Public Safety Committee on Feb. 26th, 2013

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

I have one last quick question, because I only have three minutes. Has Minister Toews given you any indication that there will be funding for your commission to continue an ongoing look at this issue?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Rafferty.

Go ahead, Mr. McPhail.

[Ian McPhail]

Actually, Minister Toews, I believe, indicated before this very committee that there would be significantly increased funding.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. McPhail, and thank you to all.

We certainly appreciate your report. It's bound up really well here, and even in mine different aspects of it have been highlighted. So we'll keep that close at hand.

We also have our commissioner of the RCMP here, who's going to give us his response to it.

But we want to thank you for your report and the work that you've done on it, the recommendations and findings, and for appearing before our committee today.

Thank you, sir.

[Ian McPhail]

Thank you, I appreciated the opportunity.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We will suspend for a minute, allow the witness to take their exit, and welcome the next guests to the committee.

Okay, we'll call the meeting back to order.

This is the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. This morning we're having a briefing on the report into issues of workplace harassment within the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Our witness this hour is Commissioner Bob Paulson of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Our committee thanks our commissioner for always making himself available to return to our committee to help us in our deliberations, whatever they may be, as much as they involve the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. We know that you've testified here a number of times and we've always appreciated it.

So welcome, and we look forward to your comments. If you would then take some questions from our committee, Mr. Commissioner, that would be appreciated as well.

[Commissioner Bob Paulson, Commissioner, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Members of the committee, good morning.

Last fall the RCMP completed the gender-based assessment that I had requested. The aim of the assessment was to objectively look at our practices and policies for gender bias. This was one of many transformation initiatives launched to bring about positive change in the force. Two weeks ago our action plan in response to that assessment was released.

We have organized our planned work along two themes: work to address the culture of the force and work to address the composition of the RCMP.

Our plan includes 37 action items that will, among other things, significantly increase the number of women recruited into the force—with a goal of reaching 30% female regular members by 2025.

We're taking steps to address the lack of faith and transparency in the promotion process, in an effort to build a more welcoming and respectful workplace.

Longer term retention of women in the force is also being addressed.

This plan is transformative and quite forward-looking. It will challenge us to meet our goals and require us to be innovative. Every employee has a role to play. I'm confident we will deliver on this action plan and ultimately succeed in meeting Canadians' expectations of the RCMP.

Recently, the Commission of Public Complaints released its report into RCMP workplace harassment, for which you have invited me here today.

We all share the view that independent, effective civilian review is absolutely essential for ensuring public trust and confidence in the police force. The CPC's report offers an objective and independent assessment of our performance in this area. The RCMP accepts the findings of the CPC in this matter.

I do find it necessary, however, to emphasize the CPC concluded that:

The empirical data gathered by the Commission based on formal harassment complaints do not substantiate the supposition that the RCMP is experiencing a systemic problem with gender-based or sexual workplace harassment.

The CPC has identified, as I think many of us had, serious harassment, discipline and workplace challenges that exist within the RCMP.

While they worked on this important review of harassment in the RCMP so did I, effectively reaching the same conclusions. I've already implemented much change in this area, which addresses the CPC's recommendations—and where I haven't, I'll be working swiftly to do just that.

The commission has made 11 recommendations to help us provide a respectful workplace for our employees. Notionally, I accept them all.

The RCMP has already advanced on most of these items. This includes centralized oversight of the harassment complaint process, as well as the development of service standards to guide the harassment process.

The centralization of the harassment oversight process that I requested last year, supported by a case management tool, has already improved monitoring and reporting capacity, while increasing accountability at every level. It also provides my staff and me the opportunity to see trends and to deploy strategies to avoid future problems.

A new guide on how to deal with harassment will be distributed internally in the coming weeks. This guide will help employees analyze situations that they believe may be workplace harassment, while emphasizing the importance of addressing situations early. All RCMP cadets receive instruction on this topic and the importance of encouraging a respectful workplace during their training at Depot.

