Premier's office denies toxic work environment in legislature in rebuttal to lawsuit
CBC
The Alberta premier's office denies a former staffer at the legislature was subject to a poisoned work environment and says it addressed harassment complaints, in response to a lawsuit.
Ariella Kimmel, who worked as the chief of staff to Minister Doug Schweitzer from last August to February, is suing the premier's office saying she suffered from the toxic culture in the building and was fired in retaliation for raising misconduct and sexual harassment issues there.
The premier's office has now filed its statement of defence in the lawsuit, stating she was terminated in line with her contract.
CBC News has obtained a copy of that filing. None of the allegations have been proven in court and Premier Jason Kenney is not named.
It denies all the allegations, except what is expressly admitted in the document. Throughout her claim, Kimmel alleges she escalated concerns of harassment and misconduct to multiple senior officials in Kenney's office but nothing was done to address them. While the statement of defence confirms some people did know of the issues, the premier's office denies the matters were ignored.
"The [office] investigated and took action with respect to any harassment complaint which was brought forward during the term of the plaintiff's employment," it reads.
It says policies and procedures on harassment were in place, and in September 2020, all of the premier's office and ministerial staff were told they needed to complete online respect in the workplace training.
"[We] could not discuss with the plaintiff the details of any concerns raised by others as those details were the personal information of those involved."
Kimmel's lawsuit alleges that Ivan Bernardo, who was employed with the minister of health, made a sexually inappropriate comment to one of her female staff last October, saying "I haven't seen you on this floor before because with a body like that, I would have noticed you."
The statement of defence says that if the comment occurred as alleged, that behaviour is not condoned. It notes the comment was not made about Kimmel, and the staff member who was targeted did not raise the issue formally.
"The incident was resolved to the satisfaction of the individual to whom the comment was directed insofar as is known," the statement says.
Another woman who worked in the building previously told CBC News that Bernardo was also inappropriate with her and says her complaint was dealt with the way she requested.
Bernardo remained with the minister's office until December 2020 and was still on legal retainer with Alberta Health Services until CBC News reported the allegations against him this fall.
While the defence statement disputed when Chris Thresher, then the health minister's chief of staff, and Matt Wolf, the premier's director of issues management, were told about the incident, they admitted Kimmel did inform both men of Bernardo's alleged behaviour. Kimmel spoke to Thresher more than once, it added.
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