OTTAWA - The entire staff of a government-funded rights advocacy group is calling for the resignation of three Conservative appointees from the board of directors, including the chairman.
The extraordinary letter from the staff of Rights and Democracy -- a non-partisan, two-decade old advocacy body -- follows the death last week of president Remy Beauregard, who died of a heart attack following a vitriolic board meeting.
It lays bare a raging battle over the direction of the advocacy group, which some insiders claim has been subjected to a "hostile takeover" by conservative Harper-appointed board members.
In a letter dated Monday and copied to both the Prime Minister's Office and Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, the staff urges board chairman Aurel Braun and members Jacques Gauthier and Elliot Tepper to resign.
"Since March 2009 we have collectively witnessed your systemic personal attacks against the reputation and professional integrity of Remy Beauregard," says the letter, signed by 47 staff members.
It accuses the Conservative appointees of a "baseless and vindictive" pattern of "harassment" against Beauregard, including a letter of evaluation of the president that was submitted to the government without giving Beauregard a copy.
The letter states that the board members' "complete misunderstanding of your role as directors of Rights and Democracy make you unfit to remain on the board of directors."
"You have lost the confidence of the employees of Rights and Democracy and we unanimously request your immediate resignation."
Braun, a professor of international relations and political science at the University of Toronto, could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday, nor could Gauthier or Tepper.
The agency was created by an act of Parliament in 1988 under the Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney. It delivers programs that support human rights and democracy in, among other countries, Afghanistan, Burma, China, the Congo, Haiti and Zimbabwe.
Its board is made up of 10 government appointees, who in turn elect three foreign board members.
A source inside the agency told The Canadian Press that recent government appointments have led to a series of board confrontations. The most recent, last Thursday, saw Bolivian board member Guido Riveros Franck voted out -- which prompted the sudden resignation of Sima Simar.
The walkout by Simar, the chair of the Afghan Human Rights Commission and a former deputy president to Hamid Karzai, was followed by a similar protest by Payam Akhavan, a law professor and human rights specialist at McGill University.
Beauregard died later that evening.
