Employer's Documents

2022-10-12: The discipline letter

2021-06-27: Investigation Report

(Excerpts)

Incident Date(s):  February 4, 2022, February 11, 2022 and March 18,  2022 and April 1, 2022

Background:

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On February 1, 2022, Mr. Gorodnichy’s Director, Director Data Science also clearly (?) outlined during this bilateral meeting to follow the  established process(?) to voice his concerns (?) about COVID vaccines and to not discuss concerns  (?) of COVID-19 Vaccines at work or publicly that contradicts (?) the Policy on COVID-19  Vaccination for the Core Public Administration Including the Royal Canadian Mounted  Police (Policy). 

On February 4, 2022, Mr. Gorodnichy’s Director reached out to Mr. Gorodnichy to let him  know that he is aware (?) that Mr. Gorodnichy didn’t follow his advice (?) on February 1, 2022 on  not discussing vacation safety in the workplace and asks for clarification as to why he didn’t  follow his advice.  

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On February 11, 2022, the Director is made aware (?) of other posts from Mr. Gorodnichy on  open sources GCcollab about vaccination safety messages that is contrary (?) to the message that  the Government of Canada (GOC) is promoting, which is that vaccines are safe and efficient.  The Director requests that Mr. Gorodnichy takes down those posts wherein he is using GOC network, devices, or online infrastructure immediately and informs him that he has ccd LR to  determine next steps in addressing this matter. 

On Monday February 14, 2022, Director of Open Canada – Treasury Board Secretariat  (TBS), reaches out to Labour Relations (LR) TBS to inform them that on Friday February 11,  2022 they noticed that Mr. Gorodnichy’s post on the Open Government GCcollab page was  inappropriate (?) for their pages and therefore removed it. They’ve also informed the GCcollab  team as there was a white paper also being promoted on a page owned by Mr. Gorodnichy  and it was also removed for not respecting the terms of use of the GOC platform. 

No other posts seemed to have been posted by Mr. Gorodnichy after February 11, 2022, the  day his Director requested that he takes down his posts. However, on March 18, 2022 Mr.  Gorodnichy posts on GCcollab page an invite to an event with the subject matter being  analyzing vaccine side effects using Data Science, on his personal twitter account he posted  information about COVID-19 vaccine safety and efficiency and on April 1, 2022, another  invite through GCcollab page with the subject matter being special update on new results  from PHAC – analyzing using Spreadsheets and R. 

On April 4, 2022, HXXXX , Director of GCTools, contacted LR TBS who forwarded the  email to AXXXX, A/Manager LR and HR Redress for CBSA to address the matter. It was decided that given the ongoing conduct issue and that Mr. Gorodnichy is not following  the conditions of use of the platform to reset the employee’s password and pulled the post  with the April 8, 2022 workshop invitation. Therefore the employee lost his right to have  access to their account wherein he used a CBSA email address. However, Ms. HXXXX did  indicate that any employee are free to set up and account using a personal email and  participate without representing themselves as a public servant.  

Management, in consultation with LR, gathered the information above and established the  allegations (outlined below under “Allegations”). A notice of investigation and a fact-finding  interview invite was prepared and sent to the employee with an attempt to conduct the fact finding interview/meeting on April 14, 2022. The employee requested more time to prepare  and the fact-finding interview occurred on February [April] 27, 2022. 

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Allegations 

It is alleged that Mr. Gorodnichy:

Disregarded your management’s expectations outlined in an email from your Director General (DG) dated January 11, 2022 as well as during a bilateral meeting with your Director on February 1, 2022. Your DG clearly outlined (?)  that you were expected to refrain from making comments on social media that may compromise the Agency’s reputation, including comments that may negatively impact your colleagues and members of management. Your Director clearly outlined during your bilateral meeting "to follow the established process to voice your concerns about COVID vaccines" and to not discuss concerns of COVID-19 Vaccines at work or publicly that contradicts the Policy on COVID-19 Vaccination for the Core Public Administration Including the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (Policy). On February 11, 2022, you were further asked by your Director via email to take down all posts regarding COVID-19 vaccines using Government of Canada (GOC) network, devices, or online infrastructure which contradicted the Policy. 

