Speaker sides with NDP over harassment complaint

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This article was published 12/03/2021 (1667 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

IN a precedent-setting ruling, the Speaker of the Manitoba legislature has found that an NDP MLA’s privileges were violated when a senior civil servant filed a respectful workplace complaint against him last year.

Adrien Sala complained to Speaker Myrna Driedger last December that Paul Beauregard, who was treasury board secretary at the time, had used the complaint to intimidate him and prevent him from asking questions in the legislature.

Sala had alleged that Beauregard had improperly directed Manitoba Hydro on a number of business issues, including one in which Bell MTS wound up receiving a $37-million contract extension to manage networking services at government offices across the province. Hydro had expressed interest in bidding on the contract.

In her six-page ruling Thursday, Driedger ruled that Sala had a case, although she expressed dismay that the MLA had revealed the existence of the harassment complaint.

Citing a Quebec ruling in 2014, Driedger said, “it is the essence of parliamentary institutions to be a place of debate and exchange, and it will never tolerate that a member be subjected to threats or intimidation.”

She said a member’s privileges inside the legislative chamber “take constitutional precedence over any other process or complaint raised outside of this place.”

“That means that having a respectful workplace complaint raised against a member does not supersede a member’s right to ask questions or speak on any topic in this house.”

Speaking to reporters afterwards, Sala said the ruling validates the NDP’s contention that the government abused a harassment complaints process designed to protect the vulnerable “for the purpose of shutting us down from asking questions” in the legislature and “ultimately doing our jobs.”

He said the NDP had been trying to point out government interference in the operations of Manitoba Hydro.

The ruling is important for all MLAs, Sala said.

“It doesn’t matter what side of the aisle you fall on. We want to know that our privileges as MLAs are respected, and that we’re able to do our jobs free from intimidation, free from harassment. And this result confirms that ultimately, in doing my job, in seeking to ask tough questions of this government, that those privileges … that all of us have as MLAs were breached.”

Government house leader Kelvin Goertzen said he understood the parliamentary reasons behind the Speaker’s ruling, but he was disappointed with the result.

“I think of this as a disappointing day for public servants,” he said.

Beauregard’s harassment complaint was upheld by an investigator reporting to the legislative assembly, Goertzen noted.

“The victim (Beauregard) has become accused of being something other than the victim. And that has to send a bit of a chill throughout the public service,” Goertzen said.

“The public service has to know that members of the legislature are not going to abuse parliamentary privilege to make unfounded and untrue allegations,” he said.

Last month, a private public relations company, acting on behalf of Beauregard, notified the media that Sala, the NDP’s Hydro critic, was found to have breached the legislative assembly’s workplace policy.

The PR firm, which provided a summary of the findings of “an expert, independent investigator,” said Sala had breached the policy for “disseminating false or alternatively misleading information, engaging in a repeated pattern of harassment and bullying and a severe form of disrespectful behaviour, as well as engaging in repeated humiliation and intimidation causing lasting, harmful adverse effects on his physical and psychological well-being.”

The investigator’s full report has never been released.

Beauregard could not immediately be reached for comment late Thursday. A message sent to his government account was met with an automatic reply that said he was currently out of the office without access to email.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca