Status of Women Committee on Oct. 16th, 2012

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to welcome the witnesses. I too feel bad that we were cut short, but I certainly enjoyed your presentation at the beginning. I know you have a lot to offer in telling us about the policy and process of harassment in the workplace. It is a very central and important conversation and topic in our study.

It was great to hear you note that our Canadian government has been a leader on policies dealing with harassment in the workplace. It is something that we as parliamentarians and all Canadians need to be educated on. We need to know that we are going in the right direction.

You also mentioned disciplinary measures. We had asked this question before: does the Treasury Board keep statistics of harassment complaints? I know it's an important issue. How do you go about keeping the statistics and such?

[Ross MacLeod]

It's actually very difficult to keep these statistics because of the state of our HR systems at the moment. We had kept detailed statistics in the past. However, due to paperwork burden reduction in the past, this statistics collection had been eliminated.

We did, in the context of the 2009-10 MAF, ask departments to report on how that was done. Also, as I mentioned, in the 2011 survey we did ask employees directly.

What was interesting about the survey results was that we got back unfiltered material from the employees. You know, 29% sounds very high to me, if you look at the data. It's an important indication that something's wrong, in any case. In the end, if you're looking for a respectful work environment, employees do have to understand that they should be free of harassment, so that indication, to us, is a worry.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

That is so true. In the workplace it is very important that you be free of that, because you're going to do better work. You're going to complete what you have to do and be more beneficial to the company or to the department.

You mentioned earlier that employees are involved in developing policies. Could you elaborate on that, please?

[Ross MacLeod]

Yes, I'd be happy to.

In developing the new policy and directive, we consulted with a committee of bargaining agents. The bargaining agents are unions or legal representatives of employees. We worked through them in a committee for several months to create a prevention of harassment policy that would be suitable. Again, it wasn't a negotiated policy; it was one we consulted on, but we did give a full and fair airing of their views and took account of them.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

Then the unions have input in that as well.

[Ross MacLeod]

Yes.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

We talked about disciplinary measures. Who determines the disciplinary measures when they are warranted?

[Ross MacLeod]

That would be departmental management, and the most senior departmental management, of course, are the deputy heads, so they would do it. I should mention also that discipline can take a number of forms, right up to and including dismissal.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

This has changed, depending on what route a complaint takes. It would depend on the complaint, I imagine, as to what change it takes.

[Ross MacLeod]

Yes. In the government we use a term called graduated discipline, which means that the disciplinary action has to be suitable to the actual nature of the issue itself. Again, it can go from a reprimand to a demotion to dismissal in the end, if the incident is serious enough.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

It depends on how serious it is.

That's all I have. Terry, you have a question.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

You said 29% of the federal employees who responded feel they've been harassed, in 11 categories of harassment. You list them on the other side. That includes race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, family status, disability, and conviction for which a pardon has been granted.

You had 314 complaints in all those categories, but you don't know if any of them were sexual harassment. Is that correct?

[Ross MacLeod]

That's correct.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

I think your track record is probably much better than you think it is, because you really don't know if there are any complaints for sexual harassment.

[Ross MacLeod]

It's what the data have given us so far. It depends on how you collect it, of course. I hesitate to comment on how we're doing, because in any case one issue is too many.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Of course. What I'm saying is this. There's not enough information here to know, and of the 77 founded complaints, you don't know how many were sexual harassment.

[Ross MacLeod]

No.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

I'd like to drill down to what these words in the values and ethics code actually mean and what happens on the front line. It says that an employee can bring the matter “in confidence and without fear of reprisal” to the attention of immediate supervising.

Let's say a female clerk is being harassed by her immediate supervisor. She wouldn't take it to him. She would take it to a senior officer or the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner. You're saying you take 12 months, on average, to resolve this. Do you make the effort to move that employee to another job in the meantime? That's an awfully long time to be working in a tough situation.

[Ross MacLeod]

It is a requirement of the policy that deputy heads maintain a healthy workplace, and frequently it is the case that you remove an individual from danger.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

That's part of the policy, then.

[Ross MacLeod]

That's what you should do.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Is that step one?

[Ross MacLeod]

I'll ask Martine to speak to the details. The idea is to protect the individual first and then sort out the details of the issue through a normal process. The important thing is to protect the individual who is being harassed immediately.

[Martine Glandon]

Maybe I should add that there are different processes as well. The process you're talking about is more on the disclosure of wrongdoing, so that's another process. The process for harassment is something else.

One of the first steps the manager or the delegated manager would do is to look at the needs of both parties to see if there is a need to remove one of the two.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Is that similar to beginning a mediation, or does the manager go to each employee separately?