It is alleged that you willingly neglected to follow management expectations when posted  information on social media platforms including on Government of Canada platforms.  Specifically, you posted information publicly on COVID-19 vaccination’s safety and  efficiency, although, this may be your personal opinion, this information is contrary to the  message that the Government of Canada is promoting, which is that vaccines are safe and  efficient. These actions are contrary to the objectives and expectations of the Policy on  COVID-19 Vaccination for the Core Public Administration Including the Royal Canadian  Mounted Police, wherein it states that employees are expected (?) to do their part to protect the  health and safety of employees by being fully vaccinated unless accommodated, specifically  the: 

You were found to have posted this information on the following social media platforms: 

• In February 2022, Open Government GCcollab page where you were identified as a  public servant who works at CBSA, you attached the following white paper on a GitHub page  - vitals | Official Canada Vital (Deaths) Statistics, analyzed using Data Science (open canada.github.io). This paper was also promoted on R4GC (Use R!) Community : GCcollab)  and you would have included the following links to this R4GC page:  

• https://youtu.be/4a8ZRipbeRo  - Freedom Convoy – Speech by Army Major Stephen  Chledowski: message against the mandatory vaccines 

• https://youtu.be/zs2AH14oTxM  - Your video from the Freedom Convoy – providing  your analysis on COVID-19 vaccine data stating the GOC’s data shown is  skewed/misleading/not accurate 

• https://ivi-m.github.io/vv/  (with single URL: www.IVIM.ca)  - Source: “Cases  following vaccination, COVID-19 Daily Epidemiology Update” Public Health Agency of Canada – providing your analysis on COVID-19 vaccine data stating the GOC’s data shown  is skewed/misleading/not accurate 

• On February 4, 2022, you invited CBSA colleagues to an event you created which  was a special edition of a weekly Lunch and Learn “Data Science with R” meetup on  GCcollab titled “One Year since Vaccination - what have we learnt – using Open Canada data  and Data Science” discussing COVID-19 vaccine safety and efficiency which raised concerns  from your colleagues. 

• In March 2022, Open Government GCcollab page where you created an event  calendar for March 18, 2022 with the subject matter being analyzing vaccine side effects  using Data Science. 

• On your Twitter account “Dr. Dmitry Gorodnichy” – you posted information about  COVID-19 vaccine safety and efficiency. 

• In April, Open Government GCcollab page where you created an event calendar for  April 1, 2022 with the subject matter being special update on new results from PHAC – analyzed using Spreadsheets and R.

Investigation Findings: 

Complaint received from the Director of Open Government (GCcollab): They felt that the content of the document that was posted on the Open Government  GCcollab page was not appropriate for their pages and therefore removed it. The Director’s  team also informed the GCcollab team of the white paper which was also promoted on Mr.  Gorodnichy’s own page and the GCcollab team also removed the post for not respecting the  terms of use of the GoC platform. The Director flagged this to LR TBS who transmitted the  information to LR CBSA as he felt that this post is counter to the duty of loyalty within the  V&E code. 

Complaint received from the Director of GCTools: 

Because of previous instances raised by TBS, Mr. Gorodnichy’s posts were being monitored  by her team. And they noticed another post they felt contained anti-vaccine content while  representing himself as a GC data scientist. Because the employee was using a government  email and identifying himself as a federal government employee, they pulled the post with the 

April 8 workshop invitation and assessed all the other content the employee has posted.  Because of the ongoing conduct issue, they initiated the password reset because the user is  not following the conditions of use. This means that any employee who has lost that right will  not have access to their account, although they are free to set up another account using a  personal email and participate without representing themselves as a public servant. Mr.  Gorodnichy confirmed in the fact-finding meeting that he has set up a personal account and  continues having those meetings. 

Emails from DG SPB and Director, Data Science wherein they are establishing their  expectations. (?)

Emails from Mr. Gorodnichy wherein he provides an explanation on the information he has  been sharing on social media.

Interviews 

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Mr. Gorodnichy referred to an email he submitted before the start of the fact-finding meeting  and explained that it provides examples of the results he obtained from the Official  Government of Canada data using the tools [i.e. Shiny App - interactive multi-dimensional visualizations] that he claims he has been developing with  colleagues [ at the R4GC Weekly Lunch and learns] which he shares with the public.  

One example is on excess deaths after vaccination for age group 0-44 and in his opinion it  shows very disturbing statistics for Atlantic and West Provinces and state that the death  tracker app can be found at http://ivim.ca/app.  

The other example is on odd of COVID deaths with boosters vs without boosters, which he  believes that it shows disturbing data and can be found at http://ivim.ca. 

Mr. Gorodnichy believes that the results of his analysis are self-explanatory and that he is not  violating the CBSA Code of Conduct, such as lack of loyalty, compromising Agency’s  reputation, and negatively impacting Colleagues. He believes the allegations are unfounded  and unjust, and that all his efforts show exactly the opposite, they help everyone understand  and make use of official GC data, help them determine what to do for them (to get vaccinated  or not get vaccinated and also which vaccine to choose for themselves), to be healthier and  live longer, while also helping bridge the growing polarization in our society.

