Ombudsman’s office target of complaint
Former employee says poster about ‘slave’ auction was ‘slap in the face’
The Office of the Ontario Ombudsman, which investigates public complaints about provincial government services, is facing allegations of discrimination from a former employee.
In an interim decision dated Nov. 13, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario dismissed two complaints against Ombudsman André Marin’s office, but agreed to hear a third complaint filed last year by former receptionist Edwige Jean-Pierre.
Jean-Pierre, a black woman of Haitian and Congolese descent, was born and raised in Ottawa and is a graduate of the University of Ottawa. Now a resident of Toronto, she is also an actor and playwright of some repute.
In her complaint to the tribunal, Jean-Pierre alleged two primary incidents of discrimination.
In one incident, she said an assistant manager in the ombudsman’s office announced he was going on a cruise in January 2010 and allegedly said he was making “a pit stop in Haiti … but not where all that cholera stuff is going on.”
The tribunal dismissed that complaint, saying “a mere statement that one is not going to the parts of Haiti where there is cholera raises no connection to a (Human Rights) Code ground.” But it agreed to hear evidence about the second incident, which occurred in June 2012.
A co-worker emailed a poster to office staff soliciting participation in fundraising for the annual Run for the Cure cancer event. It provided examples of services employees could auction, including being “slave for a day.” The poster graphic showed several Caucasian men clutching and waving what appeared to be dollar bills.
‘Why anyone would take offense is BEYOND ME ... Why don’t we all chill out, stop acting all paranoid, and stop thinking people are out to get you … And if this email makes you even more mad and offended, TOO BAD!!!!’
OFFICE EMAIL MESSAGE Cited by Edwige Jean-Pierre in her discrimination complaint
The poster felt like “a slap in the face,” Jean-Pierre told the Citizen on Friday. “Of course, being from the African diaspora, I found it really offensive.”
She said the incident was “the straw that broke the camel’s back” after two years in what she called a “toxic environment.”
After another black employee complained, the phrase was changed to “gopher for a day.” The new poster was left at Jean-Pierre’s desk, which she said reminded her of “the systemic discrimination that’s being practised in the office.”
“I had to see that poster every day, constantly being reminded of how I’m being treated and how other minorities are being treated at the office,” she said. “Obviously they knew it was bad because they changed it, but there was no apology for it.”
Several weeks later, the same coworker who sent out the poster circulated another email, which discussed starting bids for the auction and commented on the reaction to the earlier email.
“Why anyone would take offense is BEYOND ME and if you can’t see that, then you clearly have ISSUES,” it said. “Why don’t we all chill out, stop acting all paranoid, and stop thinking people are out to get you And if this email makes you even more mad and offended, TOO BAD!!!!”
In its interim decision, the tribunal said the first email, taken at face value, “contained potentially discriminatory language, and in fact was recalled and amended to exclude the ‘slave for a day’ phrase.”
Given the tone of the followup email, “the tribunal will need to hear evidence about the circumstances under which it was sent, the reasons for sending it and the impact on the persons hearing it,” the interim decision says.
A spokesperson for the ombudsman’s office, Ashley Bursey, responded to the complaint late Friday, saying that “our position is that the complaint has absolutely no basis and we will be contesting it fully.”
Jean-Pierre also complained that the ombudsman’s office took reprisals against her, alleging that her short-term disability benefits were terminated because she raised the human rights claim.
Her employer cut off Jean-Pierre’s sick leave because it was unsatisfied with a doctor’s note explaining that she could not return to work due to a medical condition. She was discharged from her job on Dec. 19, 2012.
The tribunal dismissed the reprisal complaint, saying it had no reasonable prospect of success and it was “mere speculation” that the termination of her benefits “had anything at all to do” with her complaint to the tribunal.