Status of Women Committee on Nov. 22nd, 2012

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

As is always said, leadership is the key factor in any training or in any workplace, so if you have good leadership at the top, you can be pretty well guaranteed that everything will run as smoothly as you would like it to be anyway. That's a good method, a good way in which to go.

I don't think we could cover anything more important than respect and leadership, along with training. If you realize that, then I think you are pretty well on the right road, and I want to congratulate you for a job well done.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

You have finished? Thank you.

Ms. Sgro, you have the floor for seven minutes.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Welcome to all of you.

I have to say I'm so pleased to hear such positive comments, but you've been to war in the sense that you went through it in the nineties. Senator Dallaire has certainly talked about some of the problems that were clearly evident at that time, and the changes, and he holds you up as the example for many other departments and many other areas you have worked on. Congratulations on the work you've done.

Having to have a cultural change is part of the concern. How do you start to see that cultural change? You have thousands of people working for you. We can bring in all of the wonderful policies that are possible, and you can read Treasury Board directives and all the things in the federal public service that talk so well about things that are unacceptable and all that, but it doesn't matter what you put there if people don't even interpret their behaviour as being unacceptable. Their attitude is that it's just their behaviour, and that's just the way it is, I think.

How do you see that cultural change in your organization today versus how it was in the 1990s? What would stand out for people to see and for those who work for you?

[Karol Wenek]

I think the major index of any cultural change is behavioural change. It's often stated you have to change attitudes before you see the necessary behavioural change, but that isn't always the case. In fact, through the strong enforcement of the desired behavioural norms, you can change the behaviour first, and eventually the attitudes will move as well to be consistent with the behaviour that is deemed acceptable and desirable.

We use the indices of behavioural change as our primary measure of cultural change. We do that largely through personnel surveys. We survey people in the military, some would say almost to death, but it's the only way we can find out in an impartial and a relatively objective way how people view these particular changes, so surveys on harassment, surveys on the ethics program, and surveys on the efficacy of the policy and program provide very important measures to us about how we are doing.

In that vein, there was a survey sponsored by our chief of review services in 2005 in which members were surveyed about the policy on harassment and the program. There were some very encouraging results, to the effect, for example, that 90% of CF members indicated they had received some form of harassment awareness training. They saw the policy as clear and effective.

These were very strong indicators to us that we were doing the right thing. That really becomes the motivator for policy or program change. When you have large proportions of a population that are dissatisfied with a policy, program, or its application, that should be the signal that you have to do something about it. That is our primary measure of how we are doing and whether or not we're on the right track.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

How much would you attribute some of the change to the fact that you have a significant number of women in senior positions?

[Karol Wenek]

For the Canadian Forces, actually that's not the case. Our representation of women in the Canadian Forces is about 15% of the regular and reserve force. Above the rank of lieutenant-colonel, it's less than that. It's about 9%, 8%, and starts to get lower as you get into the rank of general. That's largely because of where women choose to work in the Canadian Forces.

I'll just back up a bit and try to paint the picture for you. If you look at how women are employed in Canada, generally, in industries—and we have this data from Statistics Canada—you see that the goods-producing sector is heavily dominated by men; this is natural resources, manufacturing, agriculture, and those kinds of industries.

In the service sector, a couple of industries are dominated by women; these tend to be health, education, and a couple of others. In a number of others, it's more or less balanced; in business, for example, it is relatively equal.

If you look at the military in comparison, our equivalent to the goods-producing sector is combat occupations. Women are infrequently represented in those occupations, in most cases 5% or less, whereas they are heavily represented in the service occupations.

The key to understanding what that means for promotion and access to senior rank is that the emphasis in the military is fielding combat-capable forces and preparing people for command. Therefore, if people in those occupations are predominantly men, you're going to see predominantly men in the senior ranks as a result, although an effort is made to ensure that women have access to those occupations and to senior rank as much as possible.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Ms. Rigg, go ahead.

[Jacqueline Rigg]

Yes, Madam Chair, we never have looked into the correlations—a very good observation—with the increase in women's leadership in the civilian workforce. I think that with that, coupled with the other things we have in place—annual ethics days and the culture and knowledge-sharing around these topics—we are very much richer in our organization now. I think if you couple them together, it could be a reason as to why culture will move along with the different policies we're developing.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

Thank you.

As the list of witnesses is exceptionally long today, I propose that we take a five-minute break.

I invite everyone to resume their seats. We are going to continue our meeting.

Ms. James, you have five minutes.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I welcome all our guests. I'm going to direct most of my questions towards Mr. Wenek, but if someone else wants to jump in, please feel free.

Within your opening remarks, Mr. Wenek, you mentioned that the Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence have a joint harassment resolution policy that applies to both military and civilian personnel. This is a pretty broad spectrum, a pretty large group, so does a one-size policy actually fit all?

