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Federal lawyer asks judge to strike out spy service employee’s discrimination lawsuit

A federal lawyer is asking a judge to toss out the claim of a spy service employee who alleges he endured racial discrimination and physical abuse from colleagues.

Lawyer Sean Gaudet, representing senior officials of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, says Sameer Ebadi should have followed internal grievance and harassment processes instead of filing a suit in Federal Court.

Ebadi’s statement of claim, filed in January 2020, says he was passed over for promotion despite an excellent work record, and that he suffered bullying, discrimination, emotional and physical abuse, and religious persecution from fellow employees.

Ebadi, who uses a pseudonym due to the sensitive nature of his work, says in an affidavit that CSIS has a history of protecting harassers from responsibility for their religious or racially motivated behaviour.

He says internal CSIS processes cannot be trusted to provide him with a fair hearing and to protect him against reprisals for bringing forward concerns.

In seeking to have the claim tossed out, Gaudet told a Federal Court hearing today that Ebadi is precluded from taking court action due to the grievance and harassment procedures that were available.