Status of Women Committee on Nov. 20th, 2012

[Catherine Ebbs]

No, not at all.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Could you give me a percentage? What would it be?

[Catherine Ebbs]

I don't know if we have the percentages here, but we could certainly provide them if we don't. We receive many harassment grievances filed by men.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

I see.

[Catherine Ebbs]

Most of those, I would think, would come under the subject of abuse of authority.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

So it would be fair to say that not all people who get sexually harassed or harassed at work are women—men also get harassed. Is that what your experience has been?

[Catherine Ebbs]

My answer was not related to sexual harassment. I don't know if I can answer that based on what I've seen. I don't think I would know that answer.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Thank you for that.

I also wanted to ask you, have you had incidents where it was the same harasser? For example, you can have one person be a harasser at the workforce who may spawn 30 different incidents because other people will complain against them, obviously. So it occurs to me that we are counting the incidents, which is a good thing to do, but are we also keeping track of maybe vexatious harassers? Have you had incidents where people have come back and you realized it was the same person—I don't want to say whether the person is male or female because you said there had been both—who has an ongoing chronic predisposition to harass?

[Catherine Ebbs]

Yes, we have definitely seen examples of that, that there was one harasser and a number of people involved.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Are there different mechanisms, or different consequences? Earlier on we heard from the RCMP about conduct issues that we can put these people through, or do they just kind of go through the same thing 30 times or whatever and then they may get a letter in their file or some such thing, as an outcome?

[Catherine Ebbs]

The example I'm thinking about that the ERC dealt with was on a discipline matter. The actions of this alleged harasser led to a disciplinary hearing because it was seen as disgraceful conduct.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

In your experience, how often has a disciplinary hearing resulted in somebody being let go?

[Catherine Ebbs]

The cases that we get are often orders to resign or to be dismissed, but in terms of global statistics, I think you would have to get those from the RCMP.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

In your experience with the cases that you do get, how many people are then let go or are ordered to resign? By the time they get to your appeal process, I'm assuming that's a fairly serious place to be, because you're the final appeal mechanism. Am I correct about that?

[Catherine Ebbs]

We are part of the final appeal mechanism because we make the recommendation. It's the commissioner who makes the final decision.

When you were talking about discipline matters, the appeal could have been presented not only by the member who was being disciplined, but also by the appropriate officer who started the whole investigation. So we get both.

In terms of numbers, I think that's something we could provide more detail on. We don't really have those numbers here.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Does it suffice to say that by the time it gets to your review committee it is very serious and it does result in some fairly serious action?

[Catherine Ebbs]

Yes, because right now the way the system works within the RCMP, if an officer believes there is misconduct, they have a choice right at the outset, depending on what the misconduct is, to go an informal route or a formal route. Once it starts on the formal route, that means it's more serious, and then it gets to a full hearing, and then there's the decision that's made, which can go up to dismissal and an order to resign. Once it goes the formal route, that is an indication that it's being treated very seriously.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Now given your extensive experience—because you did say that you've been on the review committee for many years, and you have obviously trained as a lawyer and all of that—would you say that we have a system that has a fairly high standard, given what you're telling us right now?

[Catherine Ebbs]

A system for...?

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

For dealing with harassment and addressing these issues.

[Catherine Ebbs]

The system right now is really governed, as was mentioned before, by the Treasury Board policy on harassment. The RCMP has their own policy that kind of builds on the Treasury Board policy. There are a lot of elements in there that are very positive.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Would you say Bill C-42 will help?

[Catherine Ebbs]

To the extent that Bill C-42 will assist the commissioner when he is revising these policies and making them even more timely, more fair, it will be of assistance.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Thank you very much for your time.

Do I have any more time?

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

Ten seconds.