STAGE 10: DISMISSED!
On July 4, 1996, I phoned the Fraud Squad on a whim. They phoned back quickly, in a very cavalier mood. They told me that they had looked at the case from several different ways, and there wasn’t a criminal case (Ho! Ho! Ho! Big joke). I told them I knew that, which was why I had asked them to investigate.
Then they told me that they weren’t going to investigate any further as was their legal right, just because … they didn’t want to. I nearly fell off my seat. Lastly, they told me that if there was anybody who needed to know about the case, just give them the Fraud Squad’s number.
This had me thinking. You know there is fraud, but you just can’t prove it. Words from the Fraud Squad aren’t worth ten cents in a court of law. My lawyer had warned me that the Fraud Squad might not want to investigate, for whatever reason. After some thinking, I decided to press ahead and send a memo to Bill Farlinger, and take the risk.
[STAGE 9. Fraud Squad II; Bill Farlinger2, documents/bill_farlinger2_2.gif; Fraud Sqaud2, documents/fraud_squad_2_2.gif; WHO’S WHO Bill Farlinger]
The memo went up on October 6. On November 4, Phil Wong of OHT Human resources, fired me. It seemed like a pretty flaky operation at the time … telephone approval from an absentee boss?!? Phil seemed pretty nervous doing the firing; he was even less cool than me.
I went to my union, the Society, who told me that they had the right to challenge for me. In fact, the Society had a monopoly. The Society put in a request for reinstatement, the only politically and legally acceptable solution at that time.
Unfortunately, the Society is only interested in defensive measures for its members … it doesn’t seem to be interested in basic justice.
***
For the first time since Hydro-gate began, I went before an impartial board … Unemployment Insurance. UI were sharp, and quickly zeroed in on two key points. They gave me a very encouraging write-up (and a few weeks pay).
