Thank you very much.
I represent the Union of Safety and Justice Employees. We represent 16,000 members across this country, who work in 17 different departments.
In listening to the earlier proceedings of this committee, we heard the committee ask our colleagues in Correctional Service Canada and the RCMP—and the majority of our members work for Correctional Service Canada and the RCMP—how departments or agencies have failed in dealing with harassment. I think the committee was trying to understand that in terms of the legislation you're looking at. We would like to bring forward a couple of examples of that, in hopes that we can better the legislation.
First of all, the union's experience is that often agencies and departments are left unchecked in their internal processes meant to deal with harassment. So often we get very good reports, sometimes from external cases, sometimes internally, with excellent recommendations in them that would actually make a huge difference in regard to dealing with harassment, and often those are just not followed.
We have two examples from CSC and the RCMP. In one case, with the CSC, egregious sexual harassment and violence were identified. In one case, with the RCMP, there was an absolutely egregious misunderstanding of what harassment was. That happened in a particular division. In both cases excellent reports were written. In one case, it was an external report, and in the other case there was a groundbreaking collaboration between the union and management. Excellent recommendations were written, and had those recommendations been followed, significant change could have happened in both the workplaces mentioned.
Unfortunately, in the case of CSC, many of the recommendations were just not followed at all. In the case of the RCMP, the report was taken, excerpts were created, and what was left in the excerpts had nothing to do with any of the problems identified or any of the recommendations made in terms of harassment. In fact, every example of the problem of harassment was taken out of the report, and it is that report that was shared with employees.
As you can imagine, taking into account those situations, we really welcome the idea of having an external department, such as a ministry of labour, that would be able to help identify a competent person. But we would underline—and it was really clear in these examples—the necessity for that competent person to have the required expertise in harassment, and many, many competent people do not have that required expertise. In both those cases we mentioned, it was often the union that brought forward significantly more expertise in terms of harassment. When we're looking at who identifies that competent person—someone who hopefully has the required expertise—we highly recommend that the committee consider having the expertise of a union at that table to be able to identify a person who can make the required recommendations and changes.
We believe, as our colleagues do, that it's absolutely crucial to have a definition of “harassment” within the legislation.
We very much believe—and I alluded to that at the beginning—in the importance of ensuring that there is accountability, and that once this report is created, there is significant accountability as to how those recommendations are actually implemented.
Lastly, a recommendation created for both departments, which was not followed but which is crucial, was that a high-level person who understands harassment should be identified in every division in the RCMP. In the case of a challenge involving harassment, those individuals could be brought together as an ad hoc group. Very similarly with CSC, the recommendation was that there be a high-level person in terms of organizational change.
Thank you very much for your time.