Authors: DAVID HOGBEN, The Vancouver Sun, Jan 25, 1996
Start Page: B.5
ISSN: 08321299
Abstract:
The immigration and refugee board is more worried about being embarrassed publicly than it is with a possible breach of its oaths of confidentiality, the national president of the Canada Employment and Immigration Union said Wednesday.
The immigration and refugee board hired Vancouver labor arbitrator Catherine Bruce earlier this month to search for the person it believes leaked confidential information to The Vancouver Sun. Bruce is expected to make her report next month. (Copyright The Vancouver Sun)
Full Text:
The immigration and refugee board is more worried about being embarrassed publicly than it is with a possible breach of its oaths of confidentiality, the national president of the Canada Employment and Immigration Union said Wednesday.
``They are very sensitive to any type of public criticism,'' Cres Pascucci said from his Ottawa office. He said the board should halt its investigation into the alleged breach unless it makes specific allegations of wrongdoing.
The immigration and refugee board hired Vancouver labor arbitrator Catherine Bruce earlier this month to search for the person it believes leaked confidential information to The Vancouver Sun. Bruce is expected to make her report next month.
The Sun reported last November that immigration and refugee board member Marie-Andree Lalonde-Morisset asked a civil servant during a refugee hearing to examine an alleged refugee's body for evidence of torture.
The hearing officer objected to the request and was not required to examine the claimant. Board members and employees take oaths of confidentiality barring them from improperly divulging information they learn in the course of their duties.
Pascucci said the board should be more concerned that such a request was made at all, rather than attempting to find out who disclosed it.
Sources said the claimant's alleged scars were on or near his sexual organs, but the board said it was the individual's thigh that required examination.
Either way, Pascucci said, it is improper to ask a civil servant to conduct any medical examination, especially in a hearing room rather than a medical facility.