Hugh Mahabir says the evidence of sexual misconduct that got him fired as a teacher in Chisasibi was fabricated, and he wants his old job back.
“A lot of the evidence that you have there is fabricated and it’s meant to destroy me,” said Mahabir in a phone interview from his home in Montreal.
Mahabir is involved in the longest-running labour dispute that the Cree School Board has on its files.
In 1990, he was dismissed by the School Board after 20 letters were written by children and parents alleging that he had used sexually inappropriate language in his classes. Mahabir taught Secondary I and II English and Math.
The CEQ teachers’ union took the School Board to an arbitrator, who threw out the complaints in 1992 and decided Mahabir should be taken back as a teacher. The arbitrator said the witnesses against Mahabir “have not been able to express their thoughts in a coherent and articulate way.”
The School Board refused to take Mahabir back, and requested a judicial review of the decision. The Quebec Superior Court was next to hear the case. It also decided in Mahabir’s favour. Six years after he was dismissed, the case is now being heard by the Quebec Court of Appeal.
During this time, Mahabir has not been teaching.
One of the witnesses against Mahabir was student Patricia Bobbish, daughter of Nancy Bobbish, the school’s current principal. “He always looks at girl’s ‘behinds.’… He told us a story about him at Mammoweedow Minshtukch and said that his tent was shaking a lot and it was very hot in his tent… He was once teaching us how to construct an angle and he was referring it to legs,” she said, adding that he had also referred to genitals. “Once he said, ‘It’s Friday night, time to party and have sex?”‘
Testimony was also given by parents. “In class he has made numerous comments regarding sex,” said one. “The girls also complained that the teacher has been staring at various parts of their body during class.”
Two other parents mentioned one alleged incident involving Mahabir. “Once he brought with him a white plastic bag to the classroom. After he had emptied the bag he jokingly asked one of the boys if he would care to have the plastic bag to use later that night in a sexual activity.”
Another parent, Caroline Bobbish, said she believed her daughter’s complaints about Mahabir. She said she had worked with Mahabir at the school herself and “heard him talk in this way myself.”
After pages of complaints, the union’s defense is only two paragraphs long. The union defended Mahabir by saying it is common practice among math teachers to use the word “legs” in describing a triangle. The union also said Mahabir was justified in speaking about “reproduction” in class because he taught about ecology.
The labour arbitrator, Bernard Lefebvre, ruled that while Mahabir may have offended some, the complaints were “of little importance” and “can be explained by the difference in culture.” Lefebvre added: “We can admit that behaviour that is judged to be immoral in a Cree community would be judged as acceptable in another community.”
