Manitoba cabinet minister harassed college employee in past job, external investigation concluded

Recently appointed federal cabinet minister Rebecca Chartrand harassed a former employee at Winnipeg's Red River College Polytechnic over a period of several months in 2019, according to an external investigation commissioned by the college and conducted by a Winnipeg law firm.

Chartrand, elected in April as the Liberal member of Parliament for the northern Manitoba riding of Churchill-Keewatinook Aski, was appointed by Prime Minister Mark Carney in May as the minister of northern and Arctic affairs and the minister responsible for the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency.

According to documentation provided to CBC News in April — but first reported this week by Canadaland — Chartrand was the subject of a harassment investigation during the final months of her two-year stint as executive director of Indigenous strategy for RRC Polytech, a Winnipeg post-secondary institution with annual enrolment of approximately 21,000 students.

In a complaint filed with RRC Polytech under its discrimination and harassment policy in September 2019, a former college employee claimed she was "targeted, undermined, bullied and harassed" by Chartrand over a period of eight months.

The harassment took the form of threatening the employee's position, undermining her work and her management of other staff, interfering with her career, negatively impacting her reputation, increasing her workload and imposing unreasonable deadlines, according to the complaint.

In a letter dated Dec. 19, 2019, RRC Polytech human resources director Curtis Craven informed the former employee that investigators with the Winnipeg law firm Rachlis Neville LLP substantiated the harassment complaint.

The law firm found Chartrand's conduct "amounted to personal harassment in that over a period of time, the manner in which she engaged with you and the approach used to assign work and manage your performance constituted conduct which was severe," Craven said in the letter.

"Such conduct could reasonably cause an individual to be humiliated or intimidated and was repeated, and had a lasting, harmful effect on you," he wrote.

However, "given that Ms. Chartrand is no longer with the college, the college will not be taking any further corrective actions arising from this investigation," Craven's letter said.

Chartrand was employed by RRC Polytech from June 2017 until December 2019, when she resigned, college spokesperson Emily Doer said in a statement.

Chartrand was not available to speak about her time at the college, spokesperson Kyle Allen said this week.

"Minister Chartrand is committed to fostering a healthy work environment for all persons in the workplace, characterized by collegiality and mutual respect," Allen said in a statement.

RRC Polytech also declined to address Chartrand's time at the post-secondary institution.

"In keeping with privacy legislation and college policy, we do not discuss personnel matters regarding current or former employees," Doer said in a statement.

The former college employee who filed the harassment complaint left RRC Polytech in 2020. In an interview, she said she had no intention of disclosing the investigation until Chartrand was nominated by the Liberal Party as its candidate for Churchill-Keewatinook Aski.

The employee, whom CBC News is not identifying out of concerns about the potential impact on her employment, said she first attempted to contact Liberal Party officials about her experience but was unsuccessful.

"I really did just want to forget about this and move on," said the former employee, who describes herself as a Liberal supporter.

"I was voting for Mark Carney. I did not want what happened to me to happen to anybody in Ottawa. I didn't want Mark Carney to be hurt by any further actions, whether something of this nature ever happened again."

Liberal Party spokesperson Jenna Ghassabeh said the party does not comment on the specifics of the candidate vetting process.

"Canadians expect all political parties to do their due diligence on all prospective candidates, and the Liberal Party of Canada has a rigorous process to appropriately conduct such reviews," Ghassabeh said in a statement.

The former RRC Polytech employee said she ultimately contacted several media outlets about her experience after Chartrand made social media comments relating to her own time at the college.

The former employee said she came to know Chartrand in 2015, when the now-MP made an earlier run for office in Churchill-Keewatinook Aski. She came in second in that race to the NDP's Niki Ashton, who Chartrand then defeated in April's federal election.

The former employee said she left another job to work under Chartrand at the college and had a good working relationship until 2019, when a nine-page survey was prepared to determine the needs of incoming students in the Indigenous studies program.

The former employee said the survey was amended to include questions about drug and alcohol use, against the recommendations of an external consultant. The college did not disclose that the responses to these questions might determine whether respondents would receive financial assistance, the former employee said.

The survey was withdrawn following complaints from prospective students and prompted an apology from Chartrand, according to a Global News story in 2019.

The former employee said after she advised against including the questions in the survey, what had been a positive working relationship with Chartrand deteriorated into harassment.

"It was like months of psychological warfare," the former employee said.

"I've just tried to move on from all of my own personal grief and trauma around this because it has impacted me personally and professionally, and I wanted to just forget about it and move on. But it hasn't gone away."

In a Facebook post on election night, a former resident of Churchill-Keewatinook Aski named Kyle Ross drew attention to the RRC Polytech survey issued during Chartrand's time at the college.

In a since-deleted post of her own, Chartrand accused Ross of engaging in "lateral violence" and sought information about his whereabouts.

"If anyone has any information on where this individual works or resides, please reach out publicly," she wrote.

Chartrand spokesperson Allen said the minister regrets the post.

"Regarding the social media post referenced, Minister Chartrand deeply regrets the language and tone she expressed. She unreservedly offers her apologies for the language of the post," Allen said in a statement.

Ross said in an interview he would have preferred a direct apology for trying to discern where he lives and works.

"I feel like a direct message would be nice," he said.