Records Show CSIS Burnaby Office Cited for 11 Workplace Safety Violations in 2019 Inspection

Government Files is The Canada Report's public-records analysis series examining government documents obtained through Canada's Access to Information (ATI) and provincial Freedom of Information (FOI) laws. These transparency laws allow members of the public to request internal government records from federal and provincial institutions. This article reviews documents released through those processes and summarizes what the records contain and what they show. While we strive for accuracy, this article represents an analysis and interpretation of the source material. For complete accuracy and full context, readers should review the original documents, which are available in full below.

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Federal labour inspectors documented 11 separate Canada Labour Code contraventions during a single 2019 visit to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service's Burnaby, B.C. office, including an unguarded grinding machine, an unreported disabling injury, an expired first-aid certificate, and flammable materials stored on the floor of a generator room. The Burnaby file is the most contravention-heavy entry in a release package covering nearly two decades of Employment and Social Development Canada inspections at CSIS workplaces across the country.

The records, obtained from ESDC's Labour Program through Access to Information request A-2025-01044, span inspection narratives and Assurances of Voluntary Compliance from 2003 through 2021. They cover CSIS sites in British Columbia, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the spy agency's Ottawa headquarters at 1941 Ogilvie Road, and include a workplace violence investigation, a mould remediation file, two unjust-dismissal complaints, and the agency's COVID-19 response.

What the Documents Show

The Burnaby inspection — conducted by Health and Safety Officer Tatjana Horvat-Kqiku on August 27, 2019 — produced an Assurance of Voluntary Compliance listing eleven items. Among them: a grinding machine without a guard to prevent contact with moving parts, paint-area ventilation that was failing to keep airborne hazards below threshold limit values, flammable material containers stored on the generator room floor, computer bags and other items creating tripping hazards in multiple rooms, hazardous substances left on work benches, and the absence of a posted list of trained first-aid attendants. The employer was also cited for failing to produce a written Hazardous Occurrence Investigation Report for an injury that disabled an employee in March 2019, and for failing to submit that report to the Minister within the required 14 days.

By contrast, the inspection at the Fredericton office in December 2019 — conducted by HSO Karen Whitehead — surfaced four contraventions. The records describe office staff manually carrying multiple sets of unspecified items down a flight of stairs to a basement-level area in loads exceeding 10 kilograms, without having received the manual handling training required by Part XIV of the Canada Occupational Health and Safety Regulations. The Fredericton site was also cited for an obstruction of an electrical control device, the absence of a qualified first-aid attendant after employees' certificates expired, and a hazard-distance assessment issue. The Fredericton narrative notes the office had not been inspected since 2003, despite a "Medium" Part II tiering that recommended visits every 24 months.

Three other inspection cycles appear in the records: a 2009 follow-up at Ottawa headquarters that addressed the employer's repeated failure to properly complete Hazardous Occurrence Investigation Reports; a general inspection at Ottawa headquarters in October 2018 that produced seven contraventions and resulted in a signed AVC; and a March 2003 visit to the New Brunswick office, which was discontinued when inspectors discovered the lease had been terminated and CSIS had relocated without leaving forwarding details.

The 2017 Workplace Violence Complaint and the "Breach of Conduct" Detour

One of the more unusual files in the release concerns a Part XX workplace violence complaint that the Labour Program received on January 2, 2019. The complainant alleged she had been the victim of workplace violence while working abroad in 2017, with the alleged aggressor identified as a co-worker. After returning to Canada, she reported the incident to the employer, which conducted an internal investigation.

The investigating officer's narrative records that CSIS did not use the process prescribed under Part XX of the Canada Occupational Health and Safety Regulations — which requires the appointment of a competent person to investigate — but instead handled the matter through what the employer called a "Breach of Conduct" investigation. The complainant had voiced dissatisfaction with the findings and was told nothing further could be done. Following Labour Program intervention, an Assurance of Voluntary Compliance was issued requiring the employer to appoint a competent person under Part XX. The employer complied, although a signed copy of the AVC was not received before the file was closed in May 2019.

A subsequent file shows the same complaint generated a second dispute over whether the appointed competent person met the definition of impartiality required under section 20.9(1) of the regulations. The records note that the delay in appointing a second competent person was attributed to the confidential nature of CSIS work and the requirement that the investigator obtain a secret-level security clearance. That file was eventually closed in August 2016 — after a years-long process — when the complainant indicated she had received the final report. The earlier of these two files is connected by theme to the agency's broader handling of internal workplace conduct issues, an area The Canada Report has previously examined in internal CSIS records detailing the BC region's response to sexual assault allegations.

COVID-19, Masks, and a Pandemic Steering Committee

Two of the more recent files concern CSIS's pandemic response. In October 2020, an employee submitted a complaint alleging the agency was not doing enough to protect staff from COVID-19 transmission, specifically pointing to the absence of a mandate for masks or face coverings when two-metre distancing could not be maintained. The complaint itself was deemed inadmissible by joint investigators, but the Labour Program officer noted concerns with the employer's protocols and initiated a separate specific inspection.