Mr. Gorodnichy stated that if management believes that the information he is reposting,  quoting, plotting, computing various functional and performance metrics from officially  published PHAC data, is considered a "violation of the vaccine policy" (i.e. putting "  information that is contrary the message that the Government of Canada is promoting, which  is that vaccines are safe and efficient") or violation of anything else management is alleging  him of, then in his opinion it was PHAC (and StatCan) who violated this policy as they  published numbers that he believes go against the message of the Government of Canada, and  described in his email that these numbers are showing: 

1. that Percentage of cases/hospitalizations/deaths among vaxed goes up and up every  week, since their very first report  

2. that people with 2 and 3 doses die more than those with 1 dose,  
3. that vaccinated catch and spread infection more than unvaccinated,  
4. that 82 % of all covid deaths are people 70+; and people under 40 have very rare  chance of dying from covid but they do get vaccine complications 

5. that half of Canadian provinces had very excess death rate AFTER May 2021 (which  is when the vaccination of general public commenced), higher than that during the  pandemic before vaccination (see image I sent this morning - from www.ivim.ca/app)  

During the fact-finding, Mr. Gorodnichy confirmed that he posted the documents (both white  papers) that management was referring to in their email invite to the fact-finding but added  that he is not the only one that contributed to the information in those documents. He also  confirmed that it is him in the video with the freedom convoy, that he posted on Twitter and  that he organized the events on GCcollab and continues to organize those events. 

Mr. Gorodnichy explained that the reason he is doing these analysis and posting them is to  help the public make informed decisions on which vaccines to get, as in his opinion based on  the analysis he has done some vaccines are a better choice for certain types of people (ex:  AstraZeneca better for younger individuals). It is also to show the “real” results, as he  believes the results shown by PHAC/GOC and the algorithm used is skewed and doesn’t  reflect the reality. Mr. Gorodnichy doesn’t believe his message is contrary to the GOC’s  message, as in his opinion the data shows what it shows, meaning that he never says a  conclusion on whether or not the vaccines are safe and efficient or not safe and not efficient.  What he is trying to say is that the data shown is weak not reflecting the reality and he  believes the public deserves to have results that are not skewed, to get the benefit and  efficiency of each vaccine, the knowledge, so that the public can make an informed decision  on whether or not to get vaccinated and which vaccine to take.  

When asked why he went against the DG’s and Director’s advice regarding posting online  about the vaccination policy, Mr. Gorodnichy responded that the goal of his posts is to help  improve the vaccines by providing not skewed results. He doesn’t state or promote that he is  for or against the vaccines, he stipulates that the information he shows can support or not  support the use of vaccines, the results shows what it shows and it depends on what time of 

the year (pre-vaccines, October vaccines vs Feb/March vaccines, etc doesn’t have the same  results as he believes the vaccines may be improving or not improving). What he is trying to  do is show the accurate information as he believes the GoC is not showing the accurate data.  

Furthermore, for the lunch and learns that he has been scheduling while at work and after he  was placed on LWOP, Mr. Gorodnichy explains that he had asked DG the  permission/support to do those with the objective to have a safe place for  employees/colleagues to share their minor side effects related to the vaccines and show them  how to report these minor side effects to the government so they can improve the vaccines.  

He states that his intent when posting the data and having those lunch and learns was to help  the government/institution to improve the vaccine, and help the public make informed  decisions on whether or not to take the vaccines/which vaccines based on his data analysis  that he believes is more accurate/not skewed. Mr. Gorodnichy doesn’t believe his messaging  is contrary to the message that the Government of Canada is promoting, which is that  vaccines are safe and efficient. He believes he is showing the truth based on his analysis  whether it is showing that a certain vaccine is more/less efficient than another vaccine for  some demographic category.

Analysis and Conclusion: 

While each incident in isolation may not suggest violation of values of ethics, the cumulative  nature of Dmitry’s action highlight an increasingly deliberate, persistent, growing patterns of  questioning the vaccine safety and efficacy, which goes against the messaging of the  government of Canada covid-19 vaccine policy and messaging, which is that vaccines are  safe and efficient. 

Even after repeated demands to remove messages on vaccine safety and efficacy, Dmitry  continued to post these messages and hold meetings to discuss vaccine efficacy and safety  publically, often using GoC digital infrastructure. 

Although the employee says that he disputes the above assessment, that he is not posting  information that goes against the GoC messaging, the evidence as outlined above (e.g.,  removal of his message on GC collab, complaints from staff) suggests otherwise

In conclusion, based on the analysis of the evidence, the allegation that the employee  willingly neglected to follow management expectations as outlined above, and willingly posting information on social media platforms including on Government of Canada platforms  on COVID-19 vaccination’s safety and efficiency, that is contrary to the message that the  Government of Canada is promoting is founded.