That's right. Are there safeguards we can put in place to not just put on paper that reprisals are bad and you shouldn't do that, but to prevent reprisals from happening in the workplace? How would we go about doing that?

1:55 p.m.

Lawyer, Fogler, Rubinoff LLP

Sheryl Johnson

That comes down to how you enforce the legislation. I don't know if you can specifically regulate that or legislate that. You have your set rules. If they're not followed, then what's the process for dealing with it?

It's what I mentioned earlier with regard to making sure you have the bare minimums in there so that employees know, “Okay, I can make a complaint. This is the process. These are my protections under the process.” That was the one thing I was talking about. However, with regard to that scenario, there's no way that I can think of to directly legislate that.

1:55 p.m.

Liberal

Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS

Essentially, if you've prohibited reprisals and an employee feels they're suffering reprisal, they could sue the employer, for example.

1:55 p.m.

Lawyer, Fogler, Rubinoff LLP

Sheryl Johnson

They could sue the employer, or you could build in, as an enforcement mechanism, that they have the ability to make a complaint to the government with regard to that, and then they can have an independent investigator, an officer or investigator, look into it to see whether or not there was a violation of the legislation.

1:55 p.m.

Liberal

Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS

Thank you.

I think that's my time.

1:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bryan May

It's pretty close. That is the end of the third round. We don't really have time to get into a fourth, but I am going to take this opportunity we have, just two minutes, to ask a question about something I have not heard addressed today.

I know that for those who find themselves the victims of harassment and choose to avail themselves of whatever processes and opportunities are in front of them, one of the biggest concerns is the time it takes to address the complaint, and then, of course, to resolve the complaint. Are there benchmarks within each of your organizations right now that you try to achieve? What are those benchmarks? Do you measure that in any way, shape, or form?

Maybe we'll start with Canada Post.

1:55 p.m.

Vice-President, Human Resources, Canada Post Corporation

Ann-Therese MacEachern

We don't have a benchmark. The reason we don't have a benchmark is that situations vary so much. Depending on the details of a situation, it would be very difficult to establish a benchmark.

I would say two things. Timeliness is really important. Being able to not only begin an investigation but to close an investigation as quickly and as effectively as possible is important. It also reflects on the whole notion of how you prevent these situations from recurring. If you're able to address things effectively and quickly, it will help prevent the recurrence of an incident. That's our position.

1:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bryan May

I will put the question to the banks.

1:55 p.m.

Assistant General Counsel, Canadian Bankers Association

Marina Mandal

There are no benchmarks, no set time limits within which a complaint has to be fully investigated and resolved, for reasons similar to what was just mentioned.

What I can say is that there's a commitment from the banks to the complainant to have a timely, thorough, confidential investigation. When you think about the range of things that could be alleged or brought forward, from inappropriate conduct to sexual violence, to have a timeline of six months, 12 months, or whatever doesn't make sense. The commitment really is that these are some of the most sensitive things we could be dealing with in the workplace, and we don't want to manage to deadline, because that's not going to guarantee the most optimal outcome and the most optimal resolution.

The added factor to timelines is that there are certain complexities that are fully outside the control of the employer, such as if one of the parties is on a leave of absence and cannot be interviewed, or if there are IT issues like an email pull that takes x number of weeks or days, or if there are other experts involved, medical or legal.

2 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bryan May

I'm almost out of time, but I just want to jump in here. I understand the idea and the concern around benchmarks, but there's another part of the question: is it measured?

In my past employment, if it wasn't measured, it wasn't done. My concern is that I'm not hearing that this is being measured at all in many industries. We hear time and time again from victims that the time it takes to go through this process re-victimizes them. It becomes a mental health issue due to stress and all these things.

We're out of time, but I want to leave that thought with you. Regardless of whether it's in the legislation, we really need to get to a point where we're at least communicating to the victim what that timeline will look like.

At any rate, I have to close it at that. I want to thank all of you for being here. To all of you who stuck around from the earlier session, again I thank you as well.

Thank you to my colleagues and thank you to everybody who makes these meetings possible—people to my left, to my right, and behind me. Enjoy the rest of your week. We will see everybody back here next week.

Thank you very much.

The meeting is adjourned.