Deputy minister says she helped hire university peer to address 'client service' skills gap

Christiane Fox, deputy minister of DND, appeared at an April 13 meeting of the Commons public accounts committee. Photo by Blair Gable /Photo by Blair Gable / Postmedia

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A deputy minister says she pushed to get an acquaintance hired for a federal government job to help address “client service” in a unit where that skillset was lacking.

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Christiane Fox, the top civilian official at the Department of National Defence, faced questions at a Commons committee meeting on Monday, April 13, about an ethics watchdog report that found she broke conflict of interest rules by influencing the hiring of a university peer.

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In response to questions from MPs, Fox declined several invitations to acknowledge wrongdoing and instead explained her decision-making in greater detail.

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“The individual had experience in client service, something that the government struggles with,” she said. “We don’t do client service particularly well, and in this unit, it was obvious that we didn’t.”

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She added that “this was a context of trying to change an underperforming unit within the department that occupied a lot of my attention.”

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Evidence of ‘preferential treatment’: ethics report

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Ethics commissioner Konrad von Finckenstein released a report on April 8, finding Fox influenced the hiring of Björn Charles — whom she knew from when they were both athletes in university — as a project manager in 2023.

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At the time, she was deputy minister of Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). Fox has since served as deputy clerk of the Privy Council before moving to her current role as deputy minister at DND.

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According to the ethics commissioner’s report, officials at IRCC felt pressured by Fox to hire Charles in the department’s access-to-information division. According to his LinkedIn profile, Charles now works as an ATIP analyst in the Privy Council Office (PCO).

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Fox and her family attended the same Goodlife gym where Charles worked as a manager before he was hired at IRCC, the report found. Fox’s spouse was Charles’ assistant basketball coach while he was a student at Carleton University from 2001 to 2004.

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The ethics commissioner’s investigation also found that Fox’s spouse was a “third or fourth cousin” of Charles’ father.

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Throughout the hiring process, Fox communicated closely with Charles and helped prepare him for his interview with ATIP division officials, including sending him an IRCC briefing document.

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Von Finckenstein “concluded that Ms. Fox used her position as Deputy Minister to give Mr. Charles preferential treatment, by ensuring he met with departmental officials quickly, seeking updates about his hiring, giving him internal information and pushing for a higher job classification.”