Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, and hon. members of the committee. Thank you for the invitation to speak to you today about the impacts of Bill C-65 on the RCMP's responsibility and efforts to protect the health, safety, and well-being of all of its employees as it relates to harassment and violence in the workplace.
I am joined today by my colleague, Chief Superintendent Jasmin Breton, director general of the workplace responsibility branch, to help answer questions you have for us on the subject of Bill C-65.
Since the RCMP is an organization under the federal public administration, part II of the Canada Labour Code applies to it and to all its employees, including regular members and civilian members. As such, the RCMP has a general duty to ensure that the health and safety at work of all its employees is protected. This includes taking the prescribed steps under part XX of the Canada Occupational Health and Safety Regulations to prevent and protect RCMP employees against violence in the workplace.
The RCMP has complied with the regulated requirements of part XX, by establishing a policy on violence prevention in the workplace; establishing procedures for the reporting, resolution, investigation, and care of employees subject to violence occurrences; and developing mandatory training for all RCMP employees and supervisors on factors that contribute to workplace violence and how to mitigate them.
Many factors contribute to workplace violence, such as incivility, workplace conflicts, stress in the workplace, and harassing behaviours. As such, the RCMP provides its employees with a multitude of tools, resources, and awareness sessions to help prevent violence and harassment in the workplace. These include addressing incivility and harassing behaviours through a mandatory respectful workplace course; providing employees and managers with tools, services, and training for effectively resolving conflict at the earliest opportunity through the RCMP informal conflict management program; addressing stress in the workplace through Health Canada's employee assistance services, a robust RCMP peer-to-peer program, and a mandatory in-class “Road to Mental Readiness” course. As well, in an effort to eliminate harassment and discrimination from the workplace, the RCMP has created divisional and national gender and harassment advisory committees.
The RCMP's violence prevention policy states that: the RCMP will provide a healthy, safe, and violence-free workplace in accordance with part II of the Canada Labour Code and the Treasury Board policy on government security; and that the RCMP will not tolerate violent and abusive behaviour in the workplace and, with its employees, will promote a workplace that is free from intimidation, violence, bullying, threats of violence and other disruptive behaviours.
The RCMP has regulatory authorities currently in force through which it addresses the investigation and resolution of harassment complaints. The RCMP regulations and many of the commissioner's standing orders were amended in 2014, including establishing procedures to effectively and efficiently investigate and resolve harassment complaints. For example, the code of conduct contained in the schedule to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Regulations, 2014, now provides that members may not engage in discrimination or harassment. As such, harassing behaviour can result in conduct measures being pursued. The Commissioner's Standing Orders (Investigation and Resolution of Harassment Complaints), and the Commissioner's Standing Orders (Conduct), which set out procedures relating to the investigation and resolution of harassment complaints could be affected by the regime proposed in Bill C-65.
One of the central elements of the recent reforms to the RCMP Act and its processes was to ensure that the decision-maker with respect to a harassment complaint was also the conduct authority with respect to the respondent to the complaint in order to ensure consistency between the findings of harassment and the conduct measures imposed.
Bill C-65 seeks to update the Canada Labour Code to consolidate violence prevention and harassment into a single regime to require employers, including the RCMP, to take the necessary steps to prevent and protect employees against harassment and violence in the workplace. The RCMP looks forward to being consulted on the drafting of the part XX regulations in order to gain a better appreciation of the impacts these changes would have on our current processes, and the role of the decision-maker and other parties in the process, including the investigator.
Based on our current knowledge of the proposed regime under Bill C-65, the RCMP feels that these changes will further help to bring positive change to preventing and addressing unwanted behaviours in our workplaces.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. We look forward to your questions.