A federal labour board has upheld the dismissal of a Statistics Canada supervisor in Sturgeon Falls, Ont., after he repeatedly falsified monitoring reports instead of supervising phone surveys. The ruling confirms that dishonesty — even without affecting statistical results — violates the Agency’s Code of Conduct.Gavin Peterson, who oversaw about 20 call centre employees, fabricated comments on interviewers’ performance over a four-month period. He submitted positive feedback for calls that never took place and for interviewers who were absent, claiming he “messed up” by not speaking up about his unhappiness with the work.Adjudicator Christopher Rootham said Peterson’s misconduct was self-interested and deliberate. “The dishonesty in this case was not mild,” he wrote. “He submitted false monitoring reports to save himself the effort of completing real ones.”While the board noted that the falsified reports did not compromise the accuracy of any surveys, it found that “termination of employment was not excessive,” emphasizing that trust is central to Statistics Canada’s operations. Peterson fabricated entries on 41 occasions, undermining the integrity expected of supervisors in the agency’s statistical system.Rootham concluded that the dismissal was justified, stating that honesty is “one of the core values of Statistics Canada’s operations” and that misleading an employer constitutes clear misconduct.
