Report alleges national museum CEO mistreated staff, called leadership team 'sluts'

The CEO of one of Canada's national museums committed serious code of conduct breaches by yelling, mistreating staff and using inappropriate language including calling a senior leadership team "sluts" publicly, the Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner's investigation found. 

In a report published Wednesday, Commissioner Harriet Solloway found that Marie Chapman, who holds the most senior job at the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 in Halifax, engaged in a pattern of behaviour over a decade that caused emotional harm to employees.

The report says some people impacted reported contemplating self-harm. 

"This was not a one-time lapse in judgment, but a repeated problem that persisted for over a decade," Solloway said in a video statement.

"This sort of breach poses a serious threat to confidence in the integrity of the public sector, and specifically the museum."

The Harper government appointed Chapman in 2011 as the first director of the museum. She was later reappointed by the Trudeau government in 2016, and again in 2021 with a salary of up to $221,700. One of the museum's roles is to help the public understand immigrants' experiences arriving and settling in Canada.

Chapman told the commissioner she disagrees with the findings of her report and wrote that "given the gravity of the situation," she should revisit the case.

After a two-year investigation that involved interviewing 19 witnesses, almost one-third of the museum's employees and Chapman, the report found some of the director's actions could "reasonably be characterized" as bullying.

Some employees told investigators they were "terrified," had panic attacks and feared speaking up because Chapman said everyone is replaceable.

The report also claims Chapman ranked women working at the museum by age, said there are "no good-looking men" at the museum and referred to some staff by pseudonyms about how they looked or acted which led to "hurtful nicknames."

Chapman referred to a senior leadership team, or SLT for short, using the term "sluts" including in public and in front of museum staff. She told a delegation from another country "I call them sluts" while laughing about it, the investigation found. 

"While some witnesses recounted that Ms. Chapman was trying to be funny, the use of such language in the workplace is inappropriate and inconsistent with the standards expected of someone in a leadership position in the federal public sector," the report said. 

Chapman also said that a famous female athlete "looks like a man" and was too masculine to be featured in a museum product while making a disgusted facial expression, Solloway's report said. 

"Suggesting that a woman does not have the right appearance to be able to be representative of women is offensive, and it is even more problematic coming from a chief executive like Ms. Chapman," Solloway's report said.