Status of Women Committee on Oct. 23rd, 2012

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Fine.

Mr. Gaon, do you have something to add on that matter?

[Steven Gaon]

I don't think so. I would simply echo my colleague's comments and say that there are certain things you try to do when you have very serious allegations, whether it's sexual harassment or another type of harassment, one of which is separating the parties. If that's feasible, that's usually a good idea, and that doesn't always happen.

I agree that a set of options certainly would be helpful and that needs to be decided on a case-by-case basis.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

Thank you.

I will now give the floor again to the government side.

Mr. Aspin, you have seven minutes.

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Welcome, gentlemen, to our meeting this morning and thank you for your contributions.

Mr. Rootham, you mentioned there were many options available, perhaps too many options available, and that this would be confusing to complainants. Do you have any recommendations as to how that process can be improved in that area?

[Christopher Rootham]

I have one recommendation, at least. It is to make sure that there is a forum where complaints will be accepted and addressed and where the victims of sexual harassment will receive the necessary or appropropiate redress.

There are a number of different ways that could happen. One way it could happen would be to clarify the jurisdiction of adjudicators under the Public Service Labour Relations Act.

Remember I said that some grievances end up with a deputy head. Other grievances can be referred to adjudication. A guarantee that a grievance alleging a breach of the Canadian Human Rights Act, including sexual harassment, would be dealt with by adjudication instead of solely by the deputy head would certainly help resolve a lot of that confusion. It would ensure that there was a forum for redress for the victims.

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Would you mind submitting that recommendation in writing to us?

[Christopher Rootham]

I can do that.

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Mr. Gaon, you had three, what you termed, significant points or recommendations. The third one was adequate follow-up. I wonder if you could elaborate on that for us.

[Steven Gaon]

It is essentially a human resources issue. The policy, as it's currently drafted, speaks in generalities, as did the old policy, with regard to what should happen after an investigation is completed. In my experience, from what I have found out after speaking with HR managers after an investigation is completed, very often very little is done. I'm not speaking specifically of sexual harassment cases, although in one particular case where there was a failing on the part of the manager, there wasn't a whole lot done.

What can be done? Well, this is, as I said, a human resources issue. I think the federal public service needs to take strong steps to make sure that their HR managers are properly trained and to make sure that where situations warrant it, there's progressive discipline, for example, which doesn't always happen.

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Okay.

This may be to either one of you gentlemen. How would the Canadian approach in this situation compare to approaches taken in other countries? Do either of you two gentlemen have experience with the situation in other countries?

[Steven Gaon]

I'm going to pass this over to my colleague and see if he has some information.

[Christopher Rootham]

No, I haven't looked carefully enough at how this is dealt with in other countries.

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Okay, those are my questions, Madam Chair. Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

You are finished? Very well.

I now give the floor to Ms. Sgro, for seven minutes.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Thank you very much.

To both Mr. Gaon and Mr. Rootham, thank you so much for your information today. It helps to give us a handle on it to hear from people from the outside who deal with this. We can hear from all kinds of departments, but we're hearing the real stuff from both of you as far as the kind of work you do and what you've actually seen.

I have to say that I have great faith in our country and in our public service at all levels, because I think we're way ahead of a lot of countries. But even though we may be ahead, we still have significant issues.

If you don't change the culture of the environment people are working in, it's impossible, no matter how many rules there are. The RCMP's 2008 policy you referred to was a great policy. They've had huge problems, and so have many others, with acts that are under-reported. It's for a lot of reasons, and I'm not sure that the policies are going to change that. It's more to do with the culture and training.

I think the federal public service is an example of putting all kinds of things in place but still having the problems. Until we change the culture of organizations, I'm not sure we're going to be able to solve some of these issues. I'd like your comments.

