The Cheese Stands Alone

The Weird Thing That Happened to Me at the Canadian Grain Commission

This is the story of the interference I faced when I was the Assistant Chief Commissioner at the Canadian Grain Commission (CGC) and the disappointing lack of support from my employer. Although, as the title suggests, I felt alone, I know others with similar experiences. Maybe we can stand alone together.

Hi-ho, the Derry-o

In the classic children’s song and game “The Farmer in the Dell”, the farmer takes a wife. The wife takes a child, who takes a nurse. Then there are several animals being taken in order of descending size. Ending with the rat who takes the cheese. At the end of the game, the song is over, and the cheese stands alone.

At the end of the game I was reluctantly playing at the CGC, I was standing alone.

On September 6, 2022, I received an email out of the blue from the Director General of Human Resources for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (DG HR AAFC). She told me I was going to be investigated for “allegations of inappropriate behaviours”, and she was going to fly from Ottawa to Winnipeg to tell me about it.

I didn’t like the looks of that bit of text at all. I felt queasy. I racked my brain for possible transgressions.

The next day, we met in an empty office on an empty floor on Lombard Street during the latter days of COVID. She slid the list of allegations across the table. There were twelve.

The first allegation suggested that “From September 27 to 29, 2021, while on annual leave in Saskatchewan, you would have met with external stakeholders and inquired about grain contracts without advising the CGC.”

The second one was “On February 4, 2022, you would have asked questions of the CGC’s Chief Grain Inspector in relation to how commercial cleanliness is assessed in canola and required confidential information related to dockage levels from harvest sample and export data.”

Like me, you might think that kind of describes the job of a CGC Commissioner. Grain contracts were a hot topic because of the recent crop failure and some farm groups wanted the CGC to get involved somehow. Some farmers were speculating that canola was coming off the field cleaner than it was getting loaded onto ships and were questioning the CGC’s oversight. How can me looking into these issues be inappropriate?

But on went the list. One allegation more perplexing than the last.

That fall, an investigator interviewed me and a few select CGC staff over Zoom. In January 2023, I received the preliminary findings that all the allegations were unfounded.

Ya, no kidding.

The Investigation Report

In June 2024, I received the full, heavily-redacted, investigation report. If you’re following the timeline that’s 1.5 years after the investigation concluded.

Of the 211 pages in the report, 163 pages were scanned from the then Chief Commissioner’s personal notebook. On an almost daily basis, he had been making notes about me, ranging from petty observations to wild conspiracy theories to outright misrepresentations of my work ethic and abilities.

Here’s a good one:

August 10, 2022: Once again, she was casually dressed in low quality cotton pants, open toe sandles (sic) and a sleeveless top. I find her to be unprofessional and awkward in public situations.

Hey! I pay good money for my cotton pants.

Things Were Already Weird

I was appointed Assistant Chief Commissioner in February 2021 by Governor-in Council (GIC). Things were OK for a while. I was able to do some good work, I think.

That ended in November 2021. The Chief Commissioner abruptly stopped his incessant criticism of the previous Chief Commissioner and the then Chief Operating Officer and redirected his attention towards me. As I will describe in a future essay about coercive control in the workplace, he became uncommunicative, tried to isolate me, withheld resources, and ignored my input.

I met with him several times to try to understand what was behind this change in behaviour, but he was tight-lipped. I suggested workplace mediation, to which he agreed. I was hopeful. We were in mediation from January to April 2022 and developed a plan to improve our working relationship. The plan was quickly put on the shelf and he never mentioned it again.

The Rat Passes the Cheese to the Cat

My first reaction when I saw the investigation report and the Chief Commissioner’s notes was, “Well, that’s weird”. And then I had some questions. The first one was, where was my employer in all of this?

Now, what was helpful about the Chief Commissioner’s notes was that he carefully documented his efforts to deal with me or, rather, to have me dealt with. He recorded who he met with and when and the “evidence” he shared. The list included CGC executive and HR staff, AAFC staff including the then Deputy Minister (DM), and Privy Council Office (PCO) staff. So, I tracked them all down one by one to ask my questions.

And here’s how the Farmer in the Dell game works in reverse where instead of taking the cheese, the rat refers the cheese to the cat, who refers it to the dog, etc.

Here’s what I was told:

CGC HR turned down my invitation to meet saying:

“I … provided [the former Chief Commissioner] with confidential HR advice and guidance on various matters… The investigation process was led by AAFC… Any questions or concerns that you have in relation to the investigation process or report would be best directed to Human Resources at AAFC. Pertaining to respectful workplace policies and support for women leaders, GIC appointees are supported by the Privy Council Office. You may wish to contact them.”

