CRA employee fired for improperly using private information

Tribunal upholds termination for bid to influence real estate transaction

A federal tribunal has upheld the firing of a Canada Revenue Agency employee who used the tax department’s computer database — and her identity card — to leverage a better price on a real estate deal.

Micheline Bétournay was terminated from the tax agency in October 2015 based on an internal investigation that found she tried to “intimidate” a home seller during a heated tête-à-tête inside a bathroom.

The internal report said that Bétournay, during negotiations to buy a home in Laval, Que., met with seller Hugo Girard-Beauchamp, the owner of a home finance company. He had foreclosed on the home and listed it for sale at $279,000. Bétourney had struck a deal to buy it for $260,000, pending an inspection.

The home inspection, however, uncovered a series of problems with the house and Bétournay wanted the agreed-upon sale price dropped to $220,000.

At a meeting in late January 2015 inside the home, Girard-Beauchamp told her he could accept nothing less than $250,000.

Bétournay then invited GirardBeauchamp into the bathroom so that she could speak to him “in private,” and away from her husband and a real estate agent.

As soon as the door was closed, Girard-Beauchamp testified, Bétournay pulled out her CRA identity card and a sheaf of papers related to the structure of his company and public complaints against his business partner.

According to Girard-Beauchamp, Bétournay told him that she understood corporate structures because she worked at the tax agency, and that his firm’s complex design appeared suspicious. She then told him she wanted to buy the house for her daughter for $240,000.

Shocked by the exchange, Girard-Beauchamp stormed out of the bathroom, saying he’d have to discuss the proposal with his partner. He later withdrew from negotiations and lodged a complaint with the CRA.

A subsequent CRA internal affairs investigation found evidence that Bétournay had used the tax agency’s computer database to access 29 business accounts associated with Girard-Beauchamp and his partner.

The agency’s code of ethics strictly prohibits CRA employees from accessing any individual or corporate account that is not part of an assigned tax case.

Bétournay initially denied misusing the database, but when confronted with an audit trail she said she did it only to check on the company’s corporate structure and its shareholders.

In July 2015, she was suspended without pay. As a CRA technical adviser, Bétournay was responsible for assessing whether taxpayers applying for R&D tax credits met the necessary scientific criteria.

She was fired in October 2015 based on the CRA’s conclusion that she posed a “serious and imminent risk” to the security of its tax information.

Bétournay launched a grievance, arguing that she should have been disciplined for the incident, not fired, given her spotless 15-year record of employment with the tax agency.

CRA lawyers, however, told the federal labour relations board that progressive discipline was not appropriate for a case in which an employee had abused her position for personal gain.

She used agency resources initially for research and then as a weapon to negotiate …

Bétournay insisted that she brandished her tax agency ID card simply to establish her position during real estate negotiations, and that she made no threats against Girard-Beauchamp. She told the labour relations board that she asked him to talk in the bathroom as an act of discretion, not intimidation.

The labour relations board, however, concluded that Bétournay abused her position to gain an upper hand in the deal.

“She used agency resources initially for research and then as a weapon to negotiate with Mr. Girard-Beauchamp,” adjudicator Marie-Claire Perrault wrote in a decision released this week.

“At best, no open threats were made, but a threat certainly was made by the simple fact that she mentioned all the research and added that she was an agency employee — as part of a real estate transaction.”

Perrault said the firing was justified, in part, by Bétournay’s stout refusal to acknowledge the seriousness of her misconduct. “I accept that the agency could no longer trust her,” she said.

Bétournay, however, did win three months’ salary because Perrault found her suspension without pay in July 2015 was a disguised form of discipline: She said the CRA should have paid her wages and benefits until she was fired in October 2015.