[Steven Gaon]

I'll start by saying that I agree with you. I think training is very important. I don't believe mandatory instruction is currently available or that employees are compelled to take mandatory training to understand harassment in the workplace. I'm not sure that the solution is that it be made mandatory, but I think it certainly should be strongly encouraged. In other words, seminars should be available to employees from inside or outside providers to understand how the new Treasury Board policy works, for example. If they are in another organization that has its own policy, they should be taught to understand how those policies work. They should understand generally what does or does not constitute harassment. They should certainly be made aware of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable in the context of sexual harassment.

I think those efforts could be made, and they could be made more strongly. A point I'd also like to add is that we have to be careful that these policies are not used as a sword instead of a shield. You see that happen in sexual harassment cases, and you see it in regular harassment cases. We need to be conscious of the fact that if we're overpromoting the policy, sometimes it encourages bad faith or frivolous complaints.

[Christopher Rootham]

I agree with you that a cultural improvement in the public service would be helpful, but echoing comments made by Mr. Gaon earlier, the federal public service is generally seen to be good at this. There is broad acceptance that sexual harassment is inappropriate in the workplace, particularly in the federal public service, so I don't think we need that big a culture change.

The culture change, if we can call it this, that would need to happen is the culture of how complaints are dealt with, or whether complainants are marginalized for bringing complaints, and frankly whether it's worth their while to bring a complaint. If a complainant is bringing a sexual harassment complaint, it takes four months to do an investigation properly—

[Steven Gaon]

At least.

[Christopher Rootham]

—at least, so let's say that six months after the complaint is filed, there's an investigation report. The deputy head gets the investigation report. The delegation goes to the ADM of HR. The ADM of HR decides we're going to take some appropriate action. It's nine months later. The victim of sexual harassment has just been through nine months of investigation while they've been on sick leave, or moved out of their unit.

Great, there's been a finding of sexual harassment. The perpetrator's been reprimanded. Why did you do that as a complainant? The complainant is thinking, “Why would I have gone through all of this just to receive some element of vindication?” That's enough for some people, but it's not enough for everyone. It's part of why these types of complaints are under-reported. If you're going to change the culture, the culture can't be that sexual harassment is bad. The culture has to be that complaining about wrongdoing is good.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

You don't want to open the door to frivolous complaints.

[Christopher Rootham]

No.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

I can suggest to you that for someone to come forward and complain of sexual harassment, I'd like to think that 99% of the time it took a tremendous amount for that individual to get to that point. I don't think, and I don't want to think, there would be frivolous complaints, but we all know there would be, and I'll say it's 1%.

It's getting women to be empowered enough. I say women, but I'm not sure it's only women we're talking about, not in the new world we live in. It's the whole issue of empowering those individuals to push back literally to the manager, to take things more into their own hands rather than to feel they're victims. There should be a mechanism for a much more upright, straight-on complaint, and that complaint gets resolved. Either the manager is moved or instructed in a better way of handing these issues rather than a woman having to feel as though she's a victim for this long period of time. It's the empowerment of women as well to be able to come forth with these things in a much more straightforward manner.

I know they're under-reported; we know that. As women who have worked in the workplace all our lives, we know it's under-reported because nobody wants to get into that. It's not something I think women want to start reporting. It takes a minimum of nine months, so it's not done lightly. Yet many of them would just prefer to quit their jobs and find another job where they're not going to have these kinds of difficulties. That happens a lot. You must hear it in your work.

[Steven Gaon]

Yes, I tend to agree with you. At the risk of reducing my own workload, I will tell you that investigations are an unhappy and unsatisfactory process. They're usually, and they ought to be, the last resort. I think you can probably accomplish a lot by involving the parties at an early stage where, let's say, if you're speaking about women, they feel comfortable enough to come forward and know that it could be resolved informally, perhaps.

Very often, at least in the cases I've encountered, these women simply want the actions to stop. They're not looking for blood. They're not looking for vindication per se. They're not looking for anyone to get fired. They're simply looking for the wrongful acts to stop, and it can often be resolved at an informal level.

[Christopher Rootham]

I agree. They're not looking for vindication but for recognition that there has been something wrong, that they have been a victim of sexual harassment, and that somebody in power recognizes that.