PCO staff, with whom the Chief Commissioner met several times from April to May 2022, didn’t think it appropriate to talk to me:

“PCO’s role is to support the Prime Minister on the policy and process in relation to GIC appointments and the GIC appointments system. PCO is not mandated to provide support to individual GIC appointees or to advise them on workplace policies. In the event GIC appointees encounter workplace issues, these should be raised with the government department that supports their responsible Minister.”

I have been in a mostly one-sided email exchange with AAFC HR since June 2024. The last response I received from the office was on November 24, 2024:

“[The DG] is currently working on a response for you. We appreciate your patience, and I regret the delay. You can expect a reply by the end of this week or early next week.”

Remember that I was told:

“Any questions or concerns that you have in relation to the investigation process or report would be best directed to Human Resources at AAFC.” (CGC HR)

“In the event GIC appointees encounter workplace issues, these should be raised with the government department that supports their responsible Minister.” (PCO)

Finally, through my lawyer, I reached out to the AAFC DM and Minister. The DM replied that:

“[He] would like to acknowledge the stress Ms. Rosher indicated that she endured during her time as Assistant Chief Commissioner and throughout the course of the Administrative Investigation.”

As if the problem was my inability to deal with the stresses of the job.

The Cheese Takes a Lawyer

I am lucky to have had the means to hire counsel to advise me on possible avenues of redress. But there aren’t any.

I can’t take anyone to court because there is no “tort of harassment” recognized in Manitoba courts. A tort of harassment allows individuals to seek damages for harassing behaviour, but it has only been recognized as a distinct tort in Alberta, and only as recently as 2023.

I can’t argue workplace harassment and seek a labour relations remedy because as a GIC appointee I wasn’t considered an employee under the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act.

If I had sustained injuries (even psychological), I could have filed a claim through the Worker’s Compensation Board, but the harm really is to my reputation and my career.

If I could prove that the harassment was based on a protected ground of discrimination, such as gender, I could file a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission. But that would be difficult to prove even though the Chief Commissioner’s description of me is how women leaders are often treated: aggressive, emotional, unlikeable, and incompetent.

There is no ethics remedy under the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act because it “is not intended to address matters of a personal nature, such as an individual harassment complaint or an individual grievance, that do not otherwise seriously impact the public’s confidence in the integrity of the federal public sector.”

The cheese has no recourse.

Black Executive Network Report

The federal government’s Black Executive Network put out a report in November 2024 documenting the experience of black employees in the public service. It wasn’t good. As the CBC headline read “Internal report describes a 'cesspool of racism' in the federal public service”.

My eyes popped out of my head when I read that the researcher was surprised to uncover the number of investigations to which the black employees had been subjected.

“They also described the complaints process being used as a tool for intimidation and harassment, with lengthy and intrusive investigations largely deemed to be unsubstantiated.”

I’m not going to suggest I faced the kind of ongoing discrimination like those who generously and bravely shared their stories for that report. But I mean, it seemed pretty clear to me that my investigation was intended solely as a tool for intimidation and harassment.

• Right from the get-go, my lawyer had pointed out that AAFC had not provided any authority under which the investigation was being conducted, nor what policy or code I was alleged to have breached.

• I was never advised as to the consequences of the investigation had I been found “guilty”.

• Many of the allegations had already been dealt with in mediation. How could events that could be mediated between two people be turned into allegations of inappropriate behaviour the part of one of them?

• Not only was I not advised of my ability to have a lawyer represent me during the investigation I was discouraged from retaining counsel.

• I was not able to nominate people to speak on my behalf, although I had provided names.

• I did not receive the report until more than a year after I had asked for it and after the Chief Commissioner had been retired.

• The Chief Commissioner lobbied AAFC and PCO to have me investigated, as he helpfully documented. In fact, the week after our workplace mediation concluded he met with PCO to complain about me, never mentioning the plan we had developed.

• Although the Chief’s Commissioner’s insane notes were included in the report, none of the extensive actual evidence of my harassment that I had provided was included.

• I have not been given the opportunity to refute the ridiculous statements in the report and I don’t know who in Ottawa has the report. Was it a factor in my unsuccessful bid to become Chief Commissioner in the summer of 2024? It couldn’t have helped.

• When I mentioned the report to the third Commissioner, he told me that the Chief Commissioner had told him about the whole strategy to get me into mediation and then into a “low bar” investigation. (Sure, that would have been helpful information when he learned about the plan back in late 2001, and, sure, it would have been helpful if he had told the investigator when he was being interviewed, but that’s for a future essay.)

Hi ho, the derry-o indeed

I was appointed Assistant Chief Commissioner because I am a woman, and women are unrepresented in those positions. The federal government has similar equity targets for the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) community.

Maybe we’re underrepresented not because we lack the credentials, ability, or ambition. Maybe we’re underrepresented because we face this kind of harassment and our employer, the federal government, at best gives us the cold shoulder and at worst is complicit.

Nevertheless, the game is over and now no one is singing.

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