NPCA sues former employee
Former project manager sent email alleging workplace violence and harassment
Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority is suing a former employee for $164,000 after the woman spoke out in an email about employees being subject to workplace harassment and violence by senior management.
The claims by former NPCA project manager Jocelyn Baker were read into the public record on Sept. 7 by Welland MPP Cindy Forster as part of speech in Ontario legislature blasting the conservation authority.
In its statement of claim, NPCA says that in November 2016 Baker signed an agreement not to “disparage the NPCA verbally, in writing, digitally or in any other form.”
The statement of claim says Baker’s email to Forster violated this agreement, which was signed when NPCA fired Baker “without alleging cause” and paid her $83,964.
In the email as read by Forster, Baker said NPCA is an organization in crisis and that a “culture of harassment and violence continues, most recently verified through an OPSEU survey which I am confident you are aware of.”
“NPCA frontline staff and middle managers continue to work in unsafe and dangerous conditions. This will continue until (Natural Resources Minister Kathyrn) McGarry steps in and stops it. She has the authority; she just needs the gumption. I wrote to her as well.”
In the email Baker, who worked at NPCA from 1994 to 2016, said she “personally experienced and supervised employees who regularly experienced workplace violence, harassment (sexual, gender and family status), unwanted comment, conduct, and behaviour including bullying. All of this behaviour by members of senior management.”
Baker also said while at NPCA she was the complainant for three workplace complaints and a key witness in two other workplace investigations done by the Toronto law firm of Filion Wakely Thorup Angeletti LLP.
“The results of these investigations saw over 96 allegations of violence and harassment whereby 90 per cent were found to be substantiated by fact. I experienced job loss threats, having a case of substantiated reprisal. I have spent thousands of dollars on legal fees and have been fighting to ensure a better workplace culture and environment at the NPCA. Despite all these efforts, my internal fight ended on Nov. 21, 2016, after 23 years of dedicated, expert service,” says the email Forster read. “Harassment and violence at the NPCA is real. I have experienced it; it is continuing. Evil is only perpetuated by those who do nothing.”
In its statement of claim, NPCA says the claims in Baker’s email “are, parenthetically, a complete mischaracterization of the NPCA’s workplace and its managerial employees.”
The statement of claim also says that because Forster read Baker’s email in the legislature, “the defendant’s disparaging comments about the NPCA have been permanently preserved in the public record and broadly promulgated.”
The Standard asked NPCA for a copy of the Filion Wakely Thorup Angeletti report. However, NPCA spokesman Michael Reles said in an email that the 2012 document “is a confidential legal document that can not be shared to protect personal privacy.”
Filion Wakely Thorup Angeletti is the firm that filed that statement of claim for the NPCA.
Reles said the organization had no further comment while the case is before the courts.
Forster did not return a request for an interview Tuesday.
In addition to asking for the $84,000 it paid Baker in 2016, NPCA is seeking $40,000 in general damages because Baker’s statement in Forster’s speech will have “a widespread impact on the NPCA and will continue to affect the NPCA in years to come,” and another $40,000 in punitive damages.
No allegations have been proven in court.
Baker would not comment on the case when contacted by The Standard Tuesday and referred a reporter to her lawyer Barry Adams, who was not immediately available for comment.