Dismissed employee takes Nunavut government to court

Chas Hughes, a former GN employee, has asked the Nunavut Court of Justice for a judicial review of his termination from a job held for about 10 years. (FILE PHOTO)

Here we go again: another former Government of Nunavut employee has come forward with allegations of harassment by senior bureaucrats who targeted the employee for firing through administrative channels.

“They were hell-bent on firing me and they were going to get it done one way or another,” Chas Hughes told Nunatsiaq News Sept. 12 over the phone from his Toronto home.

But unlike similar stories we’ve reported over the last year, Hughes, fired in July after a 10-year career with the Department of Economic Development and Transportation, has put his name on the public record.

In a notice filed with the Nunavut Court of Justice Aug. 12, Hughes is asking for a judicial review of his termination.

The investigation that led to Hughes’ termination did not follow rules set out in the Public Service Act, the notice alleges.

That termination also included an attempt to buy his silence, Hughes said Sept. 12.

None of these allegations have been proven in court.

According to documents obtained by Nunatsiaq News, Hughes’ boss, Jim Stevens, an assistant deputy minister at ED&T, suspended Hughes on July 8 from Hughes’ position as transportation programs officer at Cape Dorset’s airport.

An investigation into allegations of insubordination and misuse of medical travel would be conducted over the 30-day suspension, Stevens said in a letter. A “fact-finding meeting,” a bureaucratic tool used in the disciplinary process, was held on July 14 as part of that investigation.

But Hughes had been there before: between December 2015 and July 2016 Hughes said he was called in for “at least six or seven” fact-finding meetings.

“It had become like a game, like a ‘got ya!’ process,” he said.

Another former public servant we reported on in October 2015, whose job it was to arrange fact-finding meetings, said such meetings are often used to build cases against employees disliked by bosses or to make room for an employee the boss prefers.

Hughes said his experience agrees “100 per cent” with that description.

“It’s like they’ve corrupted the disciplinary process to achieve a certain end. There was another, benign way for them to find out information from me. But they decided to use a disciplinary process, which became vindictive, uncalled for, outright frivolous, nasty, mean—call it whatever you like.”

Hughes said Deputy Minister Sherri Rowe travelled to Cape Dorset for another meeting with Hughes on July 18.

Assuming the department was about to fire him, Hughes resigned that morning in order to access the relocation allowance given to public servants who resign—about $9,900, Hughes said.

Sure enough, Rowe handed Hughes a termination letter later that day, signed by Jeff Chown, comptroller general at the finance department.

But according to the Public Service Act, a deputy head must give a terminated employee the results of an investigation and the reasons for the dismissal.

“This was never done,” the court document said.

According to the termination letter, obtained by Nunatsiaq News, Hughes’ responses “were not sufficient” during the July 14 fact-finding meeting, although no other details about his responses are given in the letter.

“Your continued inappropriate behaviour has been an administrative burden for the department,” the letter said, without specifying what that “inappropriate behaviour” consisted of.

In a follow up letter from Rowe dated July 22, with bold text reading “without prejudice,” Hughes is told he is dismissed and that he did not resign.

The government would accept a resignation if Hughes agreed to withdraw “all grievances, claims or complaints,” the letter said.

A settlement letter was then sent to Hughes, the notice filed with Nunavut courts said, offering Hughes $10,000—the same amount, roughly, as the relocation fund.

“I think that was to buy my silence. Forego all complaints, here’s $10,000 to shut up,” Hughes said.

Hughes refused the settlement offer in part because of the outstanding grievances he has filed with the GN.

One grievance, set for arbitration in 2017, alleges the GN owes Hughes about 600 hours—around $32,000—for unpaid overtime.

And three complaints filed with Nunavut’s ethics commissioner and three harassment complaints filed internally with the government, all dismissed, have left Hughes “disappointed.”

“For the internal complaints, it’s a lower officer investigating a senior officer—that’s not right,” Hughes said.

The minister responsible for human resources, Keith Peterson, has denied that workplace harassment is a problem within the government.

But MLAs admitted the GN is failing public servants during the June sitting of the legislature.

MLAs voted June 7 in favour of setting up a public service commission, similar to a model used in the Yukon, partly to improve the way the GN handles internal conflicts.