First of all, allow me to thank the members of the committee for the invitation. I have appeared at this committee several times before, talking about Rights and Democracy programming.
Regrettably, on this occasion I appear as a former employee, having been dismissed on March 1 after serving as the director of policy, programs, and planning for about six years. Even more regrettable is that on this occasion I have to speak not about our excellent work, which this committee has always appreciated, but about a major crisis that has befallen the institution and torn it apart.
Time is short, so let me get right to the point. The crisis at Rights and Democracy has been brewing for a year. It became very public with the death of Mr. Beauregard, the president, and the subsequent demand by all but two staff members for the resignation of the chair of the board, Mr. Aurel Braun, and two of his colleagues, Jacques Gauthier and Elliot Tepper.
This extraordinary step by 46 people was not a rebellion against board authority or a rejection of the government's right to appoint board members. Everyone at Rights & Democracy is cognizant of the fact that it is a public institution, accountable to Parliament and to Canadians through its board of directors. Never once did we reject this principle. However, as managers and employees we lost confidence in the ability and good faith of three men who were in breach of section 24 of our constitutive act that stipulates that board members shall “act honestly and in good faith with a view to the best interests of the Centre”. Our loyalty was and still is to the institution and the public interest it represents; to its mandate given by Parliament; and to the late president, our immediate boss. It is not to individuals who have caused so much pain, acted in ill faith, and broken Rights and Democracy bylaws.
Let me provide some specific examples. A myth has been propagated that Rights and Democracy is not an accountable and transparent institution. Nothing can be further from the truth. Rights and Democracy has never had any accountability or transparency issues. My colleague will testify shortly about the reports of the Auditor General. On the programming side, we have always provided the board with all the information it has asked of us. Mr. Braun has told the media that because of his due diligence he discovered that we funded three organizations in the Middle East, which he labelled toxic.
The fact is this, ladies and gentlemen. I voluntarily told Mr. Braun of these grants within one hour of first meeting him in March 2009, as we briefed him about our programming. Mr. Braun made his displeasure very clear, and I assured him that they were one-off grants and would not be repeated. The story should have ended there. That would have been the reasonable thing to do. But these grants were used as an excuse throughout the year to undermine Mr. Beauregard, and indeed to undermine Rights and Democracy throughout 2009. Note that $30,000, the total amount of these grants, constituted 0.27% of Rights and Democracy's $11 million annual budget. You can guess how many hundreds of board and staff hours have gone into dealing with Mr. Braun's hang-up on these grants, up to their final repudiation by the board in January 2010.
The two other issues some board members seem to be obsessed with are Rights and Democracy's European office in Geneva and the Durban Review Conference on racism, also known as Durban II. In their minds the two were intertwined. We gave all the information we could to the board on this. On Durban there was not much to give.
In March 2009 we had already decided not to participate in Durban II. I instructed my staff on March 16 not to register for the conference and not to even physically be in the room. End of story. But throughout 2009 we were harassed--and I do not use the word lightly--about Durban, particularly by Mr. Braun and Mr. Gauthier. They insisted on speaking alone with the Geneva office director, who was not part of the Rights and Democracy management team, and reported to my deputy director. Eventually, under intense pressure, we had to give in, and they did speak to the staff member in Geneva. The two conversations were not pleasant for the employee concerned, who was asked inappropriate questions.
Last month, as my former colleagues said, the office in Geneva was closed by board decision, despite a very positive independent evaluation of activities.
Mr. Braun, Mr. Gauthier, and Mr. Tepper never seem to be satisfied with all the information we provided. They were convinced a priori that we were hiding something. When Mr. Beauregard and the management team drew the line at board members interrogating the staff directly, we were accused of non-collaboration. By the fall of 2009 we had entered a truly Kafkaesque world: the less evidence there was of a conspiracy, the more convinced they were of a conspiracy.
Let me end with one final example that touched me personally. At the board dinner in March 2009 I was interrogated—again I choose the word carefully—about my background by Mr. Gauthier. He asked me where I was born, what my religion was, how often I visited my country of birth, what family I had there, and what connections I maintained with that family. I responded to all of these questions in good faith, as part of informal chitchat. Board dinners are informal occasions for senior staff and board members to interact. At the end of this 15-minute interrogation I asked Mr. Gauthier if he knew the French word for an east European Jewish dish. He said no, and asked why I asked him. I replied, “I thought you were Jewish.” He said no, nor was his wife, and after 30 seconds the conversation moved on.
Imagine my shock when I read about this episode, completely turned on its head and completely ignoring the 15-minute initial questioning, in Monsieur Beauregard's evaluation package sent to the Privy Council Office, with the insinuation that I--and perhaps even management--was anti-Semitic for asking Mr. Gauthier if he was Jewish. He added that he subsequently found out that there were no Jewish employees at Rights and Democracy in this evaluation package.
What did the conversation have to do with Mr. Beauregard's evaluation, or anything else for that matter? The episode, however, does demonstrate the mendacious manner in which certain board members operate.
Let me reiterate again that the board of directors has every right to give policy direction and orientation to the institution and exercise oversight. But board members driven by a single issue and intent on wrestling managerial control from the cabinet-appointed CEO are not acting in the best interest of the centre. Whereas Monsieur Beauregard wanted to protect the independence and non-partisan nature of the organization, just like all previous presidents, Mr. Braun and his allies saw it as questioning board authority and their political views.
What is tragic about this whole debacle is how preventable it was. We were more than willing to take policy direction from the board if any were given. The crisis has devastated the institution, just as it had reached a new height in its programming, in developing a new strategic plan on which we worked for a year, and in building staff unity and morale. All this is now shattered.
I wish the new president, Monsieur Latulippe, good luck in rebuilding what was once a fine public institution.
Thank you.