Senior officials knew over a year ago about toxic environment in military ombudsman’s office
Military Ombudsman Pierre Daigle has acknowledged making jokes of a sexist nature, but has not apologized.
Photograph by: CHRIS WATTIE, REUTERS
Senior Defence Department officials knew more than a year ago about complaints that the work environment at the Canadian Forces ombudsman’s office had turned toxic, including the telling of jokes belittling women and the departure of key staff, but their investigators concluded nothing wrong had taken place.
DND’s Deputy Minister Robert Fonberg was informed by letter on Feb. 17, 2011 by a former employee of the ombudsman’s office about the “toxic, unhealthy and unhappy environment,” the high turnover in staff and stalled investigations into soldiers’ complaints.
“Treatment we should strongly criticize in others is common practice in our office,” warned Suzanne Belson, a former senior investigator in the office.
Belson, who had served as Concordia University’s ombudsman for 22 years, also noted that the ombudsman, Pierre Daigle, “has made outrageous sexist ‘jokes’ ” and she recommended a “speedy, independent, credible and comprehensive workplace assessment” before the situation deteriorated further.
Daigle has since acknowledged making the jokes but has not apologized. At one point, he told a group of female and male staff that women couldn’t be trusted because they menstruate. At a staff meeting, Daigle told a joke about sperm and lawyers. Employees were upset; with some viewing the joke as directed at the only lawyer in the room, a woman.
In an email to the Citizen, the Defence Department now acknowledges it knew about the situation more than a year ago and conducted an initial assessment of the ombudsman’s office in March 2011, followed by an investigation in April of that same year.
Defence Minister Peter MacKay ordered those investigations after he became aware of the situation in early 2011, his office says.
Investigators were told about ongoing problems by a number of former and current employees, including details about the jokes made by Daigle.
“The investigation found no evidence of ‘wrongdoing’ as defined under the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act,” a DND email to the Citizen stated.
In the fall of 2011, DND decided it would launch a workplace assessment into the ombudsman’s office but that did not take place.
It was only after the Citizen recently published a series of articles about the alleged problems that DND went ahead and signed a contract to conduct an independent assessment of the situation. But Belson questions why the process has taken so long when the situation is so serious.
“If they care about their people then damn right they should have acted faster,” she said in an interview. “They should have done this in a month.”
“I’m feeling quite cynical at this point,” Belson added when asked whether she expected any changes in the ombudsman’s office.
Jay Paxton, a spokesman for MacKay, noted that the investigation into the matter was not finalized until February of this year and details for the contract had to be put in place before the workplace assessment could begin.
The contractor has up to four months to complete the assessment and provide findings to DND officials, according to the DND email. It is unclear what, if anything, will happen after that. DND has declined further comment.
But Paxton added that “the Canadian Forces deserve an ombudsman that represents their interests and our government will not hesitate to take further action, if required.”
On May 17, the Citizen published an article outlining the various allegations about the office. The article also contained interviews with two former soldiers who filed complaints to the ombudsman’s office five years ago, which still haven’t been finalized. They say they don’t trust Daigle to get to the bottom of their concerns, accusing him of stalling their complaints because those were made against a senior officer.
The next day, the Citizen revealed Daigle travelled to Geneva in February with his executive assistant and her sister, charging taxpayers a little more than $16,500 to attend a two-day planning meeting in Switzerland. At the time, the sister was a casual employee in the ombudsman’s office, a contract worker who had been hired for 90 days.
The same day that Citizen article appeared, the Defence Department signed a contract for the workplace assessment that was originally recommended in the fall of 2011.
Belson and other former and current employees of the ombudsman’s office blame the ongoing problems on Daigle, a former major-general appointed ombudsman in February 2009.
Daigle, however, has vigorously defended his tenure and intends to continue on in his role as ombudsman.
Belson said she is surprised that he continues in the job, particularly since he admitted to making inappropriate jokes about women.
“When you’re in a position like he is, where you are supposed to be upholding fairness, where you might certainly get involved in complaints about discrimination, where you should be respecting your staff, that kind of joke just completely destroys everything,” she said. “It’s not a joke at all. It may well reflect how he thinks and if that is the case he shouldn’t be in the job at all.”
Since Daigle’s arrival, almost half of his investigators have left, causing a backlog in cases being investigated, say former and current staff. Among those who have left include key personnel — a director general of operations, two directors of investigations, the general counsel and the director of human resources. A number of employees in the 55-member office have also taken leave for stress-related reasons.
The ombudsman’s office acknowledges there has been a 50-per-cent turnover in staff, but Daigle says that was because he restructured the office for the better.
“Change is not always uniformly welcomed within an organization and we always understood that, unfortunately, some employees would be unhappy and choose to leave,” Daigle said in a statement addressing the Citizen articles. “Others may not have the capacity to learn, change and develop as the organization needs them to.”
He also defended his decision earlier this year to spend the money on the trip to Switzerland, noting that it was to plan an international conference. The expenses were kept to a minimum and the staff selected to accompany him were the ones involved in the conference, Daigle noted.
Daigle said his No. 1 priority “is always to provide the best possible service to the men and women of the Canadian Forces, civilian employees of National Defence and military families.”
He also said his office had handled more than 1,900 individual cases and complaints over the past year. It is also completing several follow-up systemic investigations, including one regarding the issue of post-traumatic stress disorder.
dpugliese@ottawacitizen.com
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