Status of Women committee  I don't have the breakdown between civilian and regular members of the RCMP because both do bring complaints. I certainly can provide that information, but it is from both sorts of members, as I say, that we receive complaints.

Status of Women committee  That may be true. We wouldn't necessarily know that. The complaints that come before us, as I mentioned in my comments, tend to be the ones in which they use the word “intractable”. They tend to be the more serious ones. That's not to say all of them are then referred to the tribunal, of course, but that said, there may be cases that are dealt with at the local level, if you will, within a department through their agency, and it may be that in serious cases, as I said, a person chooses not even to come forward.

Status of Women committee  Yes.

Status of Women committee  Yes: what I was saying was that the numbers, the 332 complaints that we have received since 2007, would represent only a small number of the complaints. You are quite right that many would be dealt with through an internal grievance, or a person may not report it, or it may be referred to the Public Service Labour Relations Board, so that it wouldn't come before us.

Status of Women committee  No, we have had; what we're saying is that the numbers that we have would not be reflective of all of the complaints that are made. A complainant may avail himself or herself of the internal grievance redress process, or they may come to us, or it may be dealt with by the Public Service Labour Relations Board.

Status of Women committee  I should say that not all are as a result of that; they may come directly to the commission without going through the other redress. I can say that of all the complaints the commission receives, just to put it into context, 3.7% are with respect to sexual harassment. Of the complaints that come to us against the federal public service, 3% of those complaints are with respect to sexual harassment.

Status of Women committee  Madam Chair, honourable members, Thank you for inviting the Canadian Human Rights Commission to contribute to your study of sexual harassment in Canada's federally-regulated workplaces. I have three main points. The first is that despite all the work that has been done to eliminate it, sexual harassment persists; second, that while organizations need to be proactive about it, policies alone are not good enough; and finally, that ending harassment depends on cultural change.