HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL OF ONTARIO
B E T W E E N:
Ontario Human Rights Commission
Commission
-and-
Pamela Howard
Complainant
-and-
Henry deRuiter
Respondent
DECISION
Adjudicator: David J. Mullan
Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario
400 University Avenue, 7th Floor
Toronto ON M7A 1T7
Phone (416) 314-0004 Fax (416) 314-8743 Toll free 1-800-668-3946
TTY (416) 314-2379 / 1-800-424-1168
APPEARANCES
Ontario Human Rights Commission ) Sylvia Davis, Counsel
Pamela Howard, Complainant ) On her own behalf
Henry deRuiter, Respondent ) Joy Hulton, Counsel
INTRODUCTION
1Pamela Howard has complained that Henry deRuiter discriminated against her in employment because of sex, family status, and marital status contrary to Section 5(1) of the Human Rights Code, R.S.O. 1990, c.H.19, as amended (the “Code”). She also has alleged that Henry deRuiter harassed her sexually in employment contrary to Section 7(2) of the Code. At the hearing, these allegations were expanded to include violations of Section 5(2) (harassment on the basis of marital and family status). Counsel for the Respondent did not object to the inclusion of these additional grounds.
BACKGROUND FACTS
2Pamela Howard, a married woman and then the mother of a young child, was sworn in as a Probationary Constable, Fourth Class on December 8, 1997. After undergoing training at the Ontario Police Training College in Aylmer, Ontario, she was assigned to B Platoon in No. 2 District (Richmond Hill) of the Regional Municipality of York Police Services Board (“York Regional Police”). She commenced her duties there on May 7, 1998 under the tutelage of a coach officer, Constable Henry deRuiter. At that time, Henry deRuiter had served with the York Regional Police for approximately ten years. However, Pamela Howard was the first recruit for whom he had acted as coach officer.
3Pamela Howard was told that Henry deRuiter would act as her coach officer for her first twelve weeks of service. During that time, he was responsible for training her in the various tasks expected of constables in B Platoon. In effect, this meant that most of their time together (approximately 80%) was spent working shifts in a police cruiser on a four day on, four day off rotation. Part of the coach officer’s role involves monitoring the probationary police constable’s progress and providing a formal evaluation to the Platoon’s Commanding Officer. One of the principal objectives of this whole process is to bring the recruit to such a level that he or she is capable of patrolling solo in a police cruiser.
4After approximately five weeks (or five blocks of four days) working principally in the police cruiser with Henry deRuiter, Pamela Howard took vacation to which she was entitled. While on vacation, she became quite seriously ill and did not return to her duties until mid-September. At that point, she was again assigned to Henry deRuiter. In mid-October, however, Pamela Howard approached Sergeant Don Lewis and requested a reassignment to another coach officer, citing personality conflicts with Henry deRuiter. Sergeant Lewis acceded to this request and, for a short time, she rode with another coach officer, Police Constable Debra Stevens. However, when Inspector Marshall returned from a course, he terminated that arrangement and instructed Pamela Howard to report again to Henry deRuiter. This third stint with Henry deRuiter did not last long. After at most only a few more shifts with him, Pamela Howard was assigned to court duty outside of No. 2 District and then for a block in Traffic. During this time, she was summoned to a meeting with the Professional Standards Branch at York Regional Police Headquarters. At that meeting, an Inspector Kerr identified problems with her performance and gave her notice of termination proceedings. In part, these concerns arose out of negative reports on her work by Henry deRuiter and Staff Sergeant Mike Fleming. Thereafter, the precise sequence of events leading to her eventual resignation in March 1999 is not germane to the determination of this Complaint. It simply suffices to note that Pamela Howard did not work with Henry deRuiter again.
5On June 23, 1999, Pamela Howard filed a Complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Commission (“Commission”) against her employer, the York Regional Police. In that Complaint, she made a number of allegations, including one accusing more senior members of the York Regional Police (including her coach officer) of subjecting her to “sexist comments, remarks, and insults designed to intimidate and harass”. On November 21, 2001, Pamela Howard amended her Complaint to include Henry deRuiter as a Respondent and to flesh out and expand the scope of her various allegations. Included were more specific details of conduct attributed to Henry deRuiter which was said to amount to discrimination and harassment on the basis of sex, marital, and family status. On June 3, 2003, the Commission decided to refer the Amended Complaint in so far as it related to Henry deRuiter to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (“Tribunal”), but not those parts of the Complaint implicating the York Regional Police.
