# 2018-148 Careers, Cease-training, Harassment

Case summary

F&R Date: 2019-07-10

The grievor challenged her removal from the Primary Leadership Qualification (PLQ) course and the redress sought was to be granted her PLQ qualification. She argued her failure was largely due to harassment, she contends, she experienced.

The Committee reviewed the grievor's course performance and found that the grievor met the course failure criteria and determined that the Progress Review Board process was correctly followed. The Committee considered the grievor's claims of harassment and found that, on a balance of probability, the harassment suffered by the grievor negatively affected her ability to succeed on her PLQ.

The Committee found that although the grievor was negatively impacted, it was not able to conclude that the grievor met the criteria to be granted the PLQ. However, given the circumstances of her failure, the Committee found it was unfair to retain any record of the failure on her personnel file. The Committee recommended the removal of any related documents and recommended that all reference to her training failure be removed from her records.

FA decision summary

The Commander Royal Canadian Air Force, acting as Final Authority (FA), agreed with the Committee's recommendation to partially uphold the grievance and expunge the course report from the grievor's file. The FA agreed that, based on the evidence on file, the grievor was negatively affected by the harassment that she endured from her instructor while on the PLQ course. The FA agreed with the Committee and noted that the PLQ course represents a critical milestone for non-commissioned members. He found that he could not grant her the qualification. Since the grievor is now released, the FA stated that he is unable to order that she be loaded on the next course serial. The FA directed that the grievor's course report be expunged from her file and that the Commander Royal Canadian Air Force review the institution's instructor screening process with a view to ensuring that incidents of harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination are prevented in the future.