That follow-up inspection, conducted between November 2020 and January 2021, produced two AVCs. The records show CSIS had not documented a hazard assessment as it related to COVID-19, and was not mandating mask use when two-metre distance could not be maintained as recommended by various public health officials. The inspector's narrative notes that the employer initially presented challenges to complying with the mask AVC, and a formal direction was considered before CSIS voluntarily complied. The inspection narrative also describes the agency's internal pandemic governance, including a Pandemic Coordination Team made up of management, union, health and safety committee, and internal security representatives, and a Pandemic Steering Committee composed of executives and the organisation's director.

What the Records Don't Show

Several layers of redaction sit on top of the released material. Names of CSIS staff are largely withheld, with the inspection officer in one COVID-era file noting that "many surnames were omitted as requested by the employer due to the nature of the operation and personal security of the individuals." In several inspection narratives, the specific items being carried down stairwells, the contents of storage areas, and the locations of certain security equipment are blanked out. Section 15(1)(d)(ii) and section 16(2)(c) of the Access to Information Act — which protect, respectively, information that could harm law enforcement and national security activities — are cited frequently throughout the package.

The records also do not include any indication of what specific products or activities required the grinding machine and ventilated paint area at the Burnaby office, nor what the unwieldy items being carried down the stairs at the Fredericton office actually were. The Hazardous Occurrence Investigation Report tied to the disabling March 2019 injury is referenced but not released. No fatalities are recorded across the period covered.

Unjust Dismissal Complaints and the Financial Administration Act Carve-Out

Two unjust dismissal complaints in the package — one filed in February 2005 and another in June 2021 — were both ruled inadmissible by Labour Program officers on the same jurisdictional grounds. CSIS is listed in Schedule I.1 of the Financial Administration Act, which makes the agency exempt from Part III of the Canada Labour Code under section 167.1(d). That exemption strips CSIS employees of the unjust dismissal protections available to most federally regulated workers and similarly excludes them from the Code's monetary complaint provisions. In both cases the Labour Program advised complainants that internal grievance processes or, in the more recent case, the Public Service Commission Recourse Branch were the available routes. The 2021 file records that the complainant had spent nearly three months trying to access the necessary grievance forms before contacting the Labour Program.

Patterns Across Two Decades of CSIS Inspections

Looking across the full release, three patterns emerge from the data. First, the inspection cadence is sparse. The Fredericton office went from 2003 to 2019 — sixteen years — between Labour Program visits, despite the site's "Medium" tiering recommending contact every 24 months. The 2003 visit itself was cut short when inspectors found the office had been quietly relocated. The Halifax office's first dedicated inspection narrative in the package dates from January 2020, when it was closed almost immediately due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Second, when inspections do happen, they tend to find substantive issues. The Burnaby visit produced 11 AVCs, the Ottawa headquarters visit in 2018 produced seven, and the Fredericton visit produced four. The recurring categories — materials handling, hazardous substance storage, first aid coverage, and Hazardous Occurrence Investigation Report compliance — suggest gaps in routine workplace safety administration rather than isolated incidents. This pattern of inspection cadence finding clusters of issues is consistent with broader concerns about workplace safety in federally regulated environments, an area The Canada Report has covered in reporting on Quebec teachers reporting widespread workplace violence.

Third, CSIS's status under the Financial Administration Act creates a parallel labour-rights environment. The agency is subject to Part II of the Code (occupational health and safety) but exempt from Part III (employment standards and unjust dismissal). For employees, this means workplace safety contraventions are formally tracked and remediated through the same Labour Program process used at any federal employer — but disputes over termination, severance, or related monetary claims are channelled into the agency's internal grievance and Public Service Commission processes rather than the Code's adjudication regime.

Why These Records Matter

CSIS rarely surfaces in workplace-safety reporting. Unlike larger federal employers that face regular media scrutiny — Canada Post, the RCMP, the Department of National Defence — the spy agency's operational secrecy means most of its internal workplace machinery is invisible to the public. The release package shows that, behind the security clearances, CSIS workplaces have been subject to the same Labour Code that governs every other federally regulated workplace, with the same inspections, AVCs, and follow-up timelines — and have generated the same kinds of contraventions seen in any office of comparable age and complexity.

What the records don't resolve is whether the documented patterns reflect genuine improvement over time or simply long gaps between inspections. The package contains no follow-up data on whether the 2019 Burnaby AVCs were ultimately closed in compliance, no information on whether the 2017 workplace violence complaint was fully resolved through the second competent person investigation, and no aggregated injury data of the kind that would allow comparison with other federal departments.

All inspection narratives, Assurances of Voluntary Compliance, and supporting records referenced are from Employment and Social Development Canada, request A-2025-01044, obtained through Access to Information requests. The release package contains 42 pages of inspection narratives and AVCs spanning Canadian Security Intelligence Service workplaces from 2003 through 2021.