Victoria mayor calls bullying investigations in bylaw department ‘disappointing’

Victoria’s mayor says she’s disappointed the city’s bylaw department has seen a series of investigations into complaints of bullying and discrimination.

Victoria’s mayor says city council has limited options for responding to the revelation that the bylaw department has undergone a series of workplace conduct investigations.

Over the past five years, eight separate bylaw employees have initiated 10 workplace investigations. There are 35 people in the department.

The investigations looked into complaints of disrespect, discrimination, bullying and harassment. Eight complaints were founded or partially founded.

CTV News broke the story on Thursday, obtaining the information through a freedom of information request.

“It’s disappointing to hear that any number of investigations would arise in any department,” Mayor Marianne Alto said in an interview on Friday.

When faced with allegations of inappropriate behaviour in city departments, Alto said council can’t do much to intervene.

“In general, it would be unusual for a governance board to interfere in personnel (matters),” she said.

“We have very robust personnel policies, a very robust department that deals with human resources, and one municipal employee, that being the city manager.”

Councillors could ask the city manager, Jocelyn Jenkyns, to investigate and provide them with a report, Alto said. Whether they’ll take that step remains to be seen.

‘Extremely high’ number of investigations

CTV News spoke with former bylaw employees, who claim the workplace culture is toxic. They shared similar allegations about the use of discriminatory language, including homophobic slurs.

The founder of a diversity, equity and inclusion consulting firm said the number of workplace conduct investigations in the department is “extremely high.”

“There needs to be some intentional and serious interventions to shift that behaviour,” said Andrea Carey, chief inclusion officer at INclusion INcorporated in Victoria.

“In some of our work, that involves doing an audit to understand what the existing culture is and how people are feeling.”

Employers must be clear about their expectations for employee conduct, she said. The City of Victoria said its policies establish those standards.

“Every complaint is investigated and if substantiated, corrective actions are identified to prevent recurrence and support a safe and respectful work environment,” a city spokesperson said in an email.