Shiv Chopra

Early life

Chopra is an Indo-Canadian Hindu born and raised in the Punjab, where he received in 1957 a B.VSc. from Punjab Veterinary College. He then worked at the Biologics Production and Quality Control Research Department at the Punjab Veterinary College. He immigrated to Canada around 1964, where he then received his PhD in Microbiology from McGill University in Montreal. After obtaining his PhD at McGill, he moved to England to work for Miles Laboratories. In 1969 Chopra moved back to Canada and began his career with Health Canada as a drug evaluator for the Bureau of Human Prescription Drugs at Health Canada, a Canadian government agency. In 1987, he applied and was selected to work at the Bureau of Veterinary Drugs, another of Health's Canada bureaus where he worked until being fired in June 2004.

Racial discrimination

In 1992 and 1993, Chopra initiated two human rights complaints against Health Canada, citing discrimination on the basis of race and national origin. On the basis of the ruling of the Tribunal in March 1996, Health Canada was ordered to make a series of corrective measures over a five-year period. In August 2001, the Tribunal rendered a second decision finding that Health Canada had discriminated against Dr. Chopra on the basis of his race, and specifically had altered job evaluations for Chopra in order to bolster its defense.

This was one of two major cases of systemic racial discrimination in the Canadian public service. In 1992 and 1994, the National Research Council of Canada, a government scientific agency, was found by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to have systemically discriminated against Chander Grover, an expert in optics and photonics, on the basis of race, colour and national origin.

Whistleblowing incident

In 1998 and 1999, Chopra, along with two co-workers, Drs. Margaret Haydon and Gerard Lambert, testified to the Canadian Senate Standing Committee on Agriculture and Forestry that they were pressured by senior supervisors to approve multiple drugs of questionable safety, including Bovine Growth Hormone (rBST) and Baytril, which in the words of Chopra, "is even more controversial. It's a critical antibiotic, one that produces cross-resistance against a critical antibiotic necessary for human use called ciprofloxacin. It's from the same class of drugs. When it is used in poultry, beef, turkeys, pigs, or whatever, then it causes cross-resistance in the intestines of those animals. Then those bacteria, like salmonella, campylobacter, or E. coli, get transferred to people and cause disease and death of immense order." Prior to the mad cow disease crisis in Canada, Chopra warned the government that the current handling of feed to cows was inadequate. Following this, Chopra, Haydon, Lambert and colleague Chris Bassude complained to the Public Service Integrity Officer (PSIO) office, a federal investigative body under the jurisdiction of the Treasury Board of Canada, indicating again that they were pressured by their seniors to pass a number of veterinary drugs, including Tylosin, Revalor H, Synergistin Injectable Suspension, Baytril, rBST, Carbodex and Eugenol, without proof of human safety. The PSIO case was initially dismissed in 2003, but the ruling was appealed to the Federal Court of Canada.

In June 2004, Chopra, Haydon and Lambert were fired from Health Canada. Health Canada denied that the trio was fired for speaking publicly about the pressure employed by their supervisors to approve the usage of a number of animal drugs, but did not reveal the exact reason, mentioning that the reasons were confidential and included in the letters of termination the three scientists received. Chopra's letter revealed that the stated reason for his dismissal was his "total lack of progress" in a current project.

Three weeks later, Chopra received a congratulatory letter and a gold watch from Deputy Health Minister Ian Green, declaring that his "years of service have not gone unnoticed" and that he had "earned praise and respect."

On April 29, 2005, the Federal Court of Canada quashed the previous finding of the PSIO, and found that the PSIO had inadequately handled Chopra, Haydon and Lambert's complaints. The Federal Court's decision called into question the credibility of the PSIO, citing a failure in the organization in protecting whistleblowers acting in good faith. As of 2009 it appears that the PSIO or its successors has still not issued a new ruling on the case, although Chopra's case is mentioned in a history of managing in ethics in public service issued by the human resources office of Canada's Treasury Secretariat (which oversees the PSIO).

Human Rights Complaint

In September 2008, Human Rights Tribunal (HRT) adjudicator Pierre Deschamps ruled that Chopra was entitled to $4,000 in damages for "hurt feelings," lost wages, and interest after finding that Chopra was subjected to discriminatory comments, was suspended in retaliation for filing an earlier human rights complaint, and was discriminated against when passed over for a temporary promotion. Chopra's "hurt feelings" were in response to a 1998 speech by an incoming superior at Health Canada, during which the speaker stated that "he liked visible minorities.” In his complaint, Chopra claimed this was a "deeply insensitive racial remark toward visible minority employees of the bureau." Deschamps accepted Chopra's argument, writing that Lachance's remark was “discriminatory against Mr. Chopra as well as individuals … who were non-white” and that Lachance's remark showcased his insensitivity. Deschamps criticized the racist nature of Lachance's remark. Deschamps also stated that the supervisor's intent was irrelevant, as: "The test is, over and above the racial nature of the comment itself, whether or not the person alleging discrimination was offended by the comment."

Although the tribunal ruled in favour of Chopra on some points, it also chastised him for "asserting that every manager at Health Canada practises racial discrimination, and for alleging that every appointment in the past 20 years has been discriminatory" and that such sweeping assertions, made "without a proper evidentiary basis," undermine Dr. Chopra's credibility. Several other complaints by Dr. Chopra that he was passed over for promotions because of his race were also dismissed. The Tribunal also ruled that "there is no reason for the Tribunal to conclude that systemic discrimination still exists at Health Canada and to order it to take additional measures to address general or systemic issues of discrimination."

Jonathan Kay of the National Post criticized the decision, alleging that Deschamps accepted Chopra's claim without any "substantive explanation." Kay argued that the case was an "advertisement for why we should be closing down Canada’s human-rights commissions" and "nicely illustrates the absurd lengths to which our society’s elites will now go to demonize Whitey." Kay also noted that the tribunal did not accept Chopra's argument that he was passed over for a promotion because of discrimination (and not because he lacked sufficient experience). Kay also noted that one of Chopra's colleagues had complained he was "authoritarian and confrontational."

Awards and honors

On November 14, 2011, Drs Chopra, Haydon and Lambert became the first recipients of the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression Integrity Award, in recognition of their role as "individuals who acted courageously in the public interest without thought of personal gain, and in doing so risked reprisals in the form of threats to their careers, livelihood, or personal freedom."

Film appearances

Links