6The hearing of the Complaint took place over four days, three of which were devoted principally to testimony (February 19 and 26, and March 8) and one to the making of closing submissions (March 9). During that time, the Tribunal heard evidence from the following seven witnesses:
(1) Pamela Howard, the Complainant;
(2) Sean Howard, the Complainant’s spouse;
(3) Henry deRuiter, the Respondent;
(4) Mike Fleming, formerly Staff Sergeant, B Platoon, No. 2 District (Richmond Hill) of the York Regional Police;
(5) Andrea Davidson, Police Constable, B Platoon in No. 2 District (Richmond Hill) of the York Regional Police;
(6) Debra Stevens, Police Constable, B Platoon in No. 2 District (Richmond Hill) of the York Regional Police; and
(7) Don Lewis, Sergeant, B Platoon in No. 2 District (Richmond Hill) of the York Regional Police.
At the conclusion of the hearing, I reserved my decision.
OVERVIEW OF THE CASE
7Both elements of this case, discrimination and harassment on the basis of sex and discrimination and harassment on the basis of family and marital status, hinge in considerable measure on the credibility of the testimony given by the Complainant and the Respondent. There is no doubt that Henry deRuiter would have violated Pamela Howard’s rights under the Code had he engaged in some of the conduct detailed in the Amended Complaint and testified to by Pamela Howard. If Pamela Howard’s version of the events that occurred during her time working with Henry deRuiter is accepted, then, in at least some respects, he discriminated against her and harassed her on the basis of sex, and possibly family and marital status.
8More specifically, in terms of the Complaint of harassment on the basis of sex, while the account given at the hearing by Pamela Howard did not involve any allegations of overt sexual advances towards or even flirting with her, what she did describe were certain incidents which, if they did occur or did occur as recounted, would have amounted to the creation of an inappropriately sexualized workplace by a person in authority. Creating a poisoned workplace environment can clearly occur by reason of the way in which a male person in authority refers to, deals with, and sexualizes women other than the unwilling participant in those activities (see e.g. Reed v. Catolica Investments Ltd., [1996] O.H.R.B.I.D. No. 7, at para. 79 (McNeilly); Curling v. Torimiro, [1999] O.H.R.B.I.D No 17, at para. 76 (Laird)). So long as the person concerned knows or “ought reasonably” to know that any such “course of vexatious conduct” is “unwelcome”, he will have violated the Code (Section 10(1) “harassment”). Moreover, protest or objection to the course of conduct either to the perpetrator or to supervisorial personnel is not a precondition to the advancing of such an allegation: see e.g. Woiden v. Lynn, [2002] C.H.R.D. No. 18, at paras. 103 (Hadjis), relying on the judgment of Tremblay-Lamer J. in Canada (Human Rights Commission) v. Canada (Armed Forces) (1999), 1999 CanLII 18902 (FC), 34 C.H.R.R. D/140, at paras. 29-30.
9Nonetheless, there are always going to be problems in resolving such a Complaint where, as here, the Complainant and the Respondent differ so dramatically in their accounts of the dealings with one another over the period that provides the factual framework for this hearing. For the reasons about to be given, I am not satisfied that the Complainant has established her case on the balance of probabilities. I have reached this conclusion notwithstanding the fact that the Complainant made out a prima facie case against the Respondent on at least some aspects of the claims of sexual harassment, a case that the Respondent then had to rebut to avoid liability: O’Malley v. Simpson-Sears Ltd. (1985), 1985 CanLII 18 (SCC), 7 C.H.R.R. D/3102, at para. 24782; Reed, supra, at paras. 65, 67. The Respondent’s own testimony when coupled with some troubling dimensions of the testimony given by the Complainant have led me to this result.
DECISION
10The Complaint is dismissed.
DISCRIMINATION AND HARASSMENT BY REASON OF SEX
11Right at the outset of their working together, Pamela Howard and Henry deRuiter established that they had some things in common. They had attended the same high school, had similar backgrounds, and both went to the gym frequently and worked on body-building. However, it is abundantly apparent that what seemed a promising start did not produce an easy working relationship between the two.
