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Image Credit: SUBMITTED/Independent Investigations Office of BC

BC's police watchdog has been ordered to pay $52,000 to a female Métis lawyer after the BC Human Rights Tribunal found that her race and sex were factors in its decision to rescind a job offer.

According to a July 11 BC Human Rights Tribunal hearing, the lawyer, referred to as DS in the decision, was offered a job as an investigator with the Independent Investigation Office of BC in 2018.

However, the police watchdog then rescinded the job offer saying she was rude, demanding and accusatory.

The lawyer disagreed and argued it was due to sex and race discrimination and the BC Human Rights Tribunal agreed.

"I accept that the Independent Investigation Office believed that DS lacked key qualities and was not a good fit for their team. I accept that the Independent Investigation Office had a basis for its belief. I also find, however, that the lens through which the Independent Investigation Office made and held onto to its belief was informed by stereotypes about DS as an Indigenous woman," the Tribunal ruled.

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The lengthy 30,000-word decision gave a very detailed play-by-play account of what took place after the Independent Investigation Office had offered DS a job.

In the decision, the then head of the police watchdog Ronald J. MacDonald said when he started in 2017 it had struggled with bad media coverage and staff had talked to the press. Because of this they now had strict hiring criteria and he wanted staff that were "beyond reproach."

DS passed the test and was offered the $90,000-a-year position, contingent on her passing an enhanced security screening.

However, the relationship broke down during the process which started with former Vancouver cop, Dennis Paulson, conducting a polygraph test in a small, windowless interview room.

While DS passed the test, Paulson who was described as "older" and "white" asked DS if she'd engaged in illegal sex or drugs and told her women were better at lying than men.

"Short of directly calling me a drunken/drug whore and a fat deceptive squaw, I cannot think of anything more discriminatory for an Indigenous woman to be subjected to during a high-level recruitment process," DS testified during the five-day hearing.

Paulson also made comments about Indigenous people being overweight, which he said DS had taken out of context.

However, the Tribunal said he'd missed the point.

"DS did not raise the topic of Indigenous people and obesity with Mr. Paulson," the Tribunal ruled. "The nature of the comment and the context in which it was made was clearly upsetting and offensive to DS."

While both sides had different versions of what took place in the interview room, the Tribunal sided with DS.

However, while the Tribunal was highly critical of the former cop who had done the polygraph test it found that he hadn't influenced the police watchdog to rescind its offer.

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The main sticking point came when DS questioned how the polygraph data on her would be stored and wasn't happy with the process.

DS told the police watchdog there were "serious questions of privacy issues" that "must be addressed."

But during the correspondence about her privacy, the relationship got very strained.

The Independent Investigation Office accused the lawyer of being rude, demanding and accusatory during multiple communications it had over the issue.

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MacDonald, the then head of the police watchdog, wrote to DS to rescind the job saying he had "serious concerns" about the way she had treated his staff and that she wasn't suitable for a position as an investigator.

"During this time you have questioned our integrity and alleged that the Independent Investigation Office has breached undertakings, failed to comply with policies, and misled you," MacDonald wrote in a letter to the lawyer.

The Tribunal found the lawyer's language was "highly critical" of the organization and "adversarial, and demonstrated dissatisfaction and mistrust" with the watchdog.

"That said, the language must be understood in the context of learning that highly personal information would be stored in the home office of the polygraph examiner, whose conduct... had left her feeling shocked, stunned, and belittled," the Tribunal ruled.

The Tribunal ruled MacDonald had judged DS’s reactions against how he would have reacted.

"The Independent Investigations Office could have approached her from a place of understanding about her membership in a community with a specific negative and colonial history, but instead understood her reaction from a stereotypical lens of non-compliance," the Tribunal ruled.

Ultimately, the Tribunal ordered the Investigations Office to pay DS $15,000 as compensation for injury to her dignity, feelings, and self-respect and a further $36,900 to cover lost wages.

To read the full decision go here.

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