'Ghetto dude' email sent by mistake: province

Evon Reid couldn't believe his eyes yesterday morning when he opened an email from the Ontario government's cabinet office where he'd applied for a position.

"This is the ghetto dude that I spoke to before," said the email to the University of Toronto honours student from the very person handling his job application.

That was it. One stark sentence.

"Ghetto dude? It means I'm black. It's very insulting," Reid told the Star yesterday. "It's still pretty shocking to me."

As he sees it, the email explains why he hasn't gotten a followup interview for a job as a media analyst. He applied July 3 but missed a July 10 call from Aileen Siu in the cabinet office.

Although he called her back and sent followup emails, there was no response. Until yesterday's email.

"Based on my resumé I deserved to be called, but I was not worthy of being called back once they heard my mother's voice and my voice," said Reid, 22. "She has a Jamaican accent and it's about the way I talk. There's a nuance."

And so he asks: "Is it standard policy in the (Dalton) McGuinty cabinet office not to hire any ghetto dudes?"

The email was never intended for Reid, according to Siu, who learned she had sent it to him only when the Star telephoned yesterday.

An acting team leader in cabinet office hiring, she said she was "multi-tasking" Thursday when she hit the wrong button and copied Reid on an email she was sending to a job-search colleague.

"It wasn't directed at Evon at all. That was internal ... It didn't have anything to do with any of the applicants," said Siu, 26, and a recent U of T political science graduate.

She insisted the email didn't refer to anyone "outside my circle of friends."

Siu acknowledged the term is negative but said, "I don't even know what nationality he is, right?" She added she's of Asian descent and doesn't want anyone to think she makes racially based judgments.

Reached on vacation in the Maritimes, Craig Sumi, manager of Siu's department, last night referred to her as "an unclassified, part-time employee ... low level."

"I don't know where you're going with this," he said.

However, he termed the email "totally inappropriate ... a complete error in judgment" and said he'd left a message of apology late yesterday on Reid's voice mail.

According to Siu, Reid is still a candidate for the position he sees as "a dream job for any political science student/political junkie such as myself."

He had been instantly intrigued by the job posting on the U of T website as a foot in the door at Queen's Park.

"A very challenging and interesting position which is a critical part of day-to-day media monitoring and analysis for the Government of Ontario," said the posting.

The work would be "for use by senior levels of government ... (applicant must) write high-level summaries of important issues and events ... (working in) the most technologically advanced and comprehensive media operation in Canada."

Reid thought he'd be a good candidate. His resumé appears stellar:

A summer course in international management strategies at the University of Hong Kong; one credit short of an honours degree in political science at U of T; completed project on paradigm shifts in United States foreign policy; working on another to evaluate the effects of electoral reform on public policy.

Extensive job experience; Get Reel Festival organizer; founder of Canadian International Peace project (at U of T's Scarborough campus); participant in Forum for Young Canadians on Parliament Hill; etc., etc.

In a reference letter, an executive with White Oaks Conference Resort called Reid "truly a valuable asset to our company ... a trustworthy, dependable young man that takes initiative in work that has to be done."

Reid saw another reason for the email. "I'm from Malvern," in Scarborough, he said. "The community I live in has one of the highest levels of youth unemployment in Canada. I'd hate to think that this (memo) accounts for that."

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Yeap, yeap... Galletita Dulce works for the Ontario government... Shame on her!