THE MUSLIM RECRUIT

Globe And Mail (Metro) Page: A15 (Comment Column)
April 22, 2008

Case of the wannabe Mountie
MARGARET WENTE

Ali Tahmourpour always dreamed of being a Mountie. But it was not to be. In 1999, the Iranian immigrant washed out of cadet school after he was singled out and harassed because of his ethnicity. Last week, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal awarded him upward of half a million dollars and ordered the RCMP to give him another chance. “I believe I have a lot to contribute to the force,” declared the 35-year-old. On the face of it, Mr. Tahmourpour’s grievance is the sort of injustice human-rights commissions were devised to address. But take a closer look, and the case takes on a different texture. Then there’s the rest of his resume. It turns out the would-be Mountie has spent most of his adulthood in litigation. If there’s any moral to this story, it’s this: Complain often enough and, eventually, you’ll win.

Mr. Tahmourpour’s experience as a human-rights complainant began in 1995, when his job contract as a student customs inspector with the Department of National Revenue came to an end. Even though he was asked back, the experience wasn’t a happy one. He lodged a complaint with the
Human Rights Commission, claiming he’d been racially harassed and given unfair performance appraisals. His claim was rejected. But he didn’t stop there. Anyone who loses a human rights complaint can ask the Federal Court to order it reheard, and that’s what he did. In 1998, the court turned him down. He appealed to the Federal Court of Appeal but lost.

In 1999, he was accepted by the RCMP as a cadet trainee. He lasted just 12 weeks. Devastated, he went back to the human-rights commission. Once again, it rejected him, ruling that he’d lost his job because of poor performance, not discrimination. Again, he took the case to court, and lost. Again, he appealed and, in 2005, the higher court ordered the human-rights tribunal to try the case again. It did. And this time he got lucky.

The villain of the Mountie boot camp was a training officer (since retired) named Corporal Dan Boyer. He screamed and yelled at everyone, but especially at Mr. Tahmourpour. He also flunked him at firearms inspection. He liked to brag that he was ‘politically incorrect’ – a boast that, in the new adjudicator’s view, amounted to an out-and-out confession of racism. This and a couple of other incidents convinced her that the trainee had been singled out and harassed for being Muslim.

But firearms weren’t his only problem. A female supervisor – someone the adjudicator found to be a highly credible and unbiased witness – had rated Mr. Tahmourpour’s communication skills and judgment as seriously deficient. Three of his mates testified that his skills in many areas were so weak they were afraid to work with him in the field. In other words, it’s likely he’d have washed out anyway.

But that’s not what the adjudicator found. In her view, the harassment was so awful that it explained all his other failings, even though some of his superiors had bent over backward to be fair.

Since flunking boot camp all those years ago, Mr. Tahmourpour hasn’t exactly displayed the resilience, resources or self-reliance you might expect from someone who wants to be a Mountie. For example, he hasn’t held a job. He got a real-estate licence, but that didn’t work out.

He qualified to be a translator, but that didn’t work out, either. He claims he was too busy fighting his case to look for work. Mercifully, the adjudicator didn’t swallow that one. That’s why she awarded him only half a million dollars, which was far less than what he wanted – 8½ years back pay from the RCMP, including upgrades for promotions.

So, all in all, I guess we should be grateful. Mr. Tahmourpour got his day in court, and then some. Now he’ll get a second chance to fulfill his dream and, this time, the people who run boot camp will be very, very careful. Will our nation be well served if he makes it? You decide.

Submitted by – Jim Forsyth – Editor – May 21, 2008