OTTAWA – Raj Shoan said that he will contest his most recent dismissal from his role as the CRTC’s Ontario commissioner in order “to ensure accountability and justice.”
Shoan was relieved of his duties late Thursday, just four days after returning to the job after his appointment was first rescinded last June.
“This is to inform you that, on reconsideration, the Governor-in-Council has again terminated Raj Shoan’s appointment as Regional Commissioner for Ontario, effective May 5th”, reads an internal CRTC memo signed by chairman and CEO Jean-Pierre Blais.
“This has been a challenging period in the CRTC’s history”, continues the memo. “I am fully aware that events that have been playing out before the courts and in the media have created uncertainty and affected employees. I have always admired your ability to rise above the noise in the public environment as you continue to carry out the important work we are doing on behalf of Canadians.”
“Further to this announcement, I would like to remind you of my commitment, which is shared by the senior management team, to the values upheld by the public service and the CRTC,” Blais continued.
“We have a busy agenda ahead of us, with decisions to publish on group-based TV licence renewals, next-generation 9-1-1 services, the Wireless Code and urban Indigenous radio, to mention only a few. I know that I can count on your dedication as we pursue our mission of ensuring that Canadians have access to world-class communication system.”
When contacted by Cartt.ca, Shoan said Friday that the decision to terminate his appointment “was made without any prior discussion or consultation of any kind with me”.
“I am deeply concerned about the manner in which I have been removed and that I have been further denied procedural fairness”, he said in a statement. “Despite the serious impact on my ability to engage in my duties as a Commissioner, I was deprived of any opportunity to discuss the alleged basis for my removal.
“During the past four days, my focus was on re-engaging with my role as a Commissioner in order to ensure a positive contribution to the work of the CRTC during the remainder of my term for the benefit of all Canadians. It is truly unfortunate that this goal was not shared. In the coming weeks, I will be challenging this dismissal in the Federal Court and initiating other actions to ensure accountability and justice.”
The new Order-In-Council removing Shoan, however, essentially took the most recent court decision and used it as a blueprint to re-fire the Ontario commissioner. In that April 28 decision, Justice Cicely Strickland wrote that it was unclear how much weight the GIC placed on a harassment report (which is one of the major aspects of this ongoing conflict – and one which had been discredited by an earlier Federal court decision), when it initially rescinded his appointment, which led her to side with Shoan.
Strickland wrote in her decision that Shoan could have been relieved of his duties by the GIC even if it placed no weight on that report – and so the new OIC does just that. It reads: “In light of the September 2, 2016 decision of Mr. Justice Zinn of the Federal Court in the matter of Shoan v. Canada (Attorney General), docket T-668-15, the Governor in Council has excluded from consideration the report into the complaint of harassment filed against Raj Shoan on March 17, 2015.”
Instead, the order re-firing Shoan re-states the reasons for his dismissal along the lines Justice Strickland recommended when it says: “The Governor in Council has concluded that Raj Shoan’s actions with respect to inappropriate contact with CRTC stakeholders and his lack of recognition of and disregard for the impact of that contact on the reputation and integrity of the CRTC (the inappropriate contact ground) are fundamentally incompatible with his position and that he no longer enjoys the confidence of the Governor in Council to be a Commissioner of the CRTC…
“…The Governor in Council has concluded that Raj Shoan’s responses related to his refusal to respect internal CRTC processes and practices for meeting its obligations under the Access to Information Act and his negative public statements about the CRTC are fundamentally incompatible with his position and that he no longer enjoys the confidence of the Governor in Council to be a Commissioner of the CRTC.”
