`Bully´ bosses issue `swept under the carpet´ until junior government lawyer sent email
(The Star Religion)

A junior lawyer’s decision to speak out — with an email copied to dozens of government lawyers — about an allegedly “abusive� boss at Ontario’s Ministry of the Attorney General caused Queen’s Park to finally take notice of historic problems that were later called a “festering� sore in a government report.“I write to express my profound disappointment and deep sense of shame in the organization I work for under your leadership,� the young lawyer wrote in November 2016 to then-deputy attorney general Patrick Monahan. Seeking maximum impact, the junior lawyer copied her two-page letter of complaint to the executive management group and dozens of rank and file lawyers at the attorney general’s ministry. She was responding to Monahan’s glowing description in a staff email of Malliha Wilson, his assistant deputy attorney general who had just received a lateral posting to another part of the Ontario public service.“Your memo is particularly distressing given that you and other senior leadership in government . . . are fully aware of this pattern of behaviour,� the junior lawyer wrote. “Yet you chose to sweep all of this under the carpet.�Wednesday, the Star reported on a secret government report into the behaviour of “bully� bosses at the ministry. In short, report author Leslie Macleod found that the workplace at the Civil Law Division is a “toxic� cesspool where senior bureaucrats — male and female — bully, harass and discriminate against hundreds of lawyers and administrative assistants.In response to the story, Ontario Attorney General Yasir Naqvi told reporters at Queen’s Park that he had previously been briefed about the situation, the report and how there “are some challenges by the officials.�“Now that the report is there I know that the ministry is taking the responsibility very seriously and working ...