Is the Office of the Auditor General of Canada reliable?

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By Paul Winn and Bob Hughes

The Office of the Auditor General of Canada (OAG) is considered to be an independent and reliable source of the objective, fact-based information that Parliament needs to fulfil one of its most important roles of holding the federal government accountable for its stewardship of public funds. And so it should be. But in reality the OAG appears to have demonstrated a lack of objectivity as evidenced by its role in the racial discrimination case of Dr. Chander P. Grover.

The OAG has remained indifferent to the wasteful spending of public funds by the National Research Council (NRC) and other central agencies of the government to continue discrimination against Dr. Grover and ignored requests to conduct an investigation in this matter.

Dr. Grover, a Canadian scientist of East Indian ancestry, was a rising star and heading for a top senior management position at NRC when he became the target of a campaign of racial discrimination, contrived and calculated to demean and humiliate and to bring to an end his career at NRC. The discrimination, originally perpetrated by two of his supervisors, was carried out by senior management of the NRC with assistance from several Central Agencies of the federal government of Canada.

Dr. Grover has won many times before the human rights tribunal, labour board and courts, but his discrimination and, as such, his court actions have continued because of the unyielding obsession of the NRC management to punish him for exposing the wrongdoings in the workplace and its intransigence to respect the court rulings. The estimated cost to the Canadian taxpayers in this matter has exceeded 60 million dollars.

The Canadian People’s Forum (TCPF) and the Saskatchewan Coalition Against Racism (SCAR) have made several requests to Ms. Sheila Fraser, Auditor General of Canada, to conduct an investigation into the wasteful spending in the Grover matter. Our requests have been ignored and we have not received any response to all of our seven letters sent in the last five months.

In the early part of our correspondence, however, the OAG advised us that it would not conduct the investigation because the matter of Dr. Grover’s discrimination was before the court. This information is misleading and inconsistent with the OAG’s past actions, considering the fact that it had performed a secret investigation of the Grover case in 2003. The documents received through the access to information requests show that the secret investigation was mainly focused on the issues relating to Dr. Grover and his court case against NRC.

The OAG investigators interviewed several NRC employees, who were adversarial to Dr. Grover, to gather personal information about him and his court actions. They did not interview him or ask for his rebuttal to the information provided by the NRC, which was untruthful or misleading for the obvious reason.

Although it was found during the investigation that there was a risk that Dr. Grover could be subjected to violence at the workplace, the OAG did not inform him of this potential danger and a possible threat to his physical well-being. The OAG also did not contact police about this matter. Clearly, the true intent of the secret investigation was to cause prejudice to Dr. Grover and was an exercise to provide a backing to the case which the NRC had been building against him.

Subsequent to the investigation, on March 22, 2004, Ms. Sheila Fraser wrote to the Federal Minister of Industry regarding Dr. Grover and elaborated on his actions before the courts. She made an allegation of “misconduct” against Dr. Grover, a comment that was highly inappropriate and unjustified.

The OAG continued to have an interest in Dr. Grover’s court case even after the investigation. It obtained updates from the NRC about Dr. Grover, particularly on his impending termination from job, as it had previously canvassed with the NRC employees during the investigation interviews. On October 27, 2004, the OAG sent an internal memorandum by email to several members of its staff and informed them that, based on an update it had received, the NRC would be imminently terminating Dr. Grover’s employment

The internal OAG memorandum indicated that Dr. Grover had allegedly refused to comply with an NRC directive to undergo a medical examination by a physician of the NRC’s choosing. The OAG was in unequivocal agreement with the NRC’s position in this matter and has disregarded the fact that any medical examination without Dr. Grover’s consent was in fact an invasion on his bodily privacy and, as such, unlawful. The OAG did not seek Dr. Grover’s input or comments in this matter either.

Needless to say, the Public Service Labour Relations Board (2005), Federal Court (2007) and Federal Court of Appeal (2008) determined that the NRC’s directive for Dr. Grover to undergo a medical examination by a doctor of its choosing was unlawful. The courts also found that the NRC threatened Dr. Grover in order to force him to comply with its directive and all of this constituted unjustified disguised discipline. The courts blamed these actions of the NRC squarely on “the overall context and attitude of the employer” – a clear reference to the mistreatment of Dr. Grover by NRC over the years.

We have serious concerns about the attitude of bias that the OAG has shown towards Dr. Grover and its apparent cooperation with NRC to harm him.

Dr. Grover’s discrimination began in 1986 and is still continuing after 23 years. The estimated cost of 60 million dollars includes the legal and administrative cost and lost time incurred by NRC, the allied government agencies, and the Canadian Human Rights Commission, courts, tribunals, labour board and intervening politicians, public officials and organizations in all matters related to Dr. Grover and those emerging from them. A major portion of the cost has been incurred after the involvement of the Auditor General in this affair.

Only an impartial Public Inquiry will be able to address the issue of accountability in this sordid affair.

We have repeatedly urged the Auditor General to conduct the investigation in which all parties, including Dr. Grover, would have an equal opportunity to participate. We have also emphasized that if there existed an apprehension of the conflict of interest for the OAG because of its past involvement, it should take appropriate measures to recommend to Parliament or the governor in council to set up a Public Inquiry. Our requests have been completely ignored.

We are troubled by the handling of our requests by the Auditor General of Canada. Are we to assume that the treatment afforded to us is due to the fact that we are anti-racism organizations who have taken up the mantle to seek justice for Dr. Grover in full consideration of the public interest?

Obviously, the role played by the Office of the Auditor General in the matter of racial discrimination of Dr. Grover raises serious doubts about its integrity.

The readers may write their comments to the Prime Minister of Canada, The Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper at pm@pm.gc.ca or
HarpeS@parl.gc.ca and the Minister of Industry, Hon. Tony Clement at ClemeT@parl.gc.ca.

For other comments and additional information please contact Paul Winn at
pawinn@shaw.ca and Bob Hughes at hughes.scar28@hotmail.com .

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