CSIS had officer investigated after she alleged rape

VANCOUVER — A CSIS officer’s allegations that she was raped repeatedly by a superior in agency vehicles set off a harassment inquiry, but also triggered an investigation into her that concluded the alleged attacks were a “misuse” of agency vehicles by the woman.

The woman is the same officer whose sexual assault allegations in a story published by the Canadian Press prompted public pledges of reform last year from David Vigneault, the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

The officer said she was never told she was the subject of an investigation, or that it concluded she committed misconduct by using “service equipment” to conduct what the investigator’s report said was a “romantic relationship with a colleague.”

The woman said she believed the investigation was a reprisal for her rape complaint, and she only found out about the probe this year, 10 months after its conclusion, when she made an access-to-information request for her personal information held by the service.

She said she “absolutely was not” in a consenting relationship with the other officer.

The five-page “management report” by an outside party, which the officer provided to the Canadian Press, says they were retained by CSIS on Nov. 18, 2021, to investigate “allegations of misconduct against” the woman.

That was eight days after she had formally complained to CSIS that she was raped nine times by an officer decades older than her, who had been assigned to mentor her on surveillance missions as her “road coach.”

The woman cannot be named because of a law banning identification of covert officers, but she is called “Jane Doe” in a lawsuit against the government.

The Canadian Press first outlined her allegations last November.

She and another surveillance officer in the CSIS British Columbia office said they were both sexually assaulted in service vehicles by the same senior officer while on missions between July 2019 and spring 2021. Jane Doe said that on one occasion, a mission failed because her coach broke off surveillance of a target to drive to a parking garage to rape her.

“This report is such an incredible violation,” Jane Doe said of the investigation into her.

She called the management report “the exact definition of a reprisal,” which she told an investigator in 2022 was her fear when she delayed reporting the allegations. At the time, she said she believed she was being interviewed as part of an investigation into her alleged attacker, not herself.

Jane Doe said her complaint was the only reason CSIS became aware of her own alleged misconduct.

“What would I have to gain from making up a fake complaint to draw attention to myself and all of the code-ofconduct things that I apparently breached?” she asked.

“It doesn’t make any sense, so the fact that that report is allowed to even exist shows that I didn’t have a fighting chance in hell,” she said of her attempts to get justice for her complaint.

Jane Doe said she was told by a federal labour relations officer that she was not informed about the report because she was on leave when it was handed down and CSIS believed she should be focused on her well-being.

An email from the labour officer on Tuesday, which Jane Doe shared with the Canadian Press, says the report was not “intentionally hidden.”

Jane Doe is currently on long-term disability leave, due to being diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder.

Asked about the investigation into the woman, CSIS spokesman Eric Balsam said in a statement: “Immediately upon learning of the allegations of inappropriate workplace behaviour, CSIS launched a third-party investigation without delay.”

He said that in situations where “harassment, discrimination or misconduct” had been found to have occurred, disciplinary action “up to the termination of employment” would be decided by a discipline committee.

When asked to confirm that the rape complainant had herself been investigated, Balsam said “the situation is complex and sensitive” and “it would be inappropriate for CSIS to comment further on specific labour relations issues.”

Matt Malone, an assistant law professor at Thomson Rivers University who has handled hundreds of complaints as a workplace investigator, said Jane Doe’s treatment was “mindboggling.”

Making a workplace harassment complaint is a “protected activity,” Malone said.