The late past-president of government-funded human rights organization Rights & Democracy disputed several allegations made against him in a performance review, CBC News has learned.

CBC News has obtained a copy of Rémy Beauregard's response to the performance evaluation. Since Beauregard hadn't been allowed to see the original review, he was forced to request it from the Department of Foreign Affairs by filing an access to information request.

Beauregard died in January of a heart attack. His family, along with some opposition politicians, have called for an independent inquiry into Rights & Democracy.

Beauregard felt enough distress over the performance review that he sent an urgent letter to Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon last November. He requested a meeting as soon as possible to discuss what he called deep divisions among members of the board of the Montreal-based group.

In the letter to Cannon, Beauregard said the performance evaluation of his work was sent to the government without him being able to read it, and without approval by the full board. This was contrary to human resources policy, and he said the report was riddled with errors. He also warned he was worried that the deteriorating situation at Rights & Democracy had the potential to embarrass the government, both in Canada and abroad.

Beauregard never did meet with Cannon. In January at a particularly acrimonious board meeting, two longer-serving board members resigned and a group of new board appointees helped form a majority that seemed united against Beauregard. Just hours after the stormy board meeting, Beauregard died suddenly, at the age of 66.

Beauregard had detailed some of the charges made against him. He notes that the performance evaluation had been signed by only two members of the group's executive performance review committee: Jacques Gauthier, who is now the interim president of Rights & Democracy, and Elliot Tepper.

Several criticisms

There are several criticisms of Beauregard in the evaluation, almost all of them relating to political or policy views about Israel.

One is the accusation that through Beauregard, Rights & Democracy was accredited as a participant in the now infamous Durban Review Conference held in April 2009 in Geneva.

A keynote speaker at the Durban Review Conference was Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose racist, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic speech caused many delegations to walk out. Canada, as well as Israel and the United States, did not attend at all.

But Rights & Democracy did not attend the conference, Beauregard rebutted, and it never asked to attend.

Beauregard also cited comments made about him by Jacques Gauthier in a memo sent to the evaluation committee. Gauthier said the following: "While attending a conference in Cairo in the fall of 2008, Mr. Beauregard met with representatives of Hamas and Hezbollah."

Beauregard replied: "This is patently false and I consider it an attack on my reputation." He went on to say that no one from Hamas was present at the meeting in Cairo.

Concerns noted

He learned after he arrived that someone from Hezbollah was part of the Lebanese delegation of members of the Lebanese Parliament. "I did not meet this person," he said. "He was part of a group of 150 people that I addressed during my speech on human rights."

But another section of this memo, said Beauregard, was "most troubling to me." Gauthier wrote that he'd talked to a member of the management staff at Rights & Democracy and from that discussion Gauthier concluded, "I was also very surprised to be informed subsequently that there are no Jewish employees in the office of R&D in Montreal."

Beauregard wrote that he was concerned because, "it is completely unacceptable for a member of the board to enquire about the ethnicity and/or religious affiliation of any staff member."

He went on to say, "When the union learns about this and when we know more about how Mr. Gauthier investigated the religious affiliations of our staff, all hell will break loose and it is possible that this would become public."

Beauregard's evaluation also included a letter from the chair of the board, Aurel Braun, who said that the examples of Beauregard's supposed failings "are part of a pattern" that point "rather disturbingly" to Beauregard's performance.

However, Braun added, the evaluation was meant to be "constructive criticism."

Period of upheaval

Beauregard ended his response by saying that in his opinion, the report was written not as constructive criticism, but in bad faith, and was meant to attack the reputation of Rights & Democracy, "but using me as a scapegoat."

This response has now become public for the first time. Since Beauregard's death, the 22-year-old organization has entered a period of upheaval.

Many staff members signed a letter expressing their lack of confidence in the board chair, the interim president and another board member. Three senior staff members are suspended with pay. They have hired constitutional lawyer Julius Grey to plead their case of political interference.

The board members, including Braun, have also hired legal counsel to defend themselves.

On Thursday, Cannon said now that he has what he calls both versions of the story, he'll make a decision about what to do "within days."