An independent consulting firm has completed its review into reports of a toxic environment and workplace harassment at Rideau Hall — and sources briefed on the report say its contents are scathing.
Sources said the negative findings in the report could make it difficult for Julie Payette to remain in her role as Governor General. The Globe and Mail also reports that the review has been completed and is damning in its conclusions.
Sources also have told CBC that Secretary to the Governor General Assunta Di Lorenzo, who has also been accused of harassing employees, recently hired a lawyer.
CBC is not naming the sources as they were not authorized to speak publicly.
The head of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada, Dominic LeBlanc, is overseeing the review and is expected to offer recommendations to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on his response. LeBlanc’s father was the governor general from 1995-1999.
Experts agree that when a government wants a controversial governor general to depart, the most likely approach would be for the prime minister to suggest resignation. If the governor general doesn’t follow through on that suggestion, the prime minister could turn to Buckingham Palace to appoint a replacement.
The Privy Council Office launched the unprecedented third-party review in July in response to a CBC News report featuring a dozen public servants and former employees confidentially claiming Payette had belittled, berated and publicly humiliated Rideau Hall staff. Di Lorenzo, the Governor General’s longtime friend and second-in-command, is also accused of bullying staff.
Payette tweeted two days after that story aired that she was “deeply concerned about the media reports” and she “takes harassment and workplace issues very seriously … I am in full agreement and welcome the independent review.”
As of Jan. 5, Rideau Hall had spent more than $150,000 in public funds on legal representation in response to the toxic workplace allegations, including a former Supreme Court justice for the Governor General and Blakes law firm for the institution.
That sum is larger than the original value of the federal contract that hired Quintet Consulting to conduct the review. The private firm was hired on an $88,325 contract in Sept. 2020.
More than 50 people voluntarily took part in the review. They included current and former staff at Rideau Hall and representatives of other government departments that work closely with the Governor General and her office, such as the RCMP, Global Affairs and the National Capital Commission.
The number of participants grew higher than the government anticipated, causing the review to take longer than originally scheduled.
Quintet’s president, Raphael Szajnfarber, told CBC News yesterday the firm remains “unable to discuss this confidential matter.”
WATCH | The atmosphere at Rideau Hall was tense in November 2020 as review was underway:
The atmosphere at Rideau Hall is tense as an investigation into allegations of workplace harassment continues with more than 50 people being interviewed. The investigation follows claims that Gov. Gen. Julie Payette harassed employees and her second-in-command bullied staff. 1:51
Reports of ‘tantrums’ on foreign trips
Last year, former staffers gave CBC News accounts of Payette throwing “tantrums” in the office and on foreign trips, openly criticizing people’s work to the point where they were reduced to tears, and tossing an employee’s work aside and calling it “shit.” Employees have been seen leaving her office with tears in their eyes or crying in their vehicles.
Sources say Payette is known for dropping “explosions” or “bursts of emotion” on staff at Rideau Hall over the quality of work done in the office.
CBC News has now spoken confidentially to more than 20 public servants with direct knowledge of the workplace climate at Rideau Hall. They spoke on the condition they not be named because they feared they could lose their jobs or their careers could suffer. Many of the sources are still in the public service, while others are former Rideau Hall employees.
One source said Rideau Hall went from being one of the most collegial federal public service workplaces to a “house of horrors,” causing longtime employees to leave in droves.
Payette greets Canadian World War II veteran Bill Anderson, left, at a ceremony at the Beny-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery in Reviers, Normandy, France, in June 2019. Some former employees reported that on some foreign trips Payette threw ‘tantrums’ and was verbally abusive to staff. (David Vincent/The Associated Press)
Five executives left Payette’s office in 2018 within months of each other, the communications department cleared out during the pandemic and Di Lorenzo has had at least four executive assistants leave, according to sources. In the past month, another group of staff members departed.
“She screams and humiliates staff in front of others,” one former employee told CBC News in July 2020. “It’s verbal abuse. In no world is it OK to treat people that way.”
At the beginning of her mandate, sources said, Payette also put staff on the spot by quizzing them about outer space — asking them to name all the planets in the solar system, for example, or to state the distance between the sun and the moon.
In one four-month period, roughly two dozen people reported abusive conduct by Payette or Di Lorenzo to management, according to government sources. Former employees complain the system protects the alleged abusers and said they fear it would ruin their careers to file an official complaint.
Claims of harassment of employees
Di Lorenzo is also accused of harassing employees and calling some “lazy” and “incompetent.”
A former lawyer and executive in Montreal, Di Lorenzo is supposed to keep Payette’s office running smoothly and effectively. Multiple sources said Di Lorenzo is years into the job — which is typically filled by a seasoned public servant — and still doesn’t understand how the public service works.
“[Di Lorenzo is] also a bully,” said a source. “When confronted with something she’s unsure of, instead of giving you the benefit of the doubt, she comes at you as a pit bull.”
CBC News has also reported Payette has faced similar claims at past workplaces, but the prime minister and his officials didn’t conduct checks with her past employers before appointing her as Governor General.
Payette was given severance of roughly $200,000 when she resigned from the Montreal Science Centre in 2016 following complaints about her treatment of employees, say multiple sources at Canada Lands Company, the Crown corporation that employed her. In 2017, Payette left the Canadian Olympic Committee after two internal investigations into her treatment of staff that included claims of verbal harassment, sources with that organization said.
The Governor General retained the services of former Supreme Court of Canada justice Michel Bastarache as “constitutional adviser” and paid him $41,488. The law firm Blakes is also assisting the Office of the Secretary to the Governor General (OSGG) in the review process and has been paid $111,179; that contract has been amended to allow for billing up to $149,500.
In August, Rideau Hall hired former NDP national director Karl Bélanger and his firm, Traxxion Strategies, to provide strategic communications counsel and media relations support to Payette, and has paid him $9,450 so far.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
