The Public Sector Integrity Commissioner has found fault with how the Parole Board of Canada dealt with claims of harassment in its Kingston, Ont. office.Lars Hagberg/The Canadian Press
Canada’s parole board grossly mismanaged its response to a campaign of harassment that a former board member inflicted on several female staff members at the federal government agency, the integrity commissioner has ruled.
In a report Tuesday, the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner said the board’s administration created a danger for the safety of employees at its office in Kingston in how it handled the case.
“The actions taken by [Parole Board of Canada] management failed to convey the seriousness of the matter, and actually fostered an environment that enabled the board member’s misconduct,” Harriet Solloway said in a statement accompanying the release of her report.
The report said that over a period of eight years, starting in 2014, Michael Sanford, a board member at the Ontario regional office in Kingston, made repeated unwanted advances toward a total of four female employees.
His alleged actions included touching, inappropriate comments and unsolicited phone calls and text messages.
Some incidents were not properly documented, and limited documentation available was not maintained, the report said.
“It is reasonable to conclude that this serious error enabled new members of [parole board] management to ignore the evidence of Mr. Sanford’s prior misconduct thereby contributing to his reappointment for a second term.”
After being reappointed as a board member in 2020, Mr. Sanford subsequently behaved in an inappropriate way with at least two of the four female employees he harassed, the report said.
It said Mr. Sanford left the board in 2022 after the then public safety minister agreed with a request by the parole board’s chairperson, Jennifer Oades, to launch a judicial inquiry as a result of Mr. Sanford’s behaviour.
On Tuesday, a spokesperson for the current Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc said the entire situation is unacceptable.
“We expect all government departments and agencies to foster safe and respectful workplaces for their staff,” Jean-Sébastien Comeau, deputy communications director in the minister’s office, said in a statement.
“The situation that was outlined in the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner’s report is unacceptable. The Parole Board of Canada has accepted all of the recommendations formulated by the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner, and the minister has directed his officials to work with the executive team at the Parole Board of Canada to ensure the recommendations are fully implemented.”
The board is an independent tribunal that reports to Parliament and makes conditional release decisions for offenders serving federal sentences of two or more years, or offenders serving sentences of less than two years in provinces or territories without their own parole boards.
The parole board did not respond to a Globe and Mail request for comment on the situation. The Globe was also unable to reach Mr. Sanford for comment.
The commissioner said parole board management did not take adequate action to stop or document Mr. Sanford’s behaviour, failing in an obligation to maintain a safe work environment for employees.
The report said insufficient and ineffective measures were put in place to deal with Mr. Sanford’s behaviour and to protect employees.
“Moreover, [parole board] management trivialized Mr. Sanford’s misconduct by advising him to ‘refrain from being too friendly with the public servants,’ thus diluting any attempts to convey that his conduct was completely unacceptable and not to be repeated,” the report said.
Ms. Solloway said, in her report, that the situation is especially vexing because her office reported on similar incidents at the board in 2014 and made a series of recommendations to deal with such matters, including the implementation of a structured process to assess past workplace behaviour for prospective board members.
In light of the latest situation, Ms. Solloway made three recommendations, including acting on the 2014 proposals; better managing information related to incidents of harassment; and implementing a management review of the board’s Ontario regional office in Kingston “with a particular attention to workplace well-being.”
A parole board response included with the report said the organization has acted on or is moving to deal with the proposals.
Editor’s note: (May 29): A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that a request to launch a judicial inquiry came from Harriet Solloway. The request came from the parole board's chairperson, Jennifer Oades. This version has been updated.