Global Affairs staff disciplined for theft, mismanagement, and worse

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OTTAWA – Drugging and raping two foreigners, illegally selling Canadian mission cars to siblings on the cheap and a senior executive offering “inappropriate” selfies to women are some of the reasons Global Affairs Canada (GAC) fired 20 employees last year.

GAC determined last fiscal year that nearly 100 of its employees had committed breaches ranging from administrative issues to apparent criminal acts, according to its second report on misconduct and wrongdoing published Thursday.

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Just over 20 per cent of those employees were terminated, sometimes for committing acts that could undermine Canada’s diplomatic reputation in certain host countries.

For example, one employee crashed a reception hosted by a foreign embassy, met two locals there, and  invited them back to an apartment only to spike their drinks with illegal drugs and sexually assault them.

“The incident was reported to the local police authorities. The employee has since been terminated,” reads the report.

GAC also took the exceptional step of clawing back a fired senior executive’s “performance pay” after it was discovered the executive had “made an unwanted sexual advance” to an employee and either offered to send or sent “inappropriate images” to multiple women.

Other employees were reprimanded for misusing or unauthorized use of government systems that ranged from eyebrow-raising to disturbing.

The report notes that GAC’s security team caught 33 employees who had installed “mouse jigglers” on their computers to make it look like they were working when they were presumably away from their desk.

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Eleven employees were also caught watching pornography on their work devices. One employee “inappropriately” used their position to pressure staff to move faster on their family members’ visa applications and was suspended.

An undisclosed number even showed up to work intoxicated.

Over the fiscal year, the department logged 290 complaints or allegations and launched 129 investigations, roughly double the number from the previous year in both cases. The department employs over 13,000 people, including 6,000 abroad.

During the same period, management also completed 115 investigations (including some launched the previous year) of which the vast majority (94 cases) were deemed founded.

In a message included with the report, the department’s four deputy ministers said the increase of complaints was expected as the department made good on its commitment last year to be more transparent about how it deals with wrongdoing.

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The increased reporting “enabled us to identify problematic behaviour earlier and take remedial action sooner when needed,” GAC leaders wrote.

“While we recognize that it is impossible to completely eradicate bad behaviour, we are steadfast in our commitment to foster a culture of zero tolerance in which all employees feel they can report what they believe to be misconduct and wrongdoing without fear of reprisal and know that their concerns will be addressed effectively.”

Most of the founded cases of wrongdoing related to breaches of the department’s value and ethics code or for administrative misconduct, the bulk of which merited a written reprimand (30 cases) or a temporary suspension (20 cases).

But the majority of the 14 employees who had committed fiscal mismanagement, harassment and violence or security and network violations were terminated or resigned before they could be sanctioned.

In one case, a Canadian embassy employee was fired after auctioning off four government-owned vehicles for “significantly less than market value.” An investigation then discovered the vehicles were sold to either the employee’s brother or a contractor with whom the employee had an undisclosed personal relationship.

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It also uncovered that the employee collaborated with a GAC colleague (who was also fired) to manipulate the bidding process of some mission contracts, namely by colluding with different contractors.

Another employee was disciplined after having the kitchen in a foreign official residence demolished without having a “fulsome plan” to renovate it or the necessary approvals from GAC headquarters.

“This created a significant delay between the demolition and the renovation, which caused stress amongst Official Residence employees in carrying out their duties,” reads the report.

“Furthermore, extra expenses were incurred for unused contracting services and meal claims for the Head of Mission, given the absence of a functional kitchen during the period.”

Another appeared to violate Vienna Convention rules regulating how diplomats can conduct private business in their host country when they did not disclose they had leased land in the host country to “develop a commercial venture.”

National Post
cnardi@postmedia.com

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