Edmonton correctional facility manager fails to deal with ‘horseplay,’ gets dismissed

An Alberta correctional facility had just cause to dismiss a manager who failed to deal with and report an incident of “horseplay” by correctional officers on duty, an arbitrator has ruled.

April Michel was an acting corrections manager at Edmonton Institution (EI), a role she took in March 2015 after having the same title at the Edmonton Institute for Women. Prior to that, she had been a corrections officer.

In March 2017, the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) conducted a workplace assessment at EI that found the workplace there was toxic. CSC held town-hall meetings with EI employees, at which they were told that their careers were at risk if they knew of employee misconduct and didn’t report it.

A correctional officer then reported that in September 2015, Michel told two correctional officers that she had just seen a female officer handcuffed to a chair while two male officers drew on her face with a Sharpie marker. Michel reportedly did nothing to help the female officer, laughed while telling the other officers about it, and said, “those boys.”

Michel told an investigation committee that at the time of the incident, she was a newly-appointed correctional manager and was also new to EI. She said the officers in question stopped their activity after she spoke to them, she felt it was horseplay, and she knew that the female officer was “one of the boys” in the unit, so she didn’t follow up with her or report it. She acknowledged that in hindsight, she should have handled it differently and she recognized that there was a safety risk to the female officer if she had received a call to respond.

Michel also said that she had heard rumours about the group who worked in that unit — they were known as “the group with the power” at EI and they didn’t listen to managers — and she had been told by others to “keep her head down and mind her own business.”

The investigation committee determined that Michel failed to report the incident, counsel the male officers, or investigate further. This was a violation of her correctional manager duties and deserving of discipline.

CSC initially suspended Michel on Nov. 3 while it continued to investigate, then terminated her employment on Jan. 5, 2018, for breaching CSC policy requiring reporting of an incident and the bond of trust. Michel grieved her dismissal, arguing that CSC didn’t consider the mitigating factors.

The arbitrator found that regardless of the circumstances, Michel had an obligation to live up to her responsibilities. Horseplay wasn’t an acceptable workplace activity as it raised workplace safety issues and could lead to assault and harassment, said the arbitrator, who also added that it violated CSC’s standards of professional conduct for correctional officers.

“I believe that [Michel] cannot be excused from the proper exercise of her duties or at least from attempting to properly execute them,” said the arbitrator. “Furthermore, her failure to report the unacceptable behaviour and activities allowed them to continue for two years, perpetuated the poisoned environment for which EI was notorious at that time, and exacerbated her failure.”

The arbitrator also found that an objective member of the public would take issue with a manager in a federal correctional institution allowing male officers to handcuff female officers to chairs and draw on them with markers. CSC was “justified in doubting her integrity and judgment,” the arbitrator said.

The arbitrator determined that CSC could no longer trust Michel to properly conduct herself in the workplace and follow its policies, and Michel “lacks the insight to required not to repeat the behaviour for which she was terminated.” The termination was upheld.