Rideau Hall employees ‘suffered’ during Payette years, Wagner says

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OTTAWA – Chief Justice Richard Wagner says Rideau Hall’s employees were “very unhappy” because they had “suffered a lot” for years by the time he temporarily replaced former governor general Julie Payette, who resigned for presiding over a “toxic” workplace.

“There are 150 employees at Rideau Hall. They were people who, I must say, were very unhappy because there had been very difficult circumstances leading up to the departure. They had suffered a lot for years,” Wagner told attendees of a Quebec journalism conference in May.

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Before his comments during a wide-ranging fireside chat with former journalist Chu Anh Pham, Wagner had seldom spoken publicly about his six-month stint as the administrator of the government of Canada, an exceptional role he took on de facto when Payette suddenly resigned in January 2021.

Payette quit the job after a workplace review revealed that Rideau Hall employees alleged it was a “toxic workplace” with incidents of “yelling, screaming, aggressive conduct, demeaning comments and public humiliation.”

Wagner told conference attendees that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised him that a new governor general would be appointed “relatively quickly,” according to a video of the discussion online.

“It took six months. We have the delays that we have,” he said with a shrug as the crowd laughed. “It was starting to get a bit difficult.”

He admitted that his greatest fear during his time as administrator was that the Liberal minority government would lose a non-confidence vote in the House of Commons and that he would have to decide who would form the next government.

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But he did appear to change his views on if he would participate in a Supreme Court hearing in a case involving a bill he had signed into law.

During his tenure as administrator, Wagner gave royal assent to 12 bills. During a press conference in 2021, he said he didn’t think it would be necessary to recuse himself in a case involving one of those bills.

“I don’t have any intention of recusing myself because I did not give any legal opinion or any type of opinion,” he told reporters at the time. “When I wear the hat of administrator, I don’t wear the hat of the judge.”

But when asked about it by a conference attendee in May, Wagner said he would “probably not” have sat on a case that involved a bill he had given royal assent at the time.

“There’s a legitimate question to be raised about the appearance, and it had been raised at the time,” Wagner said in response to a question about potential conflicts of interest between the role of chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada and administrator of Canada.

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Wagner has frequently denounced a lack of resources for judges and courts across the country that have exacerbated delays and created serious issues with a timely access to justice.

It was no different during the conference, where he said the current lack of support for judges is “disastrous.”

“It’s disastrous right now, the lack of support given to judges. Disastrous. People are underpaid,” he said. “It’s even worse in Gatineau because they only have to cross the (Ottawa) river and they already have incredible salary increases.”

He said it’s up to governments, both federal and provincial, to ensure that courts are properly staffed and resourced in order to reduce delays before trials and prevent further criminal cases from being tossed due to unreasonable delays.

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