediation phase to the investigation phase in mere months (mediation failed). However, I have been informed that, having completed its investigation, the Commission is now deciding whether to dismiss my complaint or refer it to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal and that this will take…two years. This, once again, renders the Commission useless to the many people who are suffering horrific harassment daily.

So what can people do? We’ll look at that more closely in TFTP #3.

For more on the Federation of Black Canadians, see Desmond Cole’s blog posts:

Black Tea—the truth about the Federation of Black Canadians

Steeped Tea—An update on the Federation of Black Canadians

Justice Donald McLeod resigns as chair of the Federation of Black Canadians—again

Note: The opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Federal Black Employee Caucus. To contact an FBEC spokesperson use the Contact Us page on FBEC’s website.

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#TFTP #wetoo FBEC Government of Canada Plantation tales Public service

Tales from the Plantation #1

Some Black employees of the Canadian federal government, including me, refer to our workplaces as “the plantation”. We don’t do this because we’re in chains, being underpaid and over-whipped. We do this because the treatment that many of us face is based on systemic anti-Black racism just like slavery was in Canada. Here is my story.

I am an African-Canadian man who has worked for the federal government for over 20 years, the last 11 with Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) Communications. I have also lived with depression for most of my adult life and for all 11 years that I have worked with ECCC. During those 11 years I got used to seeing my white colleagues, sometimes junior ones, being given privileges that I was denied. I didn’t question it because, like most depressed people, I didn’t think very much of myself, or my work, so I thought it was because my work wasn’t good enough. This is despite the fact that I had consistently good performance reviews.

However, about three years ago, I learned to manage my depression in a way that allowed me to start doing things I had never done before, including questioning my treatment at work.

In early 2018, I questioned one of my managers on her decision to give an acting position to one of my white, junior colleagues, who had been with us for three months, without even offering it to me who was the senior team member. Her response was to suddenly say that my work wasn’t meeting expectations, despite my consistently good performance reviews, and to immediately impose a formal work action plan on me. Action plans are normally the last resort after many efforts to help employees deal with performance issues. Action plans are also required before firing someone.

In response to my manager imposing the action plan, I filed a union grievance against her citing anti-Black racism and the impact of her actions on my depression, the symptoms of which had begun to return.

The day after filing my grievance, my manager accused me of “several aggressive incidents in the last two weeks”, a completely unfounded claim, and said they were “concerned for my health and safety and the health and safety of my colleagues”. She then ordered me to have a medical exam to prove I was fit for work, despite the fact that I had returned to work 10 days earlier, cleared by my doctor, from stress leave I had taken due to the treatment I was experiencing.

My union representative, who was at the meeting, told me that I had no choice but to do another medical exam, and leave immediately, or my bosses would have me escorted out by security. I left immediately and was off work for about a month. During that time, my manager, without informing me, and with the support of the director general, had me officially banned from all ECCC buildings and circulated the poster below to all ECCC security guards.

It says, “Access revoked by order of XXX. As of today, March 16, 2018, Robin no longer has access to any Environment and Climate Change Canada buildings. If Robin Browne presents himself at reception of [any ECCC building], ask him professionally for his access card and to leave the building. If Mr. Browne refuses to cooperate, please contact a security officer immediately at 819-918-8903. Don’t hesitate to call 911 if ever Robin shows signs of violence.”

I got what I now call my “mugshot”, through Access to Information. I also contacted my Member of Parliament and Environment Minister Catherine McKenna’s office and told them everything that had happened. I told them that since Prime Minister Trudeau had recently become the first Prime Minister to acknowledge systemic discrimination and anti-Black racism exist in Canada, including citing the lack of support for Black people with mental health issues, banning Black guys with depression from ECCC buildings, on false pretenses, was pretty bad optics.

A few weeks later my formal work action plan, and the manager who had imposed it, were gone and I was back working in the buildings from which I had been banned, as if nothing had happened.

There is more to tell, but that will come in later posts. Let me end this one by saying that I have continued to question discriminatory treatment of myself and my colleagues and the response like I describe above has continued non-stop. Let me also say that I am co-founder of the Federal Black Employee Caucus (FBEC) currently organizing to help the government fulfill the Prime Minister’s commitments and the attendance, and stories shared, at our meetings clearly show my story is disturbingly common in the federal public service.  I co-founded FBEC in December 2017, just months before the non-stop harassment began.