We have implemented a mandatory online harassment awareness and prevention training course for all employees, and currently 94% of employees have completed it.

New supervisors and managers are provided with additional training on managing workplace relations, promoting a respectful workplace, and applying our harassment investigative process. We've finalized and are prepared to distribute our code of ethics, including an industry-standard workplace relationship reporting requirement. Meanwhile, of course, the RCMP continues to face the challenge of working with a legislatively enshrined code of conduct system for members of the force that is antiquated, adversarial, and long on process.

The federal government's proposed Bill C-42, the enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police accountability act, if passed, will establish a fair and efficient human resources system that will focus on addressing conduct issues quickly and at the most appropriate management level.

Mr. Chair, members of the committee, I'm here to tell you the RCMP is making progress. We have much to do to truly modernize this institution, but we are doing it. Canadians should recognize that while we are making these changes, we are continuing to deliver on our core mission of keeping Canadians safe in their homes and in their communities.

It is somewhat akin to changing the engines in the avionics of a big airliner. It's made a little bit more challenging by the fact that it's flying while we're doing it. I'm confident that the men and women of the force are up to it.

I'd be pleased to take your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Commissioner.

We'll move to our first questioner for seven minutes.

Mr. Gill, please.

[Parm Gill, Conservative, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I also want to thank Mr. Paulson for being here with us this morning.

Would you be able to share with us why the gender-based assessment was conducted, and what was its overall objective, please?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, the gender-based assessment was initiated soon after I came to my post amid the controversies that flowed from the allegations of sexual harassment, predominantly in the west but also in other areas of the force. It was an effort, among other things, to try to get a more objective analysis of what the organization faced in terms of our policies and practices, how we were constructed, and how we have done business. It was an effort to try to objectively collect data that would assess the extent to which gender bias was present in our policies and practices.

[Parm Gill, Conservative, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Thank you.

Regarding the action plan released on February 14 that commits the RCMP to concrete milestones, are you confident that you can meet these milestones?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

Yes, I am confident. I think it's a very ambitious plan but it's one that I have gone over with my senior executive, with the minister and Public Safety more generally. We're going to need some support, both from within the organization and outside the organization, but I think it's a realistic plan and very comprehensive plan that will address many of the issues before us today.

[Parm Gill, Conservative, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Can you tell us if Bill C-42 will help modernize the RCMP's discipline and grievance policies?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

Yes, it will go a long way to modernizing our approach to discipline and the way in which we manage harassment, which is under discussion today, by doing a couple of things, some of which I've already spoken to the committee about.

Essentially, the bill will try to get the earliest possible intervention with the lowest level of management intervention, and ensure that it's done very quickly within a very streamlined process whenever we have to apply discipline or have to manage grievances or complaints in the workplace. So if the bill is brought into force, we will effectively overhaul all of our administration surrounding the discipline and harassment cases to streamline it, to make it more responsive to employees' needs and more consistent, I think, with peoples' expectations.

[Parm Gill, Conservative, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Thank you for that.

We actually also heard earlier that there some complaints within the RCMP possibly took as long as four years to complete. Can you tell us what your objective is? What do you see as a fair timeline for addressing some of these complaints?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

Our goal, as I've stated in the action plan, is to at the very least be compliant with Treasury Board expectations on how these things are to be managed, and they basically shoot for a 12-month process from start to finish.

But let me talk for a second about that four-year horror story which, I think, is the product of a system where in the earliest moment of that issue, people were not able to come to terms with it and deal with the substantive issue that was causing the problems. So at every turn of the harassment process, at every turn of the management response, grievances were filed.

If we're not successful at intervening at the outset of these conflict situations, then what we see is the extreme polarization of both parties—management and the employee—and we're locked in a legal battle that goes on forever. We have a four-year harassment situation that you've mentioned, but we have people who have been off on sick leave for 10 or 11 years, mad at the organization, suing the organization, which is just not sustainable and not a way to manage a police force.

