Thank you, Mr. Chair.
On behalf of the RCMP Veteran Women's Council, I appreciate each and every one of you for being here in a collegial environment to uncover uncomfortable truths and seek remedies. As honoured members of Parliament, you have not only the power but a duty to ensure your recommendations are acted upon.
My name is Jane Hall. I'm an RCMP veteran, mother, wife, author, past president of Police Futurists International, past chair of the women in leadership team and past member of Rear Admiral Bennett's advisory board. I am currently a member of WREN and the ombud's advisory board, and co-chair of the RCMP Veteran Women's Council. I also lecture at the Law Enforcement Management Institute of Texas.
I joined the RCMP in 1977 and served until 1998. I was an idealistic baby boomer, confident, in my youthful arrogance, that we could change the world. I left the RCMP frustrated and defeated. My book The Red Wall: A Woman in the RCMP was published in 2007. In 2008, I was invited to present at the public safety leadership development consortium conference in Georgia. I joined a powerful networking group of directors of some of the largest advanced public safety educational institutes in the U.S., Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and Australia.
In 2013, two high-profile gender-based harassment lawsuits were launched against the RCMP. At the time, there was no platform for credible, knowledgeable, independent female veteran voices to educate the public and elected officials on the need for systemic change within the RCMP. The RCMP Veteran Women's Council was created to fill that void.
In 2014, Ron Lewis and I attended the experts summit committee meeting in Ottawa, hosted by Senator Grant Mitchell and the honourable MPs Judy Sgro and Wayne Easter. We submitted our 2014 report “Addressing a Crisis in Leadership”, which detailed decades of reports and recommendations that have identified the same toxic cultural issues, the desperate rates of early- and mid-career exits of women compared with men, and essential remedies. Sadly, our council's recommendations have not been actioned.
The RCMP Veteran Women's Council report contained data on the attrition rates of female members from 2008 to 2013 broken down by years of service and rank, and compared them to those of their male peers. It was an uncomfortable truth that I had encountered earlier. In 1984, I included British Columbia division attrition rates in a report to Ottawa, which flagged female attrition rates at three to four times those of male members.
Women, for decades, have been injured physically by poorly designed uniforms and equipment, and by being exposed to toxic work environments that often lead to premature departures from the RCMP. Some only serve for a few years. These women rightly felt silenced and discarded. Many were broken psychologically, and many continue to suffer from physical injuries that occurred during the course of their service. They often do not consider themselves RCMP veterans because they did not serve long enough to receive a pension. The majority of the first and second wave of female members have no idea that VAC is a resource they are entitled to. The research currently undertaken by CAF should be applied to serving and retired RCMP members with the view that, unless there is evidence to the contrary, the more favourable conditions and remedies should rightfully be extended.
Uniforms and equipment not designed for women continue to take tolls on aging bodies. Shift work, isolated postings and specialized duties, such as forensic and drug units dealing with toxic chemicals, create working conditions indistinguishable from some of those that CAF has highlighted. Car accidents while on patrol are common and often devastating. Physical altercations resulting in blunt-force trauma, falls, knife injuries and, increasingly, gun violence-related injuries are just some of the bases for VAC claims.
PTSD is an occupational hazard of operational police work. It is an injury. It is not a character flaw. The use of egg banks and a focus on female reproductive health need to be actioned as soon as possible. No serving member or veteran should be wait-listed if they ask for psychological care.
September 2024 will be the 50th anniversary of women in the RCMP—something that would not have happened if not for the Government of Canada directing the RCMP to allow women to join, without restriction, as Mounties. It took vision and political courage for those members of Parliament in 1970 to direct the RCMP to accept women into their ranks.
It took even more courage for those women to answer the call. They understood that not everyone in the RCMP would be in their corner. They did not know they would be left on their own without organizational or government protection. The women of the RCMP, both serving and retired, have been waiting a long time for backup. Time's up.