After three days of federal officials publicly acknowledging that employees of Canada’s spy service deserve better, government lawyers pushed back Friday on the specific allegations of harassment made by the five intelligence officers and analysts who first brought the issue to light.

“No organization can ensure that its employees and managers will never act inappropriately. Organizations cannot be held to such a standard. Rather, organizations must be measured by whether they have procedures in place to address issues as they arise,” reads the government’s statement of defence, filed Friday in a $35-million lawsuit that alleges a toxic workplace inside the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

CSIS maintains that the five plaintiffs had their complaints “addressed by the Service in a fair, reasonable and timely manner,” and should not be entitled to compensation.

“If the plaintiffs have suffered any damages,” the 18-page statement reads, “the damages claimed are excessive and remote.”

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Judge slams Ottawa for delays over $35-million CSIS lawsuit alleging workplace Islamophobia, racism and homophobia

Head of spy agency CSIS admits ‘retribution, favouritism, bullying’ in workplace

Five CSIS employees are accusing the spy agency of Islamophobia, racism and homophobia in a $35-million lawsuit

The lawsuit, filed in July, alleges the five intelligence officers and analysts encountered managers who openly espoused Islamophobic, racist and homophobic views and discriminated against Muslim, Black and gay employees.

One of the complaints, “Alex,” alleged that he had faced years of homophobic harassment as an intelligence officer, often called a “fag” or “homo.” One email included in 54-page statement of claim alleges a manager wrote to Alex: “Careful your Muslim in-laws don’t behead you in your sleep for being homo.”

Pseudonyms are used for both the complainants and managers who are cited in the lawsuit, since under Canada’s Security of Information Act, identifying a spy can be considered an offence. All five of the complainants are still CSIS employees, but are on medical leave.

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale told the House of Commons earlier Friday that there must be “appropriate consequences” for harassment and discrimination at CSIS. “This behaviour is unacceptable.”

He was responding to calls from NDP public safety critic Matthew Dube, for an investigation into the workplace conduct at the spy service.

CSIS director David Vigneault publicly acknowledged Wednesday that his agency suffers from a workplace climate of “retribution, favouritism, bullying and other problems,” which he said is, “categorically unacceptable in a high-functioning, professional organization.”

Vigneault’s statement was accompanied by an executive summary of a “workplace climate assessment” conducted at CSIS’s Toronto office, which uncovered low morale and a possible exodus of employees who said they felt “disillusioned and disheartened.”

One employee described the Toronto office as “the region progress forgot.”

“The issue here is that there’s clearly a cultural problem and one third-party report is not enough,” Dube said Friday, according to the Canadian Press. “What we’re asking the minister is to launch a full investigation into this type of discrimination, these allegations of homophobia and Islamophobia.”

The defence statement filed Friday conceded some of the allegations, admitting that at the spy service’s Toronto office “inappropriate language was used by employees.”

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But addressing each of the five complainants, the statement refuted many of the individual allegations, or questioned the character of the complainants.

“Alex socialized extensively with senior managers in the office and developed personal friendships with many such managers,” reads the statement, claiming he had been close to “Simon,” the manager who allegedly sent some of the questionable emails.

The statement also claims that Alex’s internal complaint last year into the harassment resulted in “disciplinary sanction on the employee against whom Alex’s complaint of harassment was deemed founded.”

Alex has alleged the only career that suffered after he complained publicly was his own.

For “Bahira,” a Muslim intelligence officer with more than a decade of experience and who alleges she faced discrimination once she started to wear a hijab, the government claims that, “any scrutiny” or “direction given to Bahira over the course of her employment with the Service, was reasonable, justified and wholly consistent.”

Last month, Federal Justice Simon Noël chastised the Department of Justice for not responding faster to the lawsuit, filing a statement of defence beyond the usual 30-day limit.

“(T)here is a course of action to be followed and you are no different from any other parties in Canada,” Noël said told government lawyers in a teleconference call. “It is not because you are the Attorney General of Canada that you can act as if the Rules do no apply. This is not acceptable.”

The Star reported on the call Tuesday after a transcript of the conversation was filed in federal court.

According to the transcript of the Sept. 13 call with Noël, however, the government was attempting to “resolve the claim.”

Toronto lawyer John Phillips, who represents the five plaintiffs, said in an emailed response Friday night that, “CSIS continues to blame the victims and refuse to accept responsibility for the harm and suffering the organization has caused.”

“The CSIS director has had a chance to meet with these employees and has seen them in tears. He knows exactly what his organization has done to them,” he wrote. “It has crippled them and destroyed their careers. Yet CSIS continues to grind them because it can. In my view, it is a shameful response.”