[Karol Wenek]

In terms of human resource management generally, no, and that's why most policies are quite distinct. In fact, most human resource policies as applied to military members derive from the National Defence Act and the Queen's regulations subordinate to them, whereas on the civilian side they come from the Treasury Board and the Public Service Employment Act and Public Service Staff Relations Act.

In most areas of HR policy they don't, but there are areas where, particularly because we have mixed work teams, it makes sense to have some commonality of approach in dealing with people who are working together, and where you have civilians reporting to military and military reporting to civilians. This is one area where we felt there was sufficient overlap such that we could have a joint policy. There are some minor differences in terms of application of the policy, but by and large, it tends to work, and it ensures that you have the same kind of outcome for a process that applies equally to military and civilian people.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

If I understand correctly, the joint policy only covers the areas that are common to everyone?

[Karol Wenek]

In harassment, yes, that's right.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Okay.

In your statement, you talked about how the new version of the policy dated December 2002 shifted the emphasis to prevention or early resolution through alternative dispute resolution.

[Karol Wenek]

That's correct.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

You made a statement near the end of your opening remarks that “alternative dispute resolution statistics suggest a higher rate of harassment incidents”, but that if “most complaints are actually being resolved through the options of self-help, supervisor intervention, or mediation” rather than the other methods, you've indicated that you find that encouraging.

The numbers seem to imply that statistics have gone up. Is it encouraging because we're able to resolve them early and prevent them from escalating? Could you just explain to me why it's encouraging?

[Karol Wenek]

Sure, and I think there are two parts to my answer.

The first one is that one of the key changes in the philosophy underlying the most recent version of the policy was to shift from a crime-and-punishment approach to harassment to a restorative justice approach. This means that except in the most egregious cases, what you want to do is restore some element of harmony to the workplace and preserve the sense of teamwork and cohesion that are essential to an effectively functioning defence team.

To keep the resolution as low-level as possible is the desired method. Given what our statistics from the 1998 survey show, which is that most sexual harassment incidents were of a verbal nature involving teasing, inappropriate remarks, and that kind of thing, it makes sense to resolve them at a low level: correct the behaviour, tell people what they're doing wrong, tell them what they should be doing, make restitution, and then get back to work.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

I'm glad you actually mentioned verbal teasing, making comments, and so forth. As politicians, many of us have very thick skins. We have to, in order to get here in the first place. A comment made to me or one of my colleagues may not be offensive, may roll right off my back, maybe doesn't bother me or stop me in my stride.

However, in your definition of sexual harassment—I'm trying to go back to your page—you say it's “any improper conduct by an individual that is directed at and offensive to another person or persons in the workplace and that the individual knew or ought to have known would cause offence or harm.” How do you determine what is reasonable in that particular case? Again, something that may roll right off my back may be “Oh, my gosh” to another person or individual. How do you define what's reasonable to determine whether it should be offensive or not offensive?

[Karol Wenek]

That's the million-dollar question, I think.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Do you have a two-million-dollar answer?

[Karol Wenek]

I don't think you can do that a priori. We establish appropriate social norms of interaction as we go along. It is through the process of social interaction that we determine what's appropriate and what's inappropriate. The important thing, if you think it's inappropriate, is to say it is inappropriate. That was one of the other findings from our survey.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

Unfortunately, I have to stop you here, because Ms. James' speaking time has expired. Five minutes really fly by.

I am now going to yield the floor to Ms. Hassainia for five minutes.

[Sana Hassainia, NDP, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Wenek, thank you. Your last comment was very interesting.

I wish to thank all of our speakers. The changes in culture that you made over the last 20 years are much appreciated. Clearly, you decided to tackle this problem head on.

My first question is for Mr. Wenek.

Could you define the term “sexual harassment” as it is described in your policy? Does it automatically imply sexual aggression or rape?

[Karol Wenek]

Sexual harassment, Madam Chair, is not defined in our policy because it is included in the kinds of harassment covered by Canadian Human Rights Act. In that sense, our definition of harassment is actually broader than that in the Canadian Human Rights Act because in the Canadian Human Rights Act it refers specifically to the 11 prohibited grounds. We don't define sexual harassment because common sense would dictate that people know what sexual harassment is. It's an element of harassment that's of a sexual nature. That's fairly straightforward. We don't define it for that reason, and because we might then be obliged to define what harassment is based on national or ethnic origin or what harassment is based on sexual orientation. We give a fairly broad definition that includes all those elements that are contained in the Canadian Human Rights Act.

It does not include sexual assault. That is a separate area. That's covered under the sexual misconduct policy and is dealt with by the appropriate military justice and police authorities.