The following is the text of Heather Laird’s attempted G24 complaint against me, with my responses. It is lengthy and covers a scattered array of issues involving me and others. My preface was eventually accepted by the Board, agreeing with me that nothing in the complaint applies to any of the criteria in Policy G24.

My suggestion of a mediated G23 process was not accepted.

For clarity and simplicity, my responses to this Complaint will be written “in line”, with Ms Laird’s original in blue letters, my replies in black, with some relevant quotes in pink.  Since much of this complaint centres around online remarks critical of the E&I (now I&D) Committee, any Board member who is or was a member of that Committee should be recused and excluded from all deliberations, discussions, and e-mail exchanges related to this matter.

As a preface, I find that the central elements to any G24 process, namely the “Protected Characteristics” that feature prominently in that Policy, are absent here. A G23 process for resolving disagreements would be more appropriate, since at the heart of the matter Ms Laird and I simply are not in agreement about certain ideas and concepts.

Be that as it may, I can see that Ms Laird has invested considerable time and effort into this outpouring of anger and resentment, so I will take equal care to provide a comparable effort to respond to her various contentions. Some of my responses will appear to be repetitive, since some of the assertions by Ms Laird are also repetitive.

The above appendix 1D, shows how user Nebulous Nikky chose to take issue with a specific item I had written, trying to defend or excuse a misstatement of fact she had made, and the following extract is the contribution of Paul Heath, the which e-mail contained nothing relevant to either the Committee discussion nor to anything I posted concerning it. It’s just a diatribe against me personally:

Both chose to engage me directly without changing the subject line. They were no longer discussing the actual E&I Committee, despite the fact that our social media policy G13 even states, as seen quoted by Ms Laird:

So when I then changed the subject line to their usernames for my responses, it wasn’t any sort of “targeted attack” (neither targeted nor an attack) but rather was a standard courtesy to others who might still be interested in the E&I Committee discussion, but not in any spin-off topics. It is suggested by the Complainant that my intention in changing the subject line was in order to harass or bully, but who would know my intention better than I myself would?

My responses to Nebulous Nikky involved pointing out that she was not, as she had claimed (and Mr Ennis repeated), “the only” non-white person at the GA. This is not an issue of opinion, but of the simple fact that there were other non-white people in attendance. Her remark might even be perceived as disrespectful to those others, as if they were not important enough to deserve her consideration.

My responses to Paul Heath pointed out that his various accusations were so inapplicable to me that he must have been thinking of someone else. I do not even know how I would go about blocking him on any of our e-mail lists, for example. That’s not something I’m even in the habit of doing on other social media sites. Nor have I ever told him he wasn’t qualified to do anything in particular (Qilak-related or otherwise).

There were no personal attacks toward anyone from me.

In contrast, appendices 1B, 1E, and 1F consist of direct attacks against me independent of the actual E&I Committee discussion. Some seemed to object to the use of the word “colour” to denote race, though I was merely reflecting the term Nebulous Nikky used. It appears that some people react to what they think I ought to have written (according to their preconceived notions), rather than to what I actually write.

Also of relevance is the advice in G13 not to become  “too easily annoyed.”

Was I being “kind” or “emotionally sensitive” or “soft and cuddly”? No, but I see no particular reason why I should have been. It’s a discussion forum for ideas and assertions, not some sort of support group.

In Appendix 17 we can see that poster Alan Whitman had legitimate concerns involving the methodology being presented, which is an aspect different from the stated goals. It would appear that Ms Laird’s opinion about what constitutes a “discussion that was necessary” does not include dissent from those methodologies. Diversity of opinion, diversity of expression, diversity of ideas, all seem to be absent from her limited concept of “diversity”. This very Complaint seeks to quash free discussion and eliminate any dissenting thoughts.

We also see in Ms Laird’s final e-mail of Appendix 17 the line: “…  providing non-judgemental space for everyone to express themselves freely and comfortably…”, which contrasts markedly with her current campaign to extinguish my own ability to express myself at all within the Society, much less “freely”.

It is also not actually possible to “hijack” a discussion thread without the full and enthusiastic cooperation of other posters. One way to avoid topic drift within a thread is, of course, to politely change the title line whenever a side issue discussion arises, thus allowing the original thread to be continued unaffected.

