Guard says Liberal ties cost him promotion
Corrections officer seeks judicial review, claims he was asked about political links
Globe and Mail
TORONTO[!-- /dateline --] -- A federal prison guard lost an appeal for a promotion after the Correctional Service of Canada asked him about his support for the Liberal Party, the Liberal literature he has read and the Liberal events he has attended, according to affidavits recently filed in Federal Court.[!-- /Summary --] David Wreggitt, a guard at the medium-security Joyceville Institution near Kingston, is seeking a judicial review of a decision made by a Public Service Commission appeal board, which turned down his bid for a promotion. The 47-year-old father of three says that, during a hearing on April 29, 2004, he was peppered with questions about his affiliation with the Liberal Party, including why he was a party member and how many times he had volunteered.
"I felt like I was on trial for simply being a Canadian citizen . . . just for voting and going to a function that's a political function," Mr. Wreggitt told The Globe and Mail.
Two witnesses at the hearing, Mr. Wreggitt's wife and his union representative, have submitted sworn statements that describe similar questions. His wife, Michelle Merideth-Wreggitt, said she found the questions unnerving.
"They weren't nicely asked. They weren't politely asked. It was not just out of interest. It was very accusatory," she said.
Most of the employees from the Correctional Service of Canada who were present for the hearing, and the Public Service Commission's chairman of hearing, didn't return messages left by The Globe. John Emerton, the staffing officer who allegedly cross-examined Mr. Wreggitt about his ties to the Liberals, refused to comment.
"I need to refer this to our communications people," Mr. Emerton said. No one from communications contacted The Globe after the newspaper spoke with Mr. Emerton.
C.E.S. (Ned) Franks, a professor emeritus at Queen's University and an expert on public administration, said there's a fine line between ensuring that partisan politics don't seep into the public service and stomping on someone's right to align themselves with any political organization they wish.
The spirit of the Public Service Commission Act is to allow unlimited rights for political participation, as long as it doesn't harm a public servant's capacity to do their work impartially or threaten the public's trust, Mr. Franks said. "They have no business asking anything about how he votes," he said. "If that ever came up in the interview, that's grounds for an appeal."
Mr. Wreggitt said he also found it suspicious that a recording of the hearing has disappeared. When he tried to subpoena the tape for his case before the Federal Court, the Public Service Commission told him it has no record of an April 29, 2004, hearing, he said.
However, a recording of the hearing that took place on April 28, 2004 -- the day before Mr. Wreggitt says he was questioned about his Liberal ties -- indicates there was a hearing the next day. At end of the session, John Ojalammi, the chairperson of the appeal hearing, states: "We're obviously not going to finish today . . . Why don't we resume tomorrow?"
The promotion that Mr. Wreggitt applied for would have made him a Level 3 correctional officer, essentially a supervisor. Like most in the public service, he was given an assessment to make sure the promotion was based on merit.
However, he was given a low score in the "suitability" category because his warden at the time, Donna Morrin, complained about him speaking to two politicians about a voluntary drug-testing program that he helped run at the prison. In particular, she complained about how he once wrote a letter to then-Liberal MP Lynn Myers, who was the parliamentary secretary to the solicitor general at the time, without telling the warden.
However, an internal e-mail written by Patrick Laverty, a recruitment manager with the correctional service, that was obtained by Mr. Wreggitt, points out that his letter was supportive of the program.
"The 'letter' was not critical of the management team, it was not a whistle-blowing letter. Would we be accused of muzzling an employee and denying him his legal right to communicate with government officials," Mr. Laverty wrote.
When Mr. Wreggitt appealed his low score to the Public Service Commission, he said he expected to be questioned about the letter -- not his ties to the party.
Mr. Wreggitt says his displays of support for the Liberal Party have been limited to two $100 donations and answering phones during the 1993 election. He has also attended three barbecues that Peter Milliken, the speaker of the House of Commons and the MP for Kingston and the Islands, holds at his house every year. In the January federal election, he voted for the Conservative Party, he says.
