Evidence of meeting #50 for Status of Women in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was policy.
A video is available from Parliament.
10 a.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Marie-Claude Morin
Thank you. Madam Clerk will follow up with you.
I now give the floor to Ms. Day.
You have five minutes.
10 a.m.
NDP
Anne-Marie Day NDP Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
First, I want to thank you for being here. Our committee is studying this question in order to gather information. Whatever questions I put to you, my purpose is to obtain information. I am not seeking confrontation. I wanted to make that clear because I have some rather pointed questions to ask.
I was looking at the figures quoted in each presentation. Mr. Gauthier said that there had been 375 harassment complaints out of 16,000 since 2006. We also heard that there were 65 harassment cases out of 1,471. Concerning military personnel—I think it was Mr. Wenek who said this—over 10 years, there have been 513 harassment complaints, and 6% in another file.
I reacted strongly to this. These are undeniably interesting figures. I am wondering about something Mr. Gauthier said. He said this in his brief: “While our investigators attempt to resolve complaints informally and at the lowest level possible [...]” The lowest level possible may correspond to unions, to the immediate supervisor or to military police.
Without wanting to attack you, I must say that the population does not have the impression that this works very well, with respect to harassment and sexual harassment in the Canadian Forces. That is not the image that is being conveyed. I wonder if many cases get settled before arriving at the level in question, and in what order. I am not asking you for figures, since, clearly, you would not have them with you. Are we talking about 80% of the cases, about most cases or complaints? Have you had any feedback? Do you have any information on this topic?
10 a.m.
Director General Military Personnel, Chief Military Personnel, Department of National Defence
Madam Chair, if I understand the question correctly, I wouldn't say that we don't have any cases of sexual harassment or sexual assault. Every large organization like ours is going to have to deal with that. I would hope that we would get to zero one day, but I don't think that's realistic.
You have new people coming into the organization, and they bring their norms and their ways of acting. When something is wrong, we try to correct it. There's been no special effort to clean up our data. We collected it as it was and we presented it today as it has existed over the past several years.
10:05 a.m.
Director General, Civilian Human Resources Management Operations, Assistant Deputy Minister (Human Resources - Civilian), Department of National Defence
It's the same comment for the civilian side. We did not take any immediate actions to speed up the closing of any files. We pulled the data as it existed.
10:05 a.m.
Director General Military Personnel, Chief Military Personnel, Department of National Defence
The only thing I would add is that if you think the statistics are artificially low, for example—
10:05 a.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Marie-Claude Morin
I am really sorry to have to interrupt you, but I am going to have to adjourn the meeting so that we can go to vote in the House.
I am going to ask the committee whether we could invite you again, for one hour. You had a lot of information to impart to the committee, and the committee members had a lot of questions for you. We will surely be contacting you in that regard.
Thank you for having come here this morning.
The meeting is adjourned.