12If Henry deRuiter is to be believed, the principal irritants in the coach officer/probationer dynamic were Pamela Howard’s seeming lack of engagement with aspects of the work and, especially, her failure to adjust quickly enough to the demands of being on mobile patrol and to familiarize herself sufficiently with the map book for the area they covered on their patrol so that they could respond quickly to any calls. Later, he believed that Ms. Howard was too anxious to be allowed to go out on her own in a police cruiser and was not willing to put in the work that would enable that to happen. He was also concerned that, when Pamela Howard returned to work in September after her illness, she appeared to have forgotten much of what she had learned in the first period under his tutelage.
13In general, Henry deRuiter denied that he either discriminated against or harassed Pamela Howard in any way on the basis of her sex. He conceded that, from time to time, he may have made comments on the physical attributes of women whom they encountered while on patrol or stars such as Shania Twain, but that any such comments were of a kind that might pass casually and normally between any two people and particularly two people with an interest in body-building and a concern about physical fitness and appearance. Indeed, in terms of one of the more serious of Pamela Howard’s allegations, that concerning her modelling photographs, Henry deRuiter testified that Ms. Howard, on learning of their mutual interest in body-building and as a way of building a relationship between them, had brought a family photo album to work one day, included in which was a photograph of her in a bikini. This differed substantially from Pamela Howard’s version of the incident involving photographs.
14The picture Pamela Howard painted was quite different from this. Almost immediately after they started working together and had established the common aspects of their background and interests, Ms. Howard testified that Henry deRuiter asked her if her husband would mind if she brought some of her modelling photographs to work for him to see. That night, she consulted her husband and determined not to respond to Henry deRuiter’s request. (In his testimony, Sean Howard confirmed that conversation.) When she did not bring in the photographs, that passed without comment from Henry deRuiter.
15That incident aside, Pamela Howard testified both as to Henry deRuiter’s general pattern of behaviour and to some specific incidents in support of the contention that he discriminated against her and harassed her on the basis of sex. Every day, according to Pamela Howard, Henry deRuiter would buy a copy of the “Toronto Sun”, turn immediately to the photo of the Sunshine Girl, and generally comment to Pamela Howard on how good looking the person in the photograph was. According to Pamela Howard, this made her feel very uncomfortable. Henry deRuiter conceded that he was a regular reader of the “Toronto Sun” but denied behaving in the manner described. She also testified that Henry deRuiter’s comments on women whom they observed from the squad car were both frequent and went beyond what might regarded as appropriate observations in the workplace or on the basis of a mutual interest in body-building, physical fitness, and appearance. This too, according to Pamela Howard, made her feel very uncomfortable. As already noted, Henry deRuiter denied that his remarks about women’s appearance took on this character. He also denied a more specific incident in which Pamela Howard asserted that, on seeing an attractive woman coming out of a hotel one afternoon, he said that they should go and “check her out” which he then proceeded to do by turning the police cruiser into the hotel parking lot to observe the woman from there. According to Ms. Howard, he did this for no other reason than to ogle the woman in question. More generally, he also denied allegations that he flirted “electronically” with the women working the despatch system back at the Division and responding to Mobile Data Transmission (“MDT”) communications from squad cars. This was an allegation that Pamela Howard seemed to base more on inferences that she drew from the extent to which Henry deRuiter was engaged in and frequently laughing while sending and receiving messages than on any specific examples of actual electronic “flirting”. While she claimed that she was able to read some of these messages, she did not supply details and admitted that she generally did not see the exchanges.
16Overall, according to Pamela Howard, Henry deRuiter, by the range and pattern of these and other activities (detailed below), created an atmosphere in the squad car which was almost constantly fraught with sexual undertones, and which made her most uneasy. In short, there was a poisoned or sexualized work environment.
17As in many cases involving sexual discrimination and particularly sexual harassment, the relevant events occurred between the two parties with no one else present. There were no witnesses to any of Henry deRuiter’s alleged misconduct and, aside from Sean Howard’s testimony that Pamela Howard recounted many, if not all of the various incidents to him when she came home from work, no other evidence either direct or circumstantial supporting the complainant’s case. However, that is no reason for dismissing the Complaint if I am convinced on the balance of probabilities that Henry deRuiter indeed behaved in the manner described by Pamela Howard and that this amounted in fact and law to discrimination or harassment on the basis of sex. On balance, though, I am not able to go that far. There are a number of reasons why that is so.
