Evidence of meeting #79 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 organization.
A video is available from Parliament.
12:35 p.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe
Thank you, Madam Sgro.
We are now beginning the second round of questions.
Ms. Truppe, the floor is yours.
You have five minutes.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Susan Truppe Conservative London North Centre, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I loved your pass the perpetrator reference. That was the first time we on this side, and probably both sides, heard that.
I want to talk about some of the recommendations as far as it would go for, say, an employee assistance program.
On February 25, Stats Canada released a report, “Measuring violence against women: Statistical trends”. The report notes that following an incident of violence, Canadian women are statistically more likely than men to disclose the victimization to family and friends: 80% of women versus, say, 56% per men.
Would you say there's a need for access to social and personal support networks alongside the reporting and mediation of an incident of sexual harassment in the workplace? The reason I'm asking is that federal public service employees actually have access to an employee assistance program which provides e-counselling and referrals to local counsellors to assist public service employees in dealing with personal or workplace-related issues, but this service has only been raised once during our meeting.
I wanted to get your thoughts on that.
12:40 p.m.
Associate Professor of Psychology, Millikin University, As an Individual
I think that service in the form of employee assistance programs would be very helpful to victims of sexual harassment. I would want to make sure individuals within that system have been trained on the issue of sexual harassment, because while it seems on the one hand everybody understands what sexual harassment is, there is actually a lot of misunderstanding about it in terms of the impact it has and the ways in which a woman has chosen to cope. For example, you frequently will hear stories of women who have tolerated it for years and then they end up being blamed. Why did they put up with that for so long? Why didn't they complain immediately? Well, we know there are reasons that women don't complain.
Whatever counsellors you provide to targets, they need to have some training. They need to have some understanding of sexual harassment. They need to have an understanding about the broader issue of violence against women, because certainly sexual harassment falls within that realm.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Susan Truppe Conservative London North Centre, ON
What would you say are the benefits of offering access to supports such as counselling services to individuals engaged in reporting, or a mediation process for sexual harassment in the workplace?
12:40 p.m.
Associate Professor of Psychology, Millikin University, As an Individual
There are individual benefits, obviously. If a person has someone to talk to, someone to process her feelings with.... I'm a psychologist, so of course I believe that talking about one's experiences, especially those that are stressful, can have important beneficial consequences.
It also benefits the organization. In an organization, you want your employees to be healthy, both psychologically and physically. It makes sense to provide this kind of intervention for your own employees so that they can recover and come back full strength. It communicates to other women in the organization that you're taking this matter seriously. We know that's one of the factors of organizational climate. Does the organization take it seriously? When you provide benefits in the form of counselling to targets, you're communicating that to them.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Susan Truppe Conservative London North Centre, ON
Thank you.
You were talking about sanctions with my colleague Madam Bateman. Could you elaborate a bit on the sanctions in the military? You finished off there, and you said you were going to send something. Could you discuss what sanctions there are in your military to which you were referring?
12:40 p.m.
Associate Professor of Psychology, Millikin University, As an Individual
Again, depending on the offence.... Obviously, it goes up to court martial, which would involve prison incarceration, certainly dismissal from the military, but also there is demotion in rank, being suspended from duties, not being allowed to.... For example, you would be prohibited from working with female recruits.
In the United States we certainly have our own scandals in the military. I don't know if you saw on the news that the person in charge of assisting women who have been sexually assaulted in our military was recently arrested for groping a woman. So we are not immune to this problem of people in charge not fulfilling their responsibilities. So—
12:40 p.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe
Thank you, Madam Collinsworth. Once again, I need to interrupt you. The time is over.
Ms. Hughes, or Mr. Choquette, rather, you have the floor for five minutes.
12:45 p.m.
NDP
Marc-André Morin NDP Laurentides—Labelle, QC
I'll try to keep it brief.
Your research has allowed you to draw conclusions on harassment in hierarchically structured workplaces. In your view, women who work in those settings are more likely to experience sexual harassment than those who work in a regular environment. Doesn't the inherent nature of a hierarchical organization lead to abuse of authority? Couldn't that potentially give rise to assaults?
In the same vein, do you think it's possible to solve this kind of problem from inside a hierarchical organization? There's the possibility of those in charge punishing the victims, because they are farther down the hierarchical structure.
What do you think?
12:45 p.m.
Associate Professor of Psychology, Millikin University, As an Individual
That was a multi-point question, so I'll try to answer all of them. If I leave one out, let me know.
I think the first question was on how to address it. I had started to explain it. If you look again at the model in terms of job gender context, job gender context predicts harassment. When the job gender context is skewed in the direction of males, then there is more harassment. The context includes the number of males compared to the number of women in the workplace.
For example, in jobs that tend to be male dominated, such as construction, the military, and policing, those sorts of traditionally male occupations where there are more men than women, that leads to more harassment. You're absolutely right. If you're a woman working in a context in which there are more men than women, then harassment is more likely to occur.
