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Serious insight for serious situations.

Serious insight for serious situations.

What the Premier League clearly did not learn from the Miami Dolphins

Just last week, I wrote about the Miami Dolphins’ swift and effective response to offensive tweets posted by a player in response to the NFL’s draft of its first openly gay player, Michael Sam. Within a week, news of offensive and sexist e-mails written by Richard Scudamore, the Chief Executive of the Premier League, were

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What do Halifax potholes and workplace investigation problems have in common?

I have been “away” for the last number of years, and here I am, back in Halifax, with my own workplace investigation practice. My pleasure at being home has been tempered by the potholes populating Halifax streets. As I was bobbing and weaving down roads leading toward and away from everywhere, I started thinking about

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B.C. bank botches investigation

“CIBC was cavalier, insensitive, and reckless. They forged ahead with a termination for cause based on inaccurate and incomplete information despite knowing they had a heightened responsibility to get it right.” This is the way The Honourable Mr. Justice Wong of the British Columbia Supreme Court described the CIBC’s decision to dismiss an employee for

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An $800,000 cautionary investigation tale from Alberta

In what the arbitration panel called a tragic case, an employee of the City of Calgary has been awarded $800,000 in damages (The City of Calgary and CUPE, Local 38, 2013 CanLII 88297). The employee, who worked as a clerk in the City’s Roads division, was sexually assaulted on a number of occasions by a

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He said WHAT about me?! Defamation in the workplace investigation context

In a workplace investigation, it is not uncommon for complainants and potential witnesses to express concerns about job-related reprisals before speaking to the investigator. Recently, however, I had witnesses in two separate investigations tell me that they did not want to participate for fear of being sued by the respondent, with one witness specifically referencing

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The cost of discrimination and harassment: $65,000.00; the cost of a failure to investigate: $6000.00; legal lessons learned … Priceless.

In the recent case of Islam v. Big Inc., 2013 HRTO 2009 (CanLII), the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario ruled that a Toronto restaurant, Le Papillion on the Park (the employer), created a poisoned work environment by: a)  forcing three Muslim restaurant workers to eat pork despite knowing that it was against their religious beliefs

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The IQ principles

Recently my colleague and I had the opportunity to travel to Iqaluit, Nunavut in order to provide workplace investigation training. As part of my preparation for our trip, I was introduced to the concept of Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, a term for Inuit traditional knowledge and information that is passed down through oral history, customs and traditions.

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