Jobbed

The Globe and Mail discusses the case of Haiyang Zhang, who was first fired from the Privy Council office, then excluded from consideration for the vast majority of government positions based on her having worked for China's national news service a decade ago:

Ms. Zhang was fired by Alex Himelfarb, the Clerk of the Privy Council, Canada's most powerful civil servant. She was also told that it would be almost impossible for her to work anywhere else in the federal government. While the department acknowledged that her dismissal had nothing to do with her work and that there was no proof she had ever been a spy, it stood by CSIS's conclusion that she was a threat to national security...

She said she has no idea how CSIS came to its conclusions. According to a letter sent to her from the Privy Council Office, CSIS concluded that as a former employee of the Chinese news service "you may have engaged in intelligence collection activities on behalf of a foreign state. Secondly, we are concerned that you appear to maintain regular contact with foreign representatives who may be involved in intelligence collection activities."

Ms. Zhang said she worked at the news service from 1989 to 1992 and did routine stories. She said her only contact with "foreign representatives" is helping Canadian businesses develop markets in China.

I'll grant that the Privy Council office probably has more need than almost any other body to err on the side of caution in ensuring the loyalty of its employees. But there still doesn't seem to be much reason to assume that the mere fact that an immigrant to Canada maintains contacts at home means that CSIS should presume disloyalty. And there's certainly no basis for applying what should be a higher Privy Council standard to government positions which aren't closely associated with national security or particularly sensitive information.

Fortunately, Zhang's willingness to pursue the issue has resulted in an order from the Public Service Board that the government seek to find a suitable position for her. But the apparent default position on applicants such as Zhang is doubly harmful, both in sending a message to immigrants that Canada will apply unfair standards if they seek government jobs, and in depriving the public service of well-qualified applicants based on sheer speculation. And any party truly dedicated to the interests of immigrants (not to mention taxpayers in general) should be eager to make sure that position changes.