[Parm Gill, Conservative, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Have your managers been told to enforce a zero tolerance policy? What is the value of a zero tolerance policy of sexual harassment in the workplace and what kinds of effects have you seen since its enforcement?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

The zero tolerance approach needs to be elucidated.

They have been told about it. What I have told my managers, starting from my deputy commissioners on down, is that leaders have to engage in managing their workforce. What it means is that there are going to be consequences for managers and leaders and supervisors who don't act when they observe traits and behaviours of people in the workplace, but also don't act when people make complaints.

That's our approach to the zero tolerance idea, but what we're really shooting for is a fully engaged workforce with all employees alive to the issue of workplace conflict and harassment and who are willing to intervene at the outset when these things are known or can reasonably be known.

As a result, I think we're seeing a much more active management approach to this. I had expected that we would see a spike in some of the complaints, and we may yet, although we have not thus far. But I think we're succeeding in getting the message out to people that you can't just stand by and watch these things happen and not act.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Gill.

We'll move back to Madame Lefebvre. You have seven minutes.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Commissioner Paulson, thank you very much for being here. We greatly appreciate it, especially when the topic is as important and as sensitive as the one we're studying today.

First of all, you spoke a little at the start of your remarks about 37 action items that you want to present to increase the number of women in the RCMP. The Minister of Public Safety sent you a letter last November, I believe, on that very topic, on increasing the number of women in the RCMP.

Do you think you currently have the resources you need to implement these 37 measures that you presented in your plan?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

Thank you for your question.

I think so. We don't need a lot of resources to do it. We need to change the mentality and change how things are managed.

In other words, I think that it's not necessarily dependent on resources, although some resources will have to be put to it. For example, I recently authorized the full implementation of our new leadership training regime in the organization. That requires resources, but they are resources that are available to me from within the organization. Our recruiting initiative, which will have to target specific groups, particularly women and employment equity groups, may require the injection of some additional people, but they can be found within our HR environment.

So there will undoubtedly be a resource cost to it, but I think it's more dependent on the manager's ability, first, to read the plan; second, to implement the plan; and third, to report on its implementation. So it's more about a changing of a mindset within the organization than it is about pouring more money at it.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you.

How do you think the RCMP can encourage gender equality within its organization and recruit more women? Do you have any examples or recommendations in that respect?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

Yes, we will undertake actions. For example, presentations will be made in schools and for women's groups.

We're targeting where the desired group is. For example, I'm not too concerned about going to an intake of 50% women within two years, although many people have been critical of that idea. It's very ambitious. Some people quote the labour market availability numbers as being in the area of 27% or lower. But I don't think it's just a question of issuing a press release saying that we're hiring more women; we have to get into our schools, get into our young ladies' groups, where ladies get together in our communities, such as Girl Guides and other areas, and target these people.

I can tell you that I just did a youth encounters group for the RCMP a couple of weeks ago. There were probably 200 youth in the audience. I'd say that 80% of them were women from across this country. I don't think as much as some people do that the recent headlines and the controversy have scared off women. In fact, I'm seeing increased interest of women in the organization.

But to answer your question specifically, we need to target groups and we need to overcome the impediments that we've been victim of in the past, such as being overly mindful of our contract obligations to try to recruit fairly from across the country. If in reality our target group of women comes from two or three provinces, and numbers are available there, that's where we go.

That's a bit of a foggy answer. I'm sorry about that.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

That is very interesting, actually.

You spoke about the mandatory training that you've put online. I have a few questions about that. How did you put that online training in place? How did you make it mandatory for RCMP employees? You said that the training is mandatory and that almost 94% of employees had already completed it. What does that online training consist of?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

It's a course on harassment, the acts, the regulations, how to manage people. The whole thing is on our computer network.

It's important to keep in mind that the RCMP is a large organization, and that it's everywhere. For example, there are two-person detachments in the north and in the west. So the only way to provide the training quickly was by computer.

The way that we oversee that is through our hierarchy of managers to make sure that people are.... You know, 94% sounds like a good number, but if it's obligatory training I'm sure that somebody might want to ask me why it's not 100%. We're trying to hit 100%.