VANCOUVER — A former vice-president of the 50,000-member B.C. Wildlife Federation has lost a court bid to have a suspension imposed on him declared unlawful.
Richard Edmund McLeod George, who was elected to a two-year term as a vice-president of the federation in April 2014, was suspended in January for the balance of his term after allegations surfaced that he sent offensive and inappropriate emails to employees of the federation. He denied sexually harassing a female employee in some of the emails and claimed he had done nothing wrong.
The federation launched an investigation in August 2015 after officials were advised of emails that George, who became a director of the federation’s board by virtue of being vice-president, had sent to a male worker who is no longer employed by the federation and to a female worker who remains employed. Neither employee is identified in a court ruling on the matter.
Following the investigation, the federation acknowledged that there was uncertainty as to whether George’s conduct was unwelcome by the female employee.
But the organization concluded that even if she had welcomed the conduct, the emails were a breach of George’s duties as a director and warranted discipline. The federation also found that it was wrong of George to deny his emails were inappropriate.
He was suspended by the board as vice-president, as a director and as a member of the federation’s executive committee.
In response to the suspension, George filed a petition in B.C. Supreme Court claiming that the suspension amounted to his removal from the board of directors, something that could be done only through a special resolution of the members, and was therefore illegal.
The federation argued in court that George had been suspended, not removed, and that the suspension was within the authority of the board.
It made it clear that George was free to run for re-election at the end of his term.
Justice Robert Punnett said in his ruling that it was difficult to see how a bona fide temporary suspension of a director is in fact a removal.
“If, for example, the petitioner had been suspended from his duties for two weeks and then returned to the board, such a suspension’s temporary nature would be self-evident. In this case, however, the suspension was for three months and ended with the petitioner’s term as a director. In my view, that fact in itself does not mean it was not temporary.”