 Mr Hawley’s behaviour listed above and subsequent sections below can be seen, I believe, as direct violations of RASC policies and by-laws. I have highlighted all that I believe apply to my complaint:

Since Ms Laird has chosen here to rehash the matter, it should be clear that there are very legitimate grounds to question the actions of the Board in the 2016 Incident. Whether Ms Laird thinks that the Board followed “due process” is an issue of opinion.  An issue of fact is that the Board did not adhere to our Policy Manual, given that the very first step in G23 (after skipping the Conciliator) would have been to appoint a Mediator. That step simply never occurred, nor any of the subsequent steps in the G23 process.

The fact that section G24 was later extensively amended to try to match and justify, post facto, the actions of the Board shows just how far from the then-existing Policy Manual those actions were.

And I have never done anything in “support of the expelled member”, except as a side effect. I’ve never suggested he escape unscathed, but rather have instead simply opposed the excessive and possibly panic-stricken actions by the Board. I have always maintained that the Respondent should indeed have been sanctioned, but that expulsion was too extreme a response.

As the quote from the famous commentator Junius, found in the header of The Globe And Mail, reads:

And it should not be forgotten that Ms Laird volunteered as one of the principals in the rewriting of policy G24, which suggests that she can function quite well, without feeling emotionally “triggered”, in the midst of factors pertaining to the 2016 Incident.

 I did respond publicly to a sexist remark made by Mr Hawley where he suggested “dumping” female staff members to hire more men for gender parity in our office (see Appendix 3).

My remark here was a rhetorical approach sometimes known as reductio ad absurdem, wherein an argument is taken to its logical conclusion to show how silly it is. In this case, achieving gender parity would require us to replace half our staff… an obviously silly idea. It was not a course of action that I was recommending or even suggesting, but rather quite the contrary.

 Mr Hawley even went so far on the RASC Lists to suggest that the victims of the 2016 Incident essentially be put on trial in front of National Council (please see attached Appendix 2) Although this wording wasn’t exactly used, it was suggested and the National Council is not a court of law.

Here again one sees how misconstruals are created by reading into my posts that which is not there. At least Ms Laird admits here that the wording wasn’t used, and nor was the idea.

In bringing the question of an expulsion to the National Council there would be no need to bring up victims at all, nor the details of their experiences. Rather issues would be looked at such as whether previous lesser sanctions applied for previous similar complaints had failed to correct the aberrant behaviour (the application of “progressive discipline” as established by decades of regulation and litigation in labour relations), and whether the processes found in the Policy Manual had been adhered to.

In this case, of course, there were no previous complaints and no previous sanctions that would justify escalation to the level of expulsion, especially when done outside the processes of our Policy Manual.

 And while the National Council is indeed not a Court of Law, neither is the Board.

While federal regulations give the Board almost unlimited power to act as it pleases, it should be recognized that not all available actions are wise or even reasonable.

It is not at all surprising that so many people, especially Council members, would want to ensure transparency when a decision of such enormity as an expulsion is undertaken. If members are going to be at risk for sudden and drastic punishment, some sort of accountability to the membership (as represented by the National Council, for example) should be expected. Members nominally depend upon the Policy Manual for guidance and for expectations, and should not be subject to severe Board actions falling outside that Manual without very clear justification being offered.

Members are not employees, but more like customers, and deserve, if anything, even better treatment than that found in Labour Board deliberations.

Procedural secrecy is especially deleterious to general morale in cases where a complainant is a member of the Board, and thus could reasonably be expected to be able to unduly influence Board decisions. When members cannot even get substantive answers to questions put to the Board, trust and faith in Board decisions is necessarily going to decline.

While I remain disappointed that Ms Laird abandoned the Calgary Centre, I have ever acted against her in any way. My failure to get on the bandwagon advocating excessive sanctions on her behalf does not constitute acting against her, nor does simply failing to rush to assuage her apparent emotional stress.

 And if these communications from me dating a year or even two years ago were a problem for her, she had the option to quietly seek a resolution to those disagreements a year or even two years ago. Instead, regardless of whether those ancient postings could actually be considered “offside” or not, they have been fully condoned by the lack of complaint against them.

Despite this claim, Ms Laird managed to play an important role in amending section G24.

I have only referred to a “personal vendetta” and “bullying” in the context of the recent E&I Committee discussion and the actions of the Board taken against my ability to express myself. “Once” is hardly what could be called “often”.

And this Complaint is certainly a prime example of the problem. The e-mail extracts in appendices 01B, 01E, and 01F show clearly a series of people who posted with no apparent other purpose than to attack me personally, rather than address the ideas or the positions concerning the E&I Committee expressed in my posts. That’s exactly what a bullying personal vendetta looks like.