18It was common ground between Henry deRuiter and Pamela Howard that she never expressed any of her concerns to him about these particular aspects of his behaviour during the time that they worked together, though, when she returned to work in September, she did ask him to “back off” in what she perceived as overly aggressive criticism of aspects of her performance. Pamela Howard also testified that, during the time she worked with Henry deRuiter, she never brought these particular allegations to the attention of any of her superior officers nor to any of the three other women constables then in the Platoon. Rather, in making her request to Sergeant Lewis that she be transferred to another coach officer, she simply cited incompatibility without providing details. There could however be perfectly understandable reasons for her failure to raise issues of sexual harassment and discrimination. Pamela Howard testified in a way that I found compelling as to her belief in the culture of not complaining while on probation in the police force. According to her testimony and that of Sean Howard, she was reinforced in this belief by her husband, an experienced police officer albeit in another force. Also, at least initially, this was a relationship that, in the normal course of events would not last very long; only twelve weeks of four days and four days off, a maximum of forty-two days together but inevitably interrupted by other aspects of a probationary police constable’s training and her coach officer’s own absences on other duties or for other reasons.
19However, what has given me greatest cause for concern is the fact that the specific allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination against Henry deRuiter never surfaced in detail until the filing of the Amended Complaint on November 21, 2001, some three years after the events now before me. The original Complaint dated June 23, 1999, alleging a pattern of sexual harassment and discrimination in the form of “sexist comments, remarks and insults designed to intimidate and harass”, certainly implicates her coach officer along with other more senior members of the force, but is short on detail and a comparatively small part of a much more wide-ranging set of allegations against the force and its members.
20There are also aspects of the events that occurred while Pamela Howard was still a serving officer that raise concerns about her failure to articulate earlier her assertions of Code violations by Henry deRuiter.
21Though there was considerable dispute as to the nature of the communications, Pamela Howard testified that she contacted Henry deRuiter when she was summoned to Regional Headquarters. Even without resolving the evidential issues that arose as to what precisely she said in her initial MDT message and what transpired in subsequent communications between them, it is a reasonable inference that she was reaching out to Henry deRuiter for both information and support, or, at the very least, clarification of his position as someone whom she had trusted up until that point as supportive of her continuation as a probationary police constable.
22Earlier, in the context of her initial formal assessment, she had expressed to Staff Sergeant Fleming her satisfaction with Henry deRuiter’s performance as a coach officer. Sergeant Lewis testified to her expressing similar sentiments to him, at least until the point at which Pamela Howard asked to be reassigned to another coach officer. It is also significant that, in the documentation produced jointly by Pamela Howard and Sean Howard in defence of her position with the York Regional Police when threatened with dismissal and filed as Exhibits 4-9 during the hearing, there is no mention of any allegations of sexual harassment or discrimination against Henry deRuiter. Pamela Howard did testify that these documents were prepared for some other purpose. Nonetheless, in this documentation, Pamela Howard ultimately did not shrink from making various allegations of unprofessional conduct, not involving sexual harassment and discrimination, against Henry deRuiter. She did testify that she raised the issue of sexual harassment and discrimination on the part of Henry deRuiter with her Association representatives after she had been served with the notice of termination and that they had told her to keep quiet about that aspect. However, there was no corroboration of that testimony,1 and, in the circumstances, I have placed little weight on it, particularly given the other situations in which there was an opportunity to voice her concerns with those in authority.
23More generally, I am not convinced that all of this continuing reticence in putting her allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination on the record is explicable by her belief in the culture of not complaining. At least by the time her career was threatened as seriously as it was, that explanation had lost a lot of its credibility.
24What makes her failure to complain earlier even more a cause for concern is the testimony of Sean Howard. Certainly, Sean Howard recounted that Pamela Howard reported to him regularly about her discomfort in working with Henry deRuiter because of incidents such as the alleged request to see her modelling photos and his more generally sexist conduct.2 However, what also seemed clear from his testimony was that the real flash point in the relationship between Pamela Howard and Henry deRuiter, as it emerged in the conversations between husband and wife, was the manner in which Henry deRuiter was dealing with Pamela Howard in the matter of the map book. In short, this gave the impression that Pamela Howard’s desire to no longer have Henry deRuiter as her coach officer may have had more to do with this than anything else. As a matter of law, sexual harassment or discrimination does not have to be the principal or even a major component of the poisoning of the relationship between the Complainant and the Respondent to constitute a violation of the Code. Thus, the presence of other significant causes of the fracturing of that relationship does not negate Pamela Howard’s claim. Nonetheless, the emphasis placed by both Pamela Howard and Sean Howard on the issue of map reading does become a relevant consideration when added to the other doubts raised by the evidence as to whether Henry deRuiter acted in such a way as to violate the Code.
