Veritas Solutions determines that actions by MCC “senior personnel” toward John Clarke and Anicka Fast constitute multiple counts of “harassment.”
Read this first, if you haven’t already:
John and Anicka’s original grievance, submitted to MCC boards on Nov. 3, 2023 after their employment was terminated in August 2023.
MCC’s response to that grievance in which board chairs committed to conduct an “internal” investigation into these allegations. (MCC’s lawyer later informed John and Anicka that MCC had retained Veritas Solutions as the investigator; and the investigator first contacted John and Anicka in early February 2024.)
John and Anicka’s Feb. 28, 2024 email to MCC boards where they explained why they declined to participate in the Veritas Investigation and outlined what a transparent, trauma-informed, external investigation process should look like.
After initially stating that the investigation report would go only to MCC’s HR department, MCC eventually committed to have the report sent to the MCC boards and to share a summary report with John and Anicka. Initially, they said this summary would be considered confidential, but later (Oct. 1, 2024) they reversed this position.
On Oct. 1, 2024, Veritas confirmed that it would “shortly” be sending a completed report to MCC. On Dec 4, 2024, Veritas confirmed it had sent the report.
What’s new?
On December 31, 2024, MCC sent John and Anicka a summary of Veritas Solutions’ investigation into their allegations of abuse of power and unethical and illegal behaviour by MCC leaders.
Dec. 30, 2024 summary report from Veritas (see also MCC’s Workplace Violence and Harassment policy, referenced in that report)
Dec 31, 2024 email from MCC US and Canada board chairs (Ron Ratzlaff and Gilberto Perez) to John and Anicka, which accompanied the summary report.
John and Anicka’s initial analysis of the summary report and Board chairs’ email:
We feel that the Veritas investigation process (an “internal” third-party investigation whose mandate, scope, and final report were fully controlled by MCC) was severely flawed and biased in favor of MCC leadership. Because we felt obliged to decline to participate, no investigators have yet heard our full evidence about the initial abuse that we experienced. We are still eagerly hoping to share all our evidence as part of an independent external investigation (one in which we would have free, full, and prompt access to evidence in our MCC e-mail and HR file, and one in which the choice of investigator, the scope and process of the investigation and access to the full report are not controlled by MCC).
Despite these flaws, the Veritas summary report still found that senior leadership violated MCC’s harassment policy in three ways:
One staff member engaged in harassment by “repeatedly failing to respond to [John’s] questions concerning HR processes,” displaying a “lack of communication, clarity, and responsiveness involving the implementation and application of policy.” (It seems likely that this refers to one of the two HR Directors, who (both) repeatedly failed to answer our questions when we asked in May and June 2023 about how to file a grievance or initiate a conflict resolution process following a harmful confidential HR process.)
One staff member engaged in harassment “by failing to properly address and investigate [John’s] claim of workplace harassment.” (We assume this refers to one of the two Executive Directors, who (both) refused to meet with us to hear our claims about workplace abuse, which we shared with them for the first time on June 15, 2023. The Summary refers to the process of escalation of harassment complaints and to policy section 6.1.3 that says workers should contact EDs if they have a complaint about HR Directors.)
With respect to our Nov. 3, 2023 grievance more generally, the investigation found a “lack of communication, clarity, and responsiveness involving the implementation and application of policy” on the part of “senior personnel as a whole” that constitutes “harassment” as per MCC’s policy. (We assume that the reference to “senior personnel” here would include the board chairs as well as Executive Directors, since they were the ones who communicated with us in response to our grievance. In other words, the investigators appear to have concluded that even after we were fired, when we submitted a grievance, the harassment continued.)
It feels validating to have these actions of MCC senior staff labeled as harassment. However, we also see major flaws with the investigative report. These include a lack of reference to other applicable MCC policies; a conclusion that no “retaliation” occurred; a dismissal of our claim of bribery by simply stating that it was not “criminal":’ and a complete lack of reference to our complaint that MCC violated labour law by firing us while were on medical leave and after making a complaint of harassment.
In their email to us that accompanies the summary report, MCC board chairs fail to acknowledge wrongdoing or to express apology or regret. Instead, they insist that “MCC engaged with honesty and integrity in dealing with the situation” and emphasize that although there were “gaps” in “policies and procedures,” MCC will continue to review and learn. They reduce the seriousness of the findings to “complex communication concerns”. We find this both appalling and, sadly, consistent with previous communication from MCC. It would appear that not even a finding from their own biased internal investigation can convince MCC leadership that there was serious wrongdoing worth apologizing for.
As stated in the petition (which we created together with five other open letter signatories), we continue to demand a “transparent, external, independent third-party investigation into our complaints as well as the complaints of others who may come forward.” Given that the allegations are against senior staff, including executive directors, and at least one board member, no part of such an investigation must be controlled by MCC.