'Enough is enough': Black civil servants vow to press on with discrimination suit as Liberals promise change
CBC
Carol Sip spent three decades inside the federal public service, but her retirement plaque is the last thing she wants to see on her wall.
Instead it sits stored away in the original packaging.
"Why would I hang it up? It will only bring back awful memories," Sip said. "It should be something that you should be proud of, but I'm not proud of it because I know what I went through."
Sip is one of a group Black federal employees involved in a proposed class-action lawsuit launched last December against the federal government alleging years of discrimination and seeking some $900 million in damages.
Earlier this year, federal employee Monica Agard broke her silence about being Black in the public service after a senior colleague at the Immigration and Refugee Board's Toronto office allegedly praised "the good old days when we had slaves."
Since then, the proposed class-action lawsuit has become one step closer to reality after a motion was filed for it to be certified. It will fall to the newly elected government to decide whether to challenge that.
But as Canadians head to the polls, the Liberals appear to be changing course on the issue with a policy plank promising support for Black workers.
Intelligence regarding foreign interference sometimes didn't make it to the prime minister's desk in 2021 because Canada's spy agency and the prime minister's national security adviser didn't always see eye to eye on the nature of the threat, according to a recent report from one of Canada's intelligence watchdogs.