It also is more likely to occur if you work in a workplace where there are more male supervisors. If there are female supervisors, that kind of gender parity tends to reduce the harassment. You need leaders who are women, and you also need to have a more balanced job gender context.
For the second part of your question on how we can fix this if there is this hierarchical structure, I would again refer you to Dr. John Pryor. He looked at the issue of how it is that harassment occurs in an organization, and from the offender's perspective. He found that some men will never harass, regardless of whether or not they have power over a woman. They're low in the likelihood to sexually harass. There are some men who are high in the likelihood to sexually harass.
You can't give employees a test to find out who's high and who's low, because we'd get into profiling. The good news is that when you have management norms, where the managers are modelling no harassment—
12:45 p.m.
Associate Professor of Psychology, Millikin University, As an Individual
—when you have sanctions against them, even men who are high in likelihood to sexually harass will not do it. So it is the organization's responsibility, and they have the power to do this, to change things in the environment, to model for their male employees how one should treat their co-workers or their subordinates. When you do that, you will move in the direction of decreasing sexual harassment.
I do not believe that simply because there is a hierarchical structure we must automatically accept that sexual harassment is going to occur. The research indicates clearly that is not correct.
12:45 p.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe
Thank you, Ms. Collinsworth.
Time has expired.
Madam Crockatt, you have the floor for five minutes.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
Joan Crockatt Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
Thank you very much, Dr. Collinsworth, for being with us today to share your wealth of experience and knowledge. We really appreciate it.
I'm going to try to drill down a little bit, but before I do that, I want to go back to something. One of my colleagues across the way may have left a different impression about the legislation we have coming forward that involves the RCMP.
I think I heard you say that at the corporate level they get it, that it is a very important thing with change, so that organizations are dealing appropriately with sexual harassment. In answering the question of whether the organization takes it seriously, you said leadership is a really important issue. You expressed some concern about whether that meant one person at the top making a snap decision to fire someone, or whatever.
I wanted to give a bit more information about the RCMP in Canada. We've heard directly from their commissioner that they've hired harassment advisers. They have electronic reporting forms as well as personal reporting. There are multiple methods for reporting, including formal and informal. They have a code of conduct. They've implemented a zero tolerance policy. All complaints are investigated. Early reporting is encouraged. They have penalties ranging from demotion right up....
What would you think about that kind of process now that you know a little bit more about it?
12:50 p.m.
Associate Professor of Psychology, Millikin University, As an Individual
I think it sounds like an excellent process. I do see problems in assuming that will address everything. As I said, this is just my experience, because of some litigation in which I served as an expert witness, that when you look at a corporation's policy and you look at their procedures, they frequently at this stage, finally, over multiple decades, seem to have gotten it at the corporate level to put into place procedures so that there is some sort of mechanism in place for women to complain.
The problem is down on the ground where the plants and the individual offices are around the country. It doesn't seem to filter down to them. They need training.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Joan Crockatt Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
I was just going to go there. How would you suggest you look at your systems to make sure that message does filter down? Can you give us some concise tips on what your research has shown?
12:50 p.m.
Associate Professor of Psychology, Millikin University, As an Individual
Certainly training is needed at all levels. Certainly supervisors need to be trained. In the United States and our tort claims, if a supervisor is doing the harassing, there's greater liability than if it's a co-worker who is doing it, because supervisors represent the company. They represent the corporation with power and authority and that sort of thing. Certainly supervisors need to be trained about sexual harassment, and they need to be trained to take it seriously.
I have heard about lots of training in which joking goes on and people laugh at the experiences women have had. It's that kind of an atmosphere that you cannot tolerate because it communicates that you aren't really taking it seriously. You have everything in place, but you really don't take it seriously.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Joan Crockatt Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
This is key and very important. We've talked a lot about training, but none of our witnesses so far was able to accurately measure the relationship between the training and the incidence of harassment. Do you have any research? Is there anyway to measure that?
12:50 p.m.
Associate Professor of Psychology, Millikin University, As an Individual
Yes, I know there is. I will make a note to find something that shows effective training and send it to you. At the same time I will reiterate that sanctions against offenders are most effective in decreasing harassment.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Joan Crockatt Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
That's wonderful. Thank you. I would really appreciate your information on training.
Do I have time for a brief question?
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Joan Crockatt Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
Do you have any research on whether electronic or distance reporting was any more or less important than reporting in person? Is it important? Which would you suggest is the most effective way of reporting so that people who are victimized have the best opportunity?
12:50 p.m.
Associate Professor of Psychology, Millikin University, As an Individual
It pretty much depends.... I don't know of any research that has been done on it, but it's very interesting.
12:55 p.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe
Thank you, Madam Collinsworth. Sorry about that, but the time has expired.
Mr. Choquette, the last word goes to you. You have five minutes.
