In today’s Morning Brief, we look at an investigation into a racist poster put up in office at the Department of National Defence in Ottawa. We also look at ongoing concerns about the Canada Student Service Grant program.
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Department of National Defence launches investigation over racist workplace poster
A racist poster featuring the N-word that appeared in an office at the Department of National Defence has now become the focus of an investigation ordered by Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan.
The case relates to a 2016 incident in which a supervisor at DND in Ottawa put up a flyer in a kitchenette showing a photo of a white van made to look like an ad for a Detroit moving company. The logo featured caricatures of two Black men carrying spears and an offensive slogan containing the N-word.
The original complaint was launched by Andrea Kenny, a Black employee, in the spring of 2017. She said she was “shocked” when she first saw the image in late 2016. She said she complained to the supervisor’s boss, and the supervisor was ordered to apologize to the Black employees in the office.
Kenny launched a formal internal grievance with DND after the supervisor, a senior military officer, posted a second image in the kitchenette — this time, a racist joke referencing Jews and Hitler. That complaint alleging racial discrimination as well as systemic racism was repeatedly rejected in decisions by the department’s internal grievance mechanism.
Kenny has been waiting for a hearing date for her appeal before the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board. A backlog of cases at the board means that process could take another couple of years, according to Kenny’s advocate, Doug Hill, from the legal services branch of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC). Hill said 70 per cent of employees choose to resolve issues related to workplace discrimination through mediation, which includes confidentiality clauses, effectively burying the magnitude of the public service’s race problem.
After CBC inquired about the case with the Department of National Defence this week, the defence minister weighed in. “This serious incident in Ottawa has just recently been brought to my attention,” Sajjan said in an interview. “I have directed that it be thoroughly investigated immediately, and appropriate action will be taken at its conclusion.” Read more on this story here.
Bubble bath
(Mark Thompson/AFP/Getty Images)
Mercedes’s Finnish driver Valtteri Bottas celebrates with champagne on the podium after he won Formula One’s season-opening Austrian Grand Prix yesterday in Spielberg, Austria.
In brief
Concerns remain about the Canada student service grant and whether it’s appropriate to pay students effectively less than minimum wage for their volunteer hours. The program’s design is to give students $1,000 for every 100 hours they volunteer, up to a maximum of $5,000. “The idea of giving bonus grants to young people who serve has long existed,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said recently. Toronto-based labour lawyer Andrew Langille, a longtime advocate for fair compensation for interns and other young workers, disputes Trudeau’s claim that this is common practice. It’s great for young people t