Advocating the correction of an injustice is hardly bullying, and the Board has always had the obvious recourse of correcting that injustice.

It is also perhaps ironic that Appendix 12 starts out with an e-mail from Michael Watson, also copying to Ms Laird. Shall his judgment and actions in including Ms Laird “in the loop” be questioned as well?

It was intended as a courtesy, to keep her “in the loop”. But I’d be happy to exclude Ms Laird to the extent possible for any future discussions of the 2016 Incident.

I’ve not been made aware of the identity of any other complainants. Robyn Foret once assured me that there were three women who had complained, but even the Respondent is only aware of the one official complaint. Ms Laird is also the only complainant who was, and still is, on the Board and necessarily involved in any discussions about Board actions.

Changing the title is a common courtesy when the subject changes, as seen in our Policy G13 governing e-mail lists. It has nothing to do with “bullying”.

Disagreeing with someone is hardly the same thing as bullying. I have done nothing that would preclude anyone from expressing themselves freely and openly on any of our fora. I’ve never suggested to anyone that they stop posting or cease communicating. On the contrary, this very Complaint trying to get the Board to impose sanctions against me is a very real form of such bullying.

And the option to ignore any post or any person is always available if reading those contributes to stress, particularly if you don’t actually want to be kept “in the loop” for whatever reason.

I have not spoken in person with Ms Laird since 2016. I have no interest whatsoever in anyone’s emotional responses, but rather stick to rational ones. It may even be that my not showering her with “emotional support” in 2016 contributes to her evident anger here. “Emotional” is just not something with which I try to involve myself. Just because Ms Laird perceives things in emotional terms does not mean that everyone else has to do the same.

This little nugget of information about “protecting members” is something the Board has never released, so for Ms Laird to be aware of it would require that she be privy to Board discussions (kept secret for over two years) from which she claims here to have entirely recused herself. This does not bode well for the verisimilitude of the rest of her Complaint.

And if that really is what the Board thought it was doing, they would thereby be punishing the Respondent for his behaviour at Centre-level events, on the basis of exactly zero information about his behaviour at Centre-level events. Calling that “due process” is really quite a stretch.

The above error of mine (already acknowledged as such at the time) stemmed from another member on the list claiming that the Respondent in the 2016 Incident was again active in his Centre. I assumed they knew what they were talking about, but apparently they were mistaken, and I really should have investigated the matter more fully before taking them at their word.

But for something to be an “allegation” requires the presence some kind of malfeasance. Having local-only members is not, however, forbidden by our Bylaw or Policy, and any Centre has the default right to do so. A prohibition against the practice used to exist in our old Bylaw, but after the National Council (while it still held real authority) categorically refused to implement the measure, it was not included in the new Bylaw.

So this was not an “allegation” at all, much less a “serious” one.

I have always responded positively to requests by moderators to close a particular thread. I find it to be an uncommon occurrence. I have never been approached by a moderator and specifically asked to be the only one not to continue to comment. I have never received any official indications (until the event just recently) that my postings could be seen as problematic. I have received no remarks from any moderator to the effect that my posts might be considered deleterious.

One of the ways I try to avoid getting involved in “flame wars” is to ignore the content of posts that are just personal vitriol. Posts telling someone to shut up or to stop posting should be ignored.

Identifying a risk is not the same thing as making a threat. I presume this is a reference to two issues: the inappropriate allocation of extraneous (ie, non-member) revenue to the Membership Services side of our accounts, and the conversion of charitable money to a member benefit in the case of the robotic telescope program.

In the unlikely event of a CRA audit, it would not be me having to come up with explanations. The CRA would be demanding answers with the force of Law behind them. It would be left to the Board members to accept the responsibility and the liability. One might wonder, then, why I would care, since I’m personally off the hook in any case?

The answer, of course, is that I love this Society, and do not want to see issues festering, issues over which a CRA audit could potentially create serious problems for us. My love for the Society is why I have been involved in administrative positions at Centre and/or National level continuously since 1987. One might suggest that I love the Society even more than I love the Board.

This is the first time I’ve heard of my ever offering a supposed “developmental disorder” as an excuse for anything… which is probably why no appendices are mentioned for reference. It’s just innuendo. And referring to “racist, sexist and bullying” is merely adding more gratuitous insults, something I have never directed against anyone on any of our e-mail lists, nor social media sites, nor in person.

I am saddened to learn that Ms Laird has fibromyalgia, and I’m quite sorry that she has suffered from so much stress. It has never been my intention to exacerbate her condition. She could always have simply ignored my e-mails to the Board or to other RASC lists if she found them stressful.

