Lawyers, senior officials tell different tales

Province now defending itself against an allegation of politically-motivated wrongful dismissal

Who do you believe, the government’s senior officials when, for example, they appear before a legislative committee, or its lawyers when they’re defending the government in court?

In a wrongful dismissal case against the province, the government’s lawyer is telling the court a different story than ministers and deputy ministers have told publicly, to a committee of the legislature, and to civil servants.

In 10 days, the province will defend itself against an allegation of politically-motivated wrongful dismissal. As always in cases against the province, the attorney general is the defendant, but in this case the attorney general and Justice Minister Mark Furey has more than a passing interest.

Furey, in his previous job as minister responsible for Service Nova Scotia (SNS) allegedly told SNS Deputy Minister Joanne Munro to “deal with” Cameron MacNeil. Not long after, MacNeil lost his job.

The case dredges up memories of the days when governments filled the civil service with political cronies after settling old political scores. Liberal Premier John Savage put an end to that back in the 1990s, and Tory Premiers John Hamm and Rodney MacDonald, as well as New Democrat Darrell Dexter followed Savage’s lead, intended to “professionalize” Nova Scotia’s civil service.

The facts in the MacNeil case are not much in dispute. What the province does dispute is the motive of the government when it laid off MacNeil. The province argues that his position as a senior executive director at SNS was eliminated in a restructuring and the province had no duty to find him to another job.

But the former minister responsible for the Public Service Commission, now Labour and Advanced Education Minister Labi Kousoulis, said the government has “a moral duty” to find jobs for employees displaced by restructuring and his deputy at the commission, Laura Lee Langley went further:

“Excluded employees (nonunion, like MacNeil) are treated in a similar manner to bargaining unit employees ... This is particularly important in cases where we have restructurings, so employees who are already in place have an opportunity to land (in a new job),” Langley told the legislature’s Human Resources Committee in September 2016, nine months after that consideration was denied to MacNeil.

SNS employees had been assured there would be no layoffs in the restructuring that created a plethora of new, senior jobs. Five new executive director positions were created where there had been three, plus the department added two additional, more senior positions. Some of those jobs were parts of MacNeil’s old job, so there were places for him “to land” and in normal circumstances he would have landed in one of the new jobs.

But these were not normal circumstances.

Among Cameron MacNeil’s government responsibilities was gas price regulation. In fact, he’d helped design the program in 2006, at the direction of the former Conservative government.

In opposition, the Liberals opposed regulation as did Wilson Fuels and MacNeil’s job put him in conflict with that company, where Labi Kousoulis happened to be an executive at the time. It’s a small province, sometimes in more than size.

Upon their election, the Liberals wanted to end regulation and MacNeil provided options, but they didn’t satisfy the Liberals, who wanted lower gas prices without severe price fluctuations. Neither MacNeil, nor anyone since, could guarantee that outcome and gas prices remain regulated.

Another event confirmed for MacNeil that he was targeted for removal by the Liberal government. As a long serving, career public servant, he was well-known and highly-regarded. In government’s senior ranks it was common knowledge that he’d been laid off, but that’s all that was known.

Five months after he was let go, MacNeil got a call from the office of another senior deputy minister about a job opportunity, and a meeting was arranged for the following week. By the time of the meeting, the opportunity had disappeared, and the deputy minister advised MacNeil to look for work outside Nova Scotia. Sometime between the phone call and the meeting, that deputy had gotten the message, and it was now clear to MacNeil, too.

Cameron MacNeil’s story is a cautionary tale for Nova Scotia civil servants who think their deputy ministers have their backs, like they’re supposed to, in cases of political interference. The provincial Civil Service Act protects employees from political retribution, but the act doesn’t work unless deputy ministers can locate their spines.

The law will determine the outcome of this case, but in the court of public opinion my money is on Cameron MacNeil.

Cameron MacNeil’s story is a cautionary tale for Nova Scotia civil servants who think their deputy ministers have their backs, like they’re supposed to, in cases of political interference.