A Canadian Federal Public Servant has joined a class-action lawsuit alleging the Canadian Government discriminates against Black Public Servants, saying he believes he has been unable to get promoted because of the colour of his skin.
The IT worker, who asked to be called simply Armando, said he would probably have a better chance of moving up the promotion ladder if he was “flipping burgers at McDonald’s”.
More than 500 Federal Public Servants have now joined the lawsuit, claiming the Federal Government has excluded Black employees from promotions for decades.
Lawyers representing the current and former workers say the lawsuit could ultimately cover tens of thousands of people who have worked in the Federal Public Service since 1970.
Armando said in the more than 10 years he had worked in the Public Service he had not received a single promotion, even though he said he had nothing but positive performance reviews.
“Even people hired after me have been moving up, so it’s fairly obvious that something is going on,” Armando said.
He said he had also been assaulted on the job.
It happened while he was trying to attend a meeting at a Federal building.
He said another employee stopped him and asked if he needed help finding something. When he told the woman he didn’t she called security.
“At this point, I was obviously extremely frustrated, annoyed, offended, so I just made the decision I wasn’t going to attend that meeting,” Armando said.
“I was going to leave and report the incident to my management.”
However, he said one of the security guards prevented him from going.
“I was grabbed, thrown to the ground. Two other security guards came and grabbed me from behind, and then I was punched in the face,” Armando said.
He said police eventually came and arrested him, but let him go after seeing video footage of the incident.
Ottawa, 18 March 2021