It is also clear from this particular 2018 complaint that Ms Laird’s stress situation has been made more difficult, not less so, by the level of severity of the sanction applied in the case of the 2016 Incident, and by the controversy that decision created. I have repeatedly stated that should that injustice inflicted by the Board be remedied, I would cease entirely to comment on the matter, which would presumably remove that particular source of her stress.

Nothing from me about the controversy over the 2016 Incident has been directed toward Ms Laird or her experiences, but rather only toward the Board decisions, from which she claims to have recused herself.

What we see in this Complaint is exactly a process of harassing me for failing to support Ms Laird’s views, and for standing up for my own positions. And what rules am I supposed to have broken? The Complaint doesn’t say, and offers no supportive evidence.

I’m not sure what relevance these matters have. The prominent figures in question have been accused of exploiting their wealth, power, and/or authority to obtain sexual favours from their underlings. The RASC has a rather flat hierarchy, and no Board member has enough influence to offer National Council Reps, nor even regular Members, much in the way of rewards to induce them to succumb to such things.

Never have I tried to exploit my position, either within the RASC or in any other aspect of my life, to extort sexual services. This sort of base innuendo should have no place here.

These gratuitous and unsubstantiated insults ill become Ms Laird. She admits I have a right to disagree with her from time to time on various topics, but she is attempting here to remove entirely my ability to express that disagreement.

I can offer something about inclusivity that should be enlightening. At the recent GA, as speeches were going on at the microphone, I noticed two young lads, the authors of two very nice poster presentations at the GA, and their equally East Indian father, sitting at a table, all alone, way out of the way, in the back and off to one side, near the entrance to the venue, looking isolated and ill at ease.

So I went over, introduced myself, sat down, and chatted with them quietly for almost an hour.

Did I succeed on making them feel completely “included”? Probably not, since the two lads are not even in high school yet, and were attending a very adult conference. However I saw no one else at the time making any such effort. It seemed that no one else there cared enough about actual inclusivity to even engage with non-whites like those three.

The point here is that I value inclusivity for its sake alone, I value our youth members, and I hope those two will become regular members some day.  I value these things much more than I value mere virtue-signaling.

I love this Society, and would like to see us penetrate more markets, and access wider demographics for membership. But that does not appear to be the goal of the E&I Committee.

No moderator has ever singled me out to ask me alone to stop posting. Rarely has a RASC moderator even decided to close a thread I’ve been commenting on. Only recently did the President, acting as locum tenens for the RASCALs moderator, decide, instead of closing the thread, or even requesting I stop posting, to arbitrarily remove me from all RASC e-mail lists, including those lists other than the one with the discussion involved. That act was a clear departure from our Policy Manual.

As it says, in G13, a moderator may:

(iv) as a last resort, to ban a user from the Social Channel either permanently or for an appropriate period.

Note: not as a first choice of action, but as a “last resort” after other requests and measures have failed. No prior notifications about any of my postings have ever been made, and certainly not in the case of the recent E&I Committee discussion.

An examination of any of my postings will show that while I sometimes disagree (even vehemently on occasion) with the posts of others, I refrain from attacking the people themselves, but stick to the arguments and assertions in question. I do not launch personal insults at people, and certainly not of the invidious sort that Ms Laird keeps repeating in this Complaint.

There’s no basis for any such calumnies like “indecency” or “sexism”, and of course this Complaint offers no evidence for any of it.

Several people on the discussion about the E&I Committee also expressed reservations about it. Not just Alan Whitman, but also Cathy Hall, Kim Hay, Armand, Tasha Clowater, Joseph O’Neil, Ron Macnaughton, and others. Many members do not “align” with the views and methodologies of the E&I committee. One member in a private e-mail told me that he had spent so many years working in a union environment that he could recognize a disciplinary program when he saw one. That’s a remark about the methodology presented by the Committee, and not the supposed goals.

Rather than looking outward to penetrate other markets, the Committee proposes to look inward, and go after members who fail to “toe the line” on their concepts of Political Correctness and Identity Politics.

It is a mistaken assumption to think that anyone not busy virtue-signaling their support of the E&I Committee’s processes is somehow standing against inclusivity. It is also a mistaken assumption that the views of the Society as a whole necessarily align with those of the E&I Committee.

Once the innuendoes, insults, and misconstruals within this Complaint are stripped away, what remains is the simple matter that Ms Laird doesn’t like the fact that she disagrees with some of the ideas and concepts I express. This is hardly a justifiable basis for excluding me from e-mail lists, nor for banning me from occupying positions on the National Council, much less for the exceedingly vile suggestion of expelling me from the Society.

