You talk about reprisals in your report and that fascinated me. You dealt with a reprisal complaint from 2002. Having tried to help people who have been harassed or who have suffered reprisals, I know that the difficulty is that departments recognize that harassment has occurred in their organization, but they take no action. They let things drag on, and the employee has no way of knowing his rights with regard to his pension, for example, or where he is going to work in the next six months. I think of employees who are constantly moved from one situation to another. I know that there are cases like that.
I know of a case where the harassment was acknowledged by the employer, the Correctional Service of Canada, but it had been dragging from one deputy minister to another for seven years. Of course, the people who had been harassed were ill—you know because you work with them.
Would it be possible for your office to handle cases like that? When a department lets things drag on, does not provide answers, does not conduct due diligence to deal with cases, those are basically reprisals too. The system is allowed to rot, and the rot affects the employee, who leaves the workplace in disgust.
Can your office deal with cases like that?