Report uncovers ‘bullying, favouritism’ at CSIS
Five officers, analysts who filed a $35M lawsuit against spy agency say they feel vindicated by the findings
The director of Canada’s spy service publicly acknowledged Wednesday that his agency suffers from a workplace climate of “retribution, favouritism, bullying and other problems,” which he said is “categorically unacceptable in a high-functioning, professional organization.”
David Vigneault’s statement was accompanied by an executive summary of a “workplace climate assessment” conducted at the Toronto office of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, which uncovered low morale and a possible exo- dus of employees who said they felt “disillusioned and disheartened.”
One employee described the Toronto office as “the region progress forgot.”
The report’s findings were specific to Toronto, but Vigneault said in his statement that information gathered in the assessment would benefit the entire service of more than 3,000 employees, with its headquarters in Ottawa.
“Only by putting these kinds of issues on the table, and dealing with them directly, will the Service be able to continue to evolve as a strong, mission focused, and unified organization,” Vigneault wrote.
The five intelligence officers and analysts who launched a $35-million lawsuit against CSIS this summer said they felt “vindicated” by the report’s findings and the director’s statement.
“It took our group to come forward, at great personal cost, to finally get CSIS to admit that the organization is rife with harassment, discrimination and bullying. The place was toxic, and they have finally admitted it after years of denial,” wrote “Alex,” one of the complainants in the lawsuit, in an email to the Star.
Alex alleged that he had faced years of homophobic harassment as an intelligence officer, including offensive emails sent by managers. One allegedly read: “Careful your Muslim inlaws don’t behead you in your sleep for being homo.”
“Bahira,” a Muslim intelligence officer who had worked in Canada and abroad, thanked her Toronto colleagues for their candour and risking “the wrath of their senior management” in participating in the assessment. She also praised Vigneault for his transparency at what has traditionally been one of Canada’s most secretive organizations.
“For 15 years as I was working to advance national security investigations, I was also fighting racism and bigotry. Today, I feel somewhat vindicated. I believe CSIS needs a workforce that is strong, engaged, and diverse at all levels. Canadians deserve that,” she wrote Wednesday in an email to the Star.
“We have been harassed and bullied and beaten down for so long while CSIS managers denied that was a problem, that it is hard to believe that CSIS is finally admitting the truth. I hope it means that real change is possible, but I’m cynical now. I know too much about the organization to trust that anything will be done.”
In an interview last month with the Star, both Alex and Bahira said they had suffered by the stress of publicly confronting their employer, but felt they had no other choice.
In both court documents and during the interview last month, they used pseudonyms, since under Canada’s Security of Information Act, identifying a spy can be considered an offence. All five of the complainants are still CSIS employees, but are on medical leave.
Alex had launched an internal complaint last year before taking a leave, which resulted in a third-party investigation and report. According to their statement of claim, that report found CSIS had an “old boys’ culture” and noted a general fear of managers’ “reprisals, retribution and punishment.”
But Alex said the findings went nowhere and he alleges his career suffered, forcing him to take a stress leave and seek legal action.
Although the lawsuit, first reported by the Star, wasn’t filed until July, lawyer John Phillips said the government had been aware of the allegations of his five clients for months.
This latest workplace assessment at the Toronto office was conducted in April and June and about 30 per cent of the staff participated. It includes testimony from intelligence officers, non-intelligence officers and managers.
Other findings in the workplace assessment include:
“Frequent rotation of positions does not allow people to get a good handle on the files and managers have no time to make their mark or recover from their mistakes.”
“The culture of the organization is described as one where you are harshly blamed for mistakes and penalized; you do what you are told.”
“(S)ome pockets where jokes and discriminatory comments are still being made with regards to ethnicity and communities being monitored. There is still some bias against women and a general lack of thoughtfulness toward cultural differences and sensitivities.”
Weekly drinking sessions of “the in-group,” either at the office or a nearby pub where “decisions — often staffing decisions — were made.”
“Decisions regarding advancement are solely based on relationships and not competencies or experience. Reputations and relationships are therefore everything, but at the same time very fragile.”
In describing a history of an “old boys’ club” climate, those interviewed spoke of behaviours that “included yelling, swearing, disrespectful, demeaning, misogynistic, offensive and inappropriate comments and jokes about employees from oth- er employees but also managers.”
The report did not address any of the specific allegations of the five employees suing CSIS. Those have not been proven in court.
As the Star reported Tuesday, a federal judge slammed the Department of Justice for not responding faster to the claim.
“(T)here is a course of action to be followed and you are no different from any other parties in Canada,” Justice Simon Noël told government lawyers, according to a transcript of a September teleconference call. “It is not because you are the Attorney General of Canada that you can act as if the rules do no apply. This is not acceptable.”
Noël said the government had until Friday to file a statement of defence.
According to the transcript of the Sept. 13 call with Noël, the government is attempting to “resolve the claim.”