CBRM staff member files harassment complaint against several councillors

A staff member has laid a harassment complaint against several Cape Breton regional council members following a heated discussion about Canada Day earlier this year.

No one is naming the complainant or the councillors because the investigation is being done confidentially by a Halifax firm on behalf of Cape Breton Regional Municipality's human resources department.

Coun. Earlene MacMullin said she is one of four being investigated, but she denies doing anything wrong.

"I don't recall harassing anybody. I've gone through my messages time and time again, I've gone through everything I've said out loud."

A recreation department staff member gave an interview on CBC's Mainstreet Cape Breton in June that sparked an email chain among councillors and staff, which came to a head publicly at a council meeting in July.

It became heated when some councillors said they were unfairly called racists in the email exchange.

Not cancelling Canada Day

Many said they were simply questioning the decision to call the July 1 events Night of Lights amid calls from Indigenous groups across the country to reconsider Canada Day because of the traumatic legacy of residential schools.

Councillors said they received complaints from constituents that the municipality was cancelling Canada Day, but CBRM staff denied that.

They said they were simply adding a theme to the day's events to make it more inclusive of Indigenous people.

Council voted unanimously in July to ask staff from Nova Scotia's Municipal Affairs Department to help council and the chief administrative officer with internal communications.

CBRM spokeswoman Christina Lamey recently said the province declined to get involved in an internal issue and a separate internal process was underway.

MacMullin said since the harassment complaints were laid, council has not discussed the issue at all.

"We have had zero process or conversation or meeting or discussion on it since that day."

The councillor, who was deputy mayor at the time, said she still isn't sure what caused the complaint.

"It was about the process, but in the grand scheme of things, I guess in the run of the email, somebody did not like what they saw, so four councillors were selected and have harassment complaints currently against them," she said.

"The very frustrating part is this is putting people in a very difficult situation. Because I stood up and said that I wasn't involved with the process and had issue with it, because the process was Indigenous in nature, I'm not allowed to have issue with it. That's how I feel."

MacMullin said she simply tried to raise legitimate issues in the email exchange, calling for council to have more say when it comes to policy decisions around significant municipal events.

"My concern when this whole thing came out was that we were going to remove a name to show respect to our Indigenous neighbours and inclusion and friendship, but we didn't reach out to the First Nation communities within CBRM. We didn't change any of the content to Indigenous content. We didn't change the name to an Indigenous name. We didn't do anything to honour the Indigenous culture. That was one of the things I was frustrated with."

Mayor Amanda McDougall said she could not say much about the investigation, because it is confidential.

However, she confirmed that a staff member levelled a harassment complaint against more than one councillor.

"I'm not privy to what all that detail is, because I'm not part of that investigation. I was summoned to come in and do an interview, but otherwise, I am not a part of it."

The mayor did say a firm from Halifax was brought in because it would be a conflict of interest for staff to investigate the complaint.

'Not privy to the process'

Because it is being handled through the HR department, it's not clear whether a report will come to a public council meeting, McDougall said.

"I presume that there would be information once the process has concluded ... but again, I'm not privy to that process right now."

The mayor said the legal and HR departments have money in their budgets for processes like this, so she couldn't say how much it would cost or when it would be done.

"I am curious, but again, I'm not even allowed to ask questions, because this is human resources-related."

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