RCMP Asked to Investigate Former NDP President & Current Funders

A former secretary to two CUPE Presidents has sent a letter to the RCMP requesting that they investigate tactics to which she was subjected after blowing the whistle about CUPE Local 116 executives staffing their union office exclusively with non-union secretaries and firing them after they spoke up about excessive workload, verbal abuse, or lack of pension benefits. In the letter dated May 8, 2009 and sent on Saturday to the RCMP’s commanding officer in B.C., Deputy Commissioner Gary Bass, the secretary requested an investigation into former NDP President and lawyer Ian Aikenhead, and union executives including: CUPE BC President Barry O’Neill, BC Federation of Labour President Jim Sinclair, and former CUPE National President Judy Darcy (now a public relations person for Hospital Employees Union).

The secretary had recently asked NDP MLA Leonard Krog to ensure that her case was investigated. She made the request of Krog in writing after she watched him on the steps of the Vancouver law courts calling for an RCMP investigation into an alleged “corruption scandal” involving the Liberal government and former co-chair of the BC Liberals, Patrick Kinsella. Like the secretary’s case, this case dates back to 2002. The secretary believed that an alleged scandal involving a former NDP President and current NDP funders was just as worthy of investigation.  “He ignored me”, the secretary says of Krog. 

Another person who ignored the secretary was British Columbia NDP leader Carole James.  The secretary asked James in writing in March 2009 to suspend the use of campaign donations from O’Neill and CUPE BC; Jim Sinclair and the BC Federation of Labour; Judy Darcy and CUPE National; and former NDP President Ian Aikenhead, while tactics they had used against her as a whistleblowing union secretary remained uninvestigated.

The secretary alleges that after blowing the whistle on unfair labour practices at CUPE, she was subjected to an unfounded police complaint for "intimidation" purposes.  The police report dated Dec. 17/02 reveals that her letters to union leaders including O'Neill, Sinclair, and Darcy, were turned over to police as "evidence" of harassment.  Concealed from police, she says -- and the police report tends to support this -- was the fact that she had been repeatedly told to put her concerns about working conditions in writing. Police found nothing criminally harassing in the letters and dismissed the case.  Aikenhead told the secretary when she confronted him on April 30/09, that he had not broken any laws.  [A whistleblowing pipe fitter, John S., has come forward to say that CUPE also called police on him.  He has since been fired ...and is blogging.]

The secretary also alleges that Constable Herrmann's police report reveals that when talking to police, Aikenhead breached confidentiality by making reference to an unrelated case that had been handled by his wife years earlier in her NDP-appointed role as a Ministry of Health public representative.  A CUPE representative was present in the office when Aikenhead commented on this unrelated case.  CUPE was paying Aikenhead for his time, says the secretary. "I didn't know that information was for sale."  When the secretary confronted Aikenhead last week, he said that the information he provided to police had not come from his wife, it was information that, "You told me."   She says she would have had no reason to speak to Aikenhead about a health care regulatory matter.

Although she was cleared by police, the secretary learned that a "WORKPLACE HARASSMENT" notation would remain next to her name on police files.  She wrote to Sinclair telling him that as long as this notation was on her record, she intended to ensure that it remained on his record.  The offence for which she was investigated was then mysteriously changed in police files -- a year after the case had been closed.  "This is evidence-tampering", says the secretary. Aikenhead says he was not involved in that change.

The secretary is concerned that some of the high profile NDP backers who have so far avoided investigation for tactics deterring whistleblowing, are people to whom Carole James will be indebted should she form a government.  “If she’s elected, she’ll be taking their calls.”  The secretary agrees with James’ election campaign comment that it’s in the “public interest” that government insiders be scrutinized. “There are questions that need to be answered,” James said.  The secretary would agree.  


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