25As might have been anticipated, as an experienced police officer, Henry deRuiter gave his testimony in a clear and coherent fashion and was measured in his responses to questions. He was also willing to concede that, if he had engaged in some of the conduct alleged by Pamela Howard, he would at the very least have been guilty of unprofessional conduct. However, he denied that many of the events had ever occurred, disagreed with Pamela Howard’s version of them (as in the instance of the photograph album), or professed an absence of recollection. For her part, Pamela Howard was less confident and less forthright on occasion. On the other hand, she is not an experienced police officer, and hearings of this kind can be very unsettling and upsetting. Nonetheless, there were points at which I was concerned about her judgment in categorizing events as coming within the legitimate purview of the Amended Complaint. In this category, I would place the testimony with respect to Henry deRuiter flirting by way of text messaging. As well, there were certainly other interpretations that could be placed on the incident involving the “checking out” of the woman in the hotel parking lot, even assuming that it occurred in precisely the way recounted by Pamela Howard. Indeed, the same could be said of another of the limited number of specific examples provided by Pamela Howard of inappropriate remarks about women. This was an incident in which Henry deRuiter allegedly commented on the discrepancy between the appearance of a woman driver (whom they had pulled over) in her driving licence photograph and the reality. Below, I deal with three further examples of this, and I was also concerned with the extent to which Pamela Howard’s own testimony did not come up to proof on two of the allegations in the Amended Complaint, once again matters dealt with more specifically below.
26In addition to the allegations dealt with already, there were three further matters on which Pamela Howard placed some emphasis in her testimony that did not amount to sexual harassment or discrimination nor did they provide any substantial support to the other allegations of sexual harassment or discrimination.
27Pamela Howard testified as to an incident involving a memo book in which constables keep a record of what happens during a shift. While she and Henry deRuiter were out on patrol in the police cruiser, a memo book went flying onto the floor of the cruiser between Pamela Howard’s legs. Both Pamela Howard and Henry deRuiter grabbed for it at the same time and Henry deRuiter’s forearm hit her knee. According to Pamela Howard, this caused a certain amount of awkwardness between them and they both smirked. She also stated that she was surprised that Henry deRuiter would have reached for the memo book in those circumstances. Given that Pamela Howard also testified that Henry deRuiter never flirted with her aside from complimenting her on how she looked, this incident (which Henry deRuiter said he did not recall) is readily explicable as an instance of someone instinctively reacting to an object that is falling or has fallen unexpectedly. It in no way supports an allegation of sexual harassment.
28I also find that the same is true of another incident on which Pamela Howard relied. In her Amended Complaint, she asserts that Henry deRuiter and other officers referred to her as “Juanita” meaning that she was a “hootchie” girl. In her testimony, Pamela Howard did not go nearly this far. Rather she testified as to an incident in which she sensed that other officers in the vicinity were talking about her. When she asked Henry deRuiter what it was all about, he stated that they were referring to her as “Juanita” and explained what that supposedly meant. Pamela Howard was clear that Henry deRuiter never called her that and, never in her presence, referred to her as that. She also stated that, after a week or so, her sense was that the use of that term by other officers had ceased. While this might have amounted to sexually harassing conduct on the part of the officers who used the term in her hearing, there is nothing to implicate Henry deRuiter in its use.
29Pamela Howard also suggested that right from the outset Henry deRuiter’s attitude towards her was coloured as a result of reports that had reached the Division about an event that occurred during her time at the Ontario Police College. The event in question involved Pamela Howard’s criticism of the appropriateness for women of the required headwear. In one of the first four day blocks in the police cruiser with Henry deRuiter, Pamela Howard testified that she made some comment about being proud of her hat to which Henry deRuiter responded: “So I’ve heard”. This is far too slender a basis on which to draw the conclusion that Henry deRuiter either consciously or unconsciously was behaving or thereafter behaved inappropriately towards Pamela Howard because of her position on women’s rights.
