MERITLESS
How we got here ...
Meritless was created created by me - Stewart - a dedicated Canadian citizen, Veteran, Husband, and Pops (that's what my kids call me); after I experienced how openly discriminatory our federal public service is. As a former member of our Canadian Armed Forces, I conduct myself with the expectation that I will be held personally liable for the decisions I make and how they affect my fellow citizens. Unfortunately, I now realize that civilian public servants are not held to the same standard, even after they are found guilty of breaking the law.
As a result, I decided to create this organization - built on ethics and transparency - Meritless recognizes the merit in anyone who wants to provide public services to benefit their community.
My Story
After retiring from the military, I was drawn to continue providing service to my country, so I decided to leave my career in Banking to work toward securing a permanent position in the federal government. I started that journey with a short-term contract with Shared Services Canada (SSC). This part will be important to the story later on ... SSC is the federal department responsible for the IT infrastructure and security supporting critical services for 43 federal Government departments; it is crucial that these public servants understand the importance of privacy law.
During my employment with SSC, I received excellent feedback on my performance from senior management and was encouraged to apply to hiring processes so that I could be hired permanently. Like anyone who is familiar with the hiring process of our federal government knows, it is onerous. After spending hours of my personal time qualifying in multiple hiring processes at the supervisor and manager levels, I excitedly advised management. It was then that I was told that they cannot simply hire qualified candidates and that I must pass second language evaluations because of the Official Languages Act.
Due to my learning disability, I have not been able to learn a second language (despite my effort) so I took this as a challenge, and began researching multiple technological options that could be utilized to accommodate my disability and ensure my colleagues and I could converse in the official language of our choice – as this is, after all, the intent of the Official Languages Act.
However, SSC was not interested in entertaining these options, so in the end, I understood that because I cannot speak both of our official languages I do not have merit in the eyes of our public service and I sought employment in the private sector instead.
During my exit interview from SSC, I advised management that I would be conducting a research paper on the business risk facing the federal government due to their hiring requirements. I flagged that the SSC ombudsman identified that a large percentage of SSC employees would be retiring in the coming years, so they should utilize readily available technology to remove a barrier for the 4 out of 5 Canadians who do not speak both official languages. This would greatly expand the pool of candidates and increase representation in our public service; as we were in the midst of a global pandemic at the time and found a way for everyone to work virtually it felt like a natural progression to implement virtual language assistance.
This is when I began collecting data by requesting access to specific records from SSC regarding Official Languages. In response, an SSC employee breached my privacy as an attempt to intimidate me from proceeding with my information requests. I immediately made a report to the appropriate officials in the department, expecting them to quickly address the employee's illegal actions and resolve the matter with me.
This unfortunately was not the case, and it quickly became clear that SSC was not going to appropriately address the issue. So, I alerted the regulators responsible for Privacy and Access to Information in Canada.
After an incredible amount of time and effort on my part to proceed with my case against SSC, the Privacy and Information Commissioners have both found in my favour.
Despite the hundreds of pages of supporting evidence (Linked for anyone interested in reading more), a third-party investigator who identified a significant legal risk for how SSC is reclassifying privacy breaches as "privacy incidents" (a term they have made up and used to lie in their reporting to Parliament), the regulators have refused to impose any repercussions on the SSC employees and management they have found guilty of fraud, failure to meet their duty to assist and excessive time extensions on information requests. They have instead allowed SSC to determine their own repercussions.
Think about that ... it would be like a police officer pulling you over for speeding, and then allowing you to decide on the repercussions:
"Well officer, I was driving 70 km/h in a school zone and I recognize I put children in danger, so I've decided I will not apologize or pay anything - now the issue is resolved!"
I have spent over three years dealing with SSC's gross mismanagement by their most senior officials who refuse to even have a conversation with me about how meaningful positive change can be made to ensure no other citizen is targeted for seeking access to information like I was.
I want to be clear, I recognize my privilege as a white male in his thirties. But I have not let go of this issue because if I was targeted and intimidated like this for looking into official languages, how are new Canadian citizens seeking access to their own immigration file being treated? Or what about reporters interested in securing records about the genocide of indigenous peoples not even 50 years ago, the public service LGBT+ purge in the 80s, or foreign interference in today's democratic process?
I plan to continue sharing my story and advocating for positive change regarding access to information and privacy in our country - and, in parallel, I have started Meritless so we can serve the public whether our Government welcomes it or not.