March 29, 2024

politics of law

Politics and Law

‘CSIS is broken,’ lawyer says in support of spy service employee’s claim

3 min read

OTTAWA — Attorneys for a Canadian Safety Intelligence Company employee say his discrimination lawsuit versus the spy support really should be authorized to proceed for the reason that CSIS administrators do not take interior grievance and harassment procedures severely.

OTTAWA — Legal professionals for a Canadian Security Intelligence Service personnel say his discrimination lawsuit towards the spy provider need to be allowed to progress due to the fact CSIS administrators do not acquire inside grievance and harassment procedures critically.

Counsel for Sameer Ebadi questioned a Federal Court docket judge Wednesday to dismiss a government bid to toss out his accommodate, declaring CSIS administration has established and perpetuated a culture of systemic racism, Islamophobia, harassment and reprisal.

“Put only, Sameer is listed here mainly because CSIS is damaged,” mentioned Daniel Kuhlen, co-counsel for Ebadi and a team lawyer with Countrywide Council of Canadian Muslims.

“CSIS is broken mainly because it continually demonstrates a callous pathology of indifference to the vicious harms, which includes abuse and mental struggling, which it inflicts upon Muslims at CSIS.”

A lawyer symbolizing senior CSIS officers reported Ebadi’s claim need to be struck out simply because he ought to have followed the internal processes in its place of heading to court.

Just after listening to from each sides, Federal Court Justice Henry Brown reserved judgment on the motion until a afterwards day.

Ebadi, a practising Muslim who fled to Canada from a repressive Middle Jap place, has labored as an analyst because 2000 in the Prairie region.

Ebadi’s statement of assert, submitted in January 2020, claims he was handed more than for advertising regardless of an excellent operate record, and that he experienced bullying, discrimination, psychological and bodily abuse, and spiritual persecution from fellow staff.

Ebadi, who takes advantage of a pseudonym owing to the delicate character of his get the job done, states in an affidavit that CSIS has a background of shielding harassers from accountability for their religious or racially determined conduct.

Internal CSIS processes can not be trusted to supply him with a good hearing and to safeguard him versus reprisals for bringing forward considerations, he claims. Ebadi is now on lengthy-phrase incapacity depart.

In searching for to have the assert tossed out, federal attorney Sean Gaudet instructed the court Wednesday that Ebadi is precluded from taking court motion due to the grievance and harassment procedures that have been available.

“He feels that he cannot count on to get honest treatment in the inner grievance approach,” Gaudet claimed. “There is almost nothing exclusive in that assertion — that is routinely stated in situations of this mother nature. What’s needed is evidence.”

In a penned submission, Ebadi’s attorneys say that in buy to strike his declare, the court need to be content it is “plain and evident” that it lacks jurisdiction to listen to the motion.

They argue the courtroom need to glance at components which include the “acknowledged actuality of systemic discrimination against Muslims within just CSIS,” the absence of oversight of the service’s grievance method, the rampant distrust in just CSIS of the method, and CSIS’s past file of deceptive the Federal Court.

All through the court listening to, John Kingman Phillips, co-counsel for Ebadi, highlighted remarks CSIS director David Vigneault produced at a December 2020 assembly of the federal Nationwide Safety Transparency Advisory Group.

Vigneault stated he experienced acknowledged publicly and privately to staff “that, yes, systemic racism does exist in this article, and yes there is a degree of harassment and fear of reprisal in the business.”

This report by The Canadian Push was to start with posted May perhaps 18, 2022.

Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Push


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