30On balance, I therefore find that Pamela Howard has not established her case by reference to the appropriate standard of a balance of probabilities. Certainly, her testimony was sufficient to raise a prima facie case with respect to at least some of the allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination made against Henry deRuiter and to call for an answer from him. However, his own testimony directly and unwaveringly contradicted Pamela Howard’s version of the relevant events. When this is coupled with my concerns about the delay in the surfacing of these allegations, the influence of other critical points of tension between the two officers, and the frailties of some of the evidence with respect to particular events alleged to constitute sexual harassment or discrimination, I am forced to conclude that Henry deRuiter has met the onus on him to rebut any presumption arising from the Complainant’s establishing of a prima facie case.
DISCRIMINATION AND HARASSMENT ON THE BASIS OF FAMILY AND MARITAL STATUS
31The allegation that Henry deRuiter discriminated against and harassed Pamela Howard on the basis of family and marital status contrary to Sections 5(1) and (2) of the Code is based primarily on the Amended Complaint claim that Henry deRuiter harassed the Complainant constantly because of her commitment to her husband and her son. More specifically, Pamela Howard asserted in the Amended Complaint that Henry deRuiter made it clear to her that she had to choose between being a mother and a wife and being a “cop”.
32In her testimony, Pamela Howard reiterated this claim. However, as far as the specific allegation that she was told to choose between being a mother and a spouse and being a “cop”, Pamela Howard, while insisting that Henry deRuiter had indeed said that, nonetheless, admitted that she could not recollect it having been said more than once and then in the context of what was obviously a flash point between the two officers: a tense conversation concerning Pamela Howard’s abilities in reading maps when called upon to respond to a call.
33While her husband testified that Pamela Howard had reported this event to him shortly after it was alleged to have occurred, it is significant that, in the documentation that Pamela Howard and her husband prepared as part of her attempt to resist the termination proceedings that had been commenced against her (Exhibits 4 and 5), this claim is never made directly. In Exhibit 4, the assertion is that, by pressuring her to participate more in the social life of the Platoon, Henry deRuiter was possibly interfering inappropriately with the personal side of her life as a mother and spouse. In Exhibit 5, in dealing with the issue of her map-reading abilities, Pamela Howard recounts the enormous pressure this placed upon her with repercussions for her home life. However, at no point does she assert that Henry deRuiter ever told her that she had to choose between her family and her career.
34While I am quite prepared to accept that, in certain contexts, even one incident of the kind testified to by Pamela Howard could constitute discrimination on the basis of family and marital status, my conclusion on the evidence is that she has not established on the balance of probabilities that Henry deRuiter was ever explicit as to her having to choose between her work and her family.
35Henry deRuiter denied ever making such a statement. Moreover, Pamela Howard’s own testimony was to the effect that any such remarks were made on an occasion that was fraught with tension and one in which the principal preoccupation was a dispute over her ability to master readily the reading of maps, something that Henry deRuiter obviously believed was a critical part of the job of a constable working in a police cruiser. As such, the situation was one that was ripe for misunderstanding on both sides. While I am inclined to believe that Henry deRuiter did not deal with this matter in the most effective or appropriate manner, I have no real basis for holding that his concerns, his manner of expressing them, and any pointed suggestions that Pamela Howard use her time off to develop her map reading skills amounted to discrimination or harassment on the basis of family or marital status as prohibited by the Code. Certainly, any admonition that she use her own time to rectify her deficiencies would inevitably have an impact on the time available for her to spend with her husband and her son. However, I do not find that one can extrapolate from that discrimination on the basis of family or marital status. To do so would come dangerously close to holding that any employer’s suggestion that an employee use her or his own time to rectify deficiencies in performance would be discriminatory in the case of a person with children or living as part of a family. While such a request might in many situations constitute an inappropriate and unreasonable workplace demand, I am not prepared to find that, without more, it would amount to discrimination on the basis of marital or family status.
ORDER
36The Tribunal orders that:
(1) The Complaint be dismissed.
(2) The parties communicate with the Registrar to schedule a Conference Call to deal with the issue of costs, since the Respondent intimated that he would be seeking costs in the event that the Complaint were to be dismissed.
Dated at Toronto, this 26th day of July, 2004.
“David J. Mullan”
David J. Mullan, Member
1 Pamela Howard testified that one of the Association officers had died and the other was no longer with the York Regional Police.
2 In proceedings such as this, such hearsay evidence is certainly admissible and, subject to the usual cautions about the weight to be given to it, can certainly be treated as corroboration of a spouse’s testimony: see e.g. Reed, supra, at 13, 28, and 69.