But maybe it’s just a coincidence…

Note: The opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Federal Black Employee Caucus. To contact an FBEC spokesperson use the Contact Us page on FBEC’s website.

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FBEC Self-advocacy Unions

Tales from the Plantation #3

When I tell people my stories captured in TFTP 1&2 they’re always shocked and often say, “Oh, I’m so sorry you’re going through this!”

Whenever someone says that, I always think it would be like saying it to the students who helped launch the US civil rights movement, violating Jim Crow laws by simply asking to be served at a restaurant. Despite being screamed at, hit and doused in hot coffee, I’m pretty sure those students would have responded the same way I do: “No need to feel sorry for me. This is the price of change.” Every successful social movement needs a steady stream of people willing to challenge the system head on to draw it out in the open. This is even more true in Canada in 2020 where we are fighting anti-Black racism and white supremacy cloaked in myths of how “Canadians are all so polite”. Most Canadians are polite – until someone or something threatens their real, or perceived, power or privilege – then we see Mr. or Ms. Hyde emerge in all sorts of colors.

But I’m not encouraging martydom. Hell no. We need you to stay alive, healthy and in the fight. However, the established channels for fighting back in the federal public service – talking with one’s manager, or filing departmental harassment complaints or union grievances are, for the moment, very limited in their effectiveness. Therefore, here are the some things I’ve used to fight back:

  1. Access to Information and Privacy requests – as I said in TFTP#1, I got my mugshot via Access to Information (ATIP) and have gotten other invaluable evidence of discrimination that way. ATIP is cheap and fast. All you need do is go on the ATIP site and pay $5 for a request for general documents. If you’re looking for things specifically about you, you can make a privacy request on the same site for free.
  2. The Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) – As I said in TFTP#2, I filed a complaint against Environment and Climate Change Canada with the CHRC. In the early stages, the Commission did something that no one else had, up to that point: they asked my manager for explanations of the things in my story. Although my complaint is now stuck for the next two years awaiting a decision, it still has impact. No department wants to be seen to be violating people’s Charter rights. Also, should the Commission refer your case to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal then, win or lose, the entire version of your story gets posted on the internet. It’s kind of like having your day in court – then having them post the entire transcript online. #exposed
  3. Small claims court – also in TFTP#2, I said I was suing the investigator my former manager hired, for libel, in small claims court. Like ATIP, small claims court is cheap, compared to regular court. It has cost me about $500 so far and the next step is a “settlement conference” at which I’ll get to plead my case before a judge, with me as the plaintiff and the white guy I’m suing as the defendant. This is powerful because, systemic discrimination requires chains of people to support actions that protect the system and, therefore, their own power and privilege. As public servants, we don’t have the right to sue any of our public servant managers in the chain but we can sue 3rd-party contractors. As word spreads that Black people are suing 3rd-party contractors who participate in discriminating against them, that weakens the chain.

None of the established processes for fighting back have led to anyone being held accountable for anything they’ve done to me or to any Federal Black Employee Caucus member as far as I’m aware. The methods above have.

The unions, in which I always had great faith, until now, have done almost nothing for me or any FBEC member I know. This is due to a number of factors:

  1. The union reps have little training dealing with anti-Black racism.
  2. The union reps have massive workloads and are told to prioritize cases where people are facing imminent termination, and sexual harassment cases.
  3. Union reps recommend solutions involving “3rd-party” mediators that aren’t 3rd party. In my case, that was ECCC’s former Office of Conflict Management (OCM) that my union rep said was supposed to act as an unbiased mediator between employee and employer. After finding the OCM process painfully slow, I did some checking and learned that the OCM was, in fact, run by Labour Relations that also represents management. I guess that’s why they called it the Office of Conflict Management and not the Office of Conflict Resolution.

FBEC is working with the union management to get the unions to do their jobs but, in the meantime, people need tools that work, so please share this post.

Note: The opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Federal Black Employee Caucus. To contact an FBEC spokesperson use the Contact Us page on FBEC’s website.

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FBEC

Shining the light…

This blog is about the same stuff sister El Jones talks about in her poem Canada is so polite. It’s about dispelling the simplistic, “US bad/Canada good” myth, exposing systemic discrimination and anti-Black racism in Canada – and showing how Black folks are organizing against them – and making Canada greater in the process.

I will use these pages to back up sister El’s words by blogging about my experience as a Black employee of Canada’s federal public service and co-founder of the Federal Black Employee Caucus. (My opinions are my own and are not the official, or unofficial, opinion of FBEC.)