While Ms Laird is apparently very stressed by certain matters, relief for her problems has largely been available from elsewhere, including from within her own choices. The disputatious process she has launched here is unlikely to reduce her stress levels, and may very well increase them.

This Complaint carries personal insult to a level I would never apply to anyone, and represents a form of harassment directly intended to extinguish my ability to express my views within the Society. This is a sort of attack to which I would never have thought of stooping, not even while I was National President with the potential to exploit my influence within the Board.

Every element of the Complaint lies refuted, and much of it is shown to be mere innuendo, hearsay, or rumour without any documented foundation. No harassment or discrimination of any kind, much less based on any G24 Protected Characteristic or based on any sexual characteristic is demonstrated.

It is my opinion that no objective observer could take this Complaint as serious enough to warrant any action by the Board, other than to fully restore my access to the affected e-mail lists. Much of the membership might even be offended by the Complaint as being frivolous, abusive, and in bad faith.

Included with this Response are letters of support from Mary Lou Whitehorne, Brendon Roy, Alister Ling, Katherine Peterson, Don Hladiuk, Russel Chandler, Greg King, David Levy, Peter Jedicke, Cathy Hall, Mel Head, Rod Eaton, Peter Brackett, and Robert Dick, each of whom disputes disgraceful mischaracterizations offered by the Complainant.

I love this Society too much to want to see unilateral and disproportionate Board actions further alienate Members and Centres.

Be that as it may, should the Board choose to pursue this vicious, unfounded, unsupported, and patently false attack, I hereby inform the Complainant(s); the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, the Society Board of Directors, the Executive Director, and each of them jointly and severally, that I reserve my right to proceed with civil litigation further to this proceeding made under RASC Policy G24, and I further advise those parties that any comments, observations, or other responses of any type made herein do not preclude, prejudice, or abrogate that right.

In accordance with Policy G24, Section E, Items 7 and 4, the RASC Board of Directors must appoint an impartial investigator. Policy G24, Section E, Item 4 specifically states that “No person who has a conflict of interest may serve as the investigator”. I submit that due to the public nature of RASC social media, discussion lists, and the propensity for RASC members to communicate with each other privately, no RASC member can be considered as an impartial investigator in this case. As such, an impartial investigator must be appointed from outside the Society, at the Society’s expense.

There are multiple unsupported, false, denigrating, slanderous and hostile statements made against the Alleged Offender in the Formal Complaint. Each must be exposed and examined individually on their merits through statements of facts and/or other submissions from parties named directly, indirectly, by innuendo or other suggestion. This examination can only be done by an outside, impartial investigator. Anything less supports the Alleged Offender’s right of litigation.

The so-called “2016 Incident” plays a major role in this Complaint. In order for the Alleged Offender to mount a proper defense, the Society shall provide to the Alleged Offender all documentation regarding the “2016 Incident”, the expulsion from the Society of Ross Sinclair, the amendments made to section G24 of our Policy Manual after the fact, and any other documents relating to Ross Sinclair. This shall include e-mail exchanges between Board members concerning those issues, e-mail exchanges with members of the Disciplinary Committee, minutes of all Board meetings where the issues were discussed, including those meetings held in camera, and any Reports made by Committees relevant to those issues.

The Complainant shall supply copies of all e-mails and other correspondence concerning any aspect of this Complaint between her and two other persons named in this Complaint, namely Paul Heath and Nicole Mortillaro, as well as between her and any Board members.

The Complainant shall also supply copies of all e-mails and other correspondence concerning any aspect of this Complaint involving unnamed persons referred to within the Complaint, but whose communications are not supported with evidence, including contact information for each person in question.

The Alleged Offender is willing to stipulate that all such documentation will be shared with the Independent Investigator, but with no one else unconnected to this Complaint, with the proviso that should matters escalate to litigation, such documentation may become material evidence and be entered into the public record.

In case it hasn’t already been made clear, the Alleged Offender vehemently and categorically denies any and all accusations set out against him in the Formal Complaint filed December 17, 2018.

The Alleged Offender also vehemently asserts that the Formal Complaint be dismissed in whole and in part. Although an apology should certainly be forthcoming from the Complainant, the Board of Directors, and the Society they represent, the Alleged Offender recognizes that would require even more communication with the Complainant, which is the last thing he desires, now or ever.

Sincerely, Glenn Hawley, RASC