Ex-manager sues school bus authority over alleged 'bad faith' dismissal

Vicky Kyriaco, former general manager of the Ottawa Student Transportation Authority (OSTA), is suing the school bus organization for over $800,000 for allegedly dismissing her in "bad faith" and for damaging her health, career and reputation.

In an emailed statement, Kyriaco wrote that she had filed a statement of claim against her former employer of 12 years with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on Tuesday.

This news comes more than two months after OSTA announced Kyriaco was taking a leave of absence and fewer than two weeks after it said she had "departed her position" on Dec. 8.

That announcement of her leave also included an apology from the authority for the bus driver shortage and route cancellations that plagued parents and children across the city earlier this year — something Kyriaco says "left the public with the impression that [she] had been identified as the culprit for the shortages."

That allegation is one among several Kyriaco makes in her statement of claim against OSTA. None of the allegations have been tested in court.

Kyriaco is suing OSTA for $250,000 for the "bad faith manner" in which they allegedly dismissed her, $250,000 for the damage to her reputation and two years salary.

She earned an annual salary of approximately $163,000 with additional group benefits and pension.

Kyriaco wrote in an emailed statement she hopes to send a message that public and political pressure for a certain course of action — "while expeditious and psychologically satisfying for some"— does not mean "the truth has been taken into consideration."

"The actions of the OSTA Board of Directors have damaged my health, my reputation and my career," she wrote.

'Constructive dismissal'

According to Employment and Social Development Canada, a "constructive dismissal" is also known as "disguised dismissal" or "quitting with cause" rather than being fired.

It happens when the employer either fails to comply with the employment contract "in a major respect," changes terms of employment or expresses an intent to do any of those things — thus forcing the employee to quit.

In her claim, Kyriaco alleges that she "had no choice but to consider herself constructively dismissed," after a series of interactions with members of OSTA's board of directors beginning in the spring of 2023.

Kyriaco says OSTA disregarded her warnings that began in April and continued through the summer about a funding deficit, its implications for contracts with bus and van operators and the need to communicate the anticipated disruptions with parents well in advance.

She said she was cut out of meetings with key officials and her leadership was undermined.

She further alleges that OSTA board members disregarded her concerns about student safety by pressuring her to minimize those concerns in her reports and eliminating crucial safety protocols such as GPS and cameras that had previously been approved.

As a result of "the toll on her physical and mental health caused by [OSTA's] actions," she was placed on a medical leave of absence in mid-July.

In an emailed statement on Thursday afternoon, OSTA president Matthew Lee wrote "the claim about student safety is not true."

"The safety of students using transportation provided by operators is OSTA's top priority. OSTA's largest transportation providers already equip their fleets with GPS systems; interior cameras have never been installed on buses. The use of interior cameras is an initiative that OSTA's current leadership is exploring," he wrote.

Lee did not respond to any of the other allegations made by Kyriaco.

OSTA faced pressure from students and parents to fix the citywide school bus driver shortage, after the association cancelled 300 bus routes before this school year. (Francis Ferland/CBC)

Kyriaco alleges she returned from her medical leave in late August, days before the school year was set to begin, to find that OSTA had failed to complete contract negotiations with bus and van operators.

Additionally, despite making requests to board members, they did not provide her with key information relating to those contracts. Instead, many of her job duties — such as handling procurement and contracts, and communications — were handed off to other board members and the member school boards.

Then, on the first day of school, 300 school buses were cancelled — leaving more than 9,000 students in Ottawa's two English school boards without bus transportation.

Court documents allege that during the "ensuing media storm" in September, OSTA allowed Kyriaco to "become the public face of the shortages," which resulted in months of "targeted harassment" from parents who banded together on a Facebook group.

"The Facebook group started a campaign encouraging the public to call OSTA, verbally abuse the staff and hang up, and called for the public to hold a rally at the OSTA office location," the lawsuit reads.

"The group also posted, and encouraged the posting of OSTA staff names and their responses to various emails, and then encouraged the harassment of those staff members, including Kyriaco."

Lawsuit misrepresents parents, mom says

On Friday, Cheri Nixon — one of the parents behind that Facebook group — told CBC she felt the lawsuit had misrepresented the actions taken by parents who were left without buses for their children.

"We at no point ever encouraged parents to harass OSTA staff, to call and hang up," said Nixon.

She said parents behind the group were "very, very clear" people should be respectful when interacting with the bus drivers, and "if they had any concerns or frustrations or anger, that that should be directed at the leadership."

The contact information for Kyriaco and other board members of OSTA shared on the Facebook group was that which was publicly available on OSTA's website, she said.

"Anytime that we were communicating with leadership or when we were telling people [to], we encouraged them to be truthful, to be respectful and to put their their concerns out in a way that was positive and gave the true story and impact," said Nixon.

Despite several attempts to speak with Kyriaco on behalf of many parents in the Facebook group, Nixon said nobody received a response.

Finally, after a skirmish with Coun. Clarke Kelly at a meeting on the bus driver shortage, parents behind the group created and shared a petition requesting the minister of education ask Kyriaco to resign. Nixon said this was done in an attempt to seek accountability from OSTA.

The lawsuit claims none of OSTA's board of directors reached out to Kyriaco in the aftermath to provide moral support and OSTA did not provide her with any assistance, despite her repeated requests they do so.

'Staff pizza lunch' offered in response

In late September, amid the fallout from OSTA's mass route cancellations, Kyriaco "spent much of her time addressing her staff's emotional distress."

When she reached out to the board to express concerns about staff's mental health, Kyriaco says one board member responded saying he and another board member would "pay for a staff pizza lunch."

Kyriaco says she fell so ill that she had to take a medical leave on Sept. 27.  An announcement regarding her leave of absence was made on Oct. 2.

That statement read: "We use today's news as an opportunity to rebuild our relationship with those in the community who depend on reliable transportation to get to school. In time, we hope to re-earn the trust of parents and students, and we are committed to ensuring this situation never happens again."

According to the statement of claim, this "clearly implied" that Kyriaco's leave may have been disciplinary in nature and the OSTA board did nothing to correct any news stories that interpreted the statement as such.

"As a result of OSTA's actions, [Kyriaco's] professional reputation has been irreparably, and publicly, damaged and she has experienced added stress, burnout, anxiety, depression, and humiliation," the claim reads.