ViaOttawa Citizen, a wrongful dismissal case filed by Sandra McDonald, a former Foreign Service National (local employee) of the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa.
Sandra McDonald, now in her early 60s, worked at the embassy for nearly 30 years as one of its locally engaged staff. She sued for wrongful dismissal after she was fired in early 2011 while on long-term disability with complex regional pain syndrome.
McDonald’s lawyer, Bijon Roy, said she was “very disappointed” with the judge’s decision and that it might force her to fight the case all over again.
In July 2012, Ontario Superior Court Justice Heidi Polowin issued a default judgment in McDonald’s favour after U.S. officials failed to file a statement of defence or contest the case in court. The embassy had been served notice of the case through Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and was kept informed of the matter on a regular basis. McDonald’s story also received high-profile coverage from Ottawa media, including the Citizen.
In court this week, embassy officials, seeking to overturn the default judgment, said they had “explicable and plausible” reasons for not having responded to McDonald’s lawsuit, and a “good defence” to be made against it. According to court documents, the Americans claimed that they’d “lost the documentation”, “could not open the email attachment”, that the documentation was “inadvertently directed to the wrong office at the State Department”, and that it was “not indexed correctly”.
Superior Court Justice Timothy Ray questioned how U.S. State Department officials could claim not to have been aware of McDonald’s default judgment. “Its embassy apparently failed to see the front page of the Ottawa Citizen (on) Sept. 11, 2012,” the judge commented.
[…]
Ray said he would set aside Polowin’s default judgment on conditions the embassy pay McDonald’s legal costs and put the $240,000 award in a court trust within the next 60 days.
Ms. Carrington writes, “When I look at the leadership of my organization, I still see too few women. And, as many have noted, it appears that many women who do make it to the top are single or childless. Women who have successfully sustained a career and a family appear to be few and far between.”
What do you see?
See pages 26-29 for a Summary of Recommendations. Should be interesting to see how many of the recommendations here have been considered and implemented by State. Thanks for Ms. Carrington and the Cox Foundation for permission to share this paper here.
Article II. Section 2: The President shall be Commander in Chief …He shall have the power , by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law…”
Sometime back, Georgetown professor Clyde Wilcox, who studies campaign finance said, “Rewarding your political supporters is as old as the republic.”
Did you know that when Simon Cameron, who helped Abraham Lincoln clinched the the Republican nomination in the 1860 convention, proved not up to the task as Secretary of War, he was shipped off to Russia by President Lincoln? After first making him Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in 1862, of course.
Coupled with the presidential authority to nominate ambassadors is the “Advice and Concent of the Senate.” And yet the process is mostly pro forma, even after the lawmakers themselves wrote the Foreign Service Act of 1980 (22 USC 3944) dealing with ambassadorial appointments. The Senators recognize that the authority to nominate his representatives is a presidential prerogative under the Constitution and that the president, therefore, should be able to pick his own team and representatives. But perhaps, the Senators pro forma advice and consent is to also ensure that when their party’s candidate get to the WH, that he/she, too, would have the latitude to appoint his/her own people.
Our diplomatic spoils system plays out every four years. In the landmark election of hope and change, there was concern that the Envoy Convoy may screech to a halt , but we were just kidding ourselves.
In 2014, the spoils system is alive and thriving. And the winner still takes it all. The system is not going to change because the very people who can change the system will not lift a finger, as they may be next in line to benefit from the same system.
Cynical much? Oh, absolutely, though mumsie said we were not born this way.
We teach our kids that the golden rationalization, or “everybody does it” excuse is not acceptable; that the number of people who performs an act, does not improve the ethical nature of that act. But then adulthood happens, and early onset amnesia sometime occurs. Yeah, it’s a practice as old as the republic; yow, everybody does it, or maybe the next administration will really do better … sigh.
We recognize that this is a presidential prerogative. We agree that the President, whether a Republican or a Democrat should be able to pick his/her own representatives and advisers. But we also believe that the WH should be attentive and judicious with its nominees to represent the United States abroad. There ought to be one selection panel for ambassadors, not one at the WH for political appointees and another one at the State Department for career diplomats. One panel ought to be tasked with shortlisting potential candidates, no more than three for each country for recommendation to the president. To help ensure that political contributions will not be the main consideration in the nominations, campaign operatives ought to be firewalled from that selection panel (written by a true blooded resident of Planet Pluto).
Of course, this can only happen if our political leadership has the balls to clean up the system. But who got ’em balls?
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