Thank you.
As previously stated, I'm the director general of the women's program, and I'm accompanied today by Ms. Kelly Bradley, who is our chief of human resources. Both of us are the departmental coordinators for the prevention and resolution of harassment in the workplace. It's in this capacity that we're here today.
Status of Women Canada is a federal government agency which, like all other departments, adheres to the policies and directives established by the Treasury Board Secretariat. This includes the policy on harassment prevention and resolution, which provides strategic directions and sets out the expected results to foster a respectful workplace and address potential situations of harassment, including sexual harassment.
Before I get into specifics about sexual harassment, I'd like to provide a bit of context about our agency.
As you know, Madam Chair and members of the committee, Status of Women Canada is responsible for exercising leadership and working in partnership to advance equality and increase women's participation in the economic, social, and democratic life of Canada. We also provide expert advice on how to take gender equality into account in developing the best policies and programs for all Canadians. We promote commemorative dates relating to women and girls in Canada. We support action and innovation that will lead to equality in communities across Canada. Finally, we support Canada's efforts to meet international obligations.
We focus on three priority areas, as you may have heard before: increasing women's economic security and prosperity, ending violence against women and girls, and encouraging women in leadership and decision-making roles.
To deliver our mandate, we have some 90 employees across the agency, the majority of whom located here in Ottawa. Our demographic profile is diverse except with respect to gender: less than 15% of our employees are men.
While we are pleased to report that, in the last five years, there have been no claims of sexual harassment filed at Status of Women Canada, we nonetheless strive to put measures in place that will help protect employees from harassment and provide them with a safe, healthy, and violence-free work environment.
More specifically, we have put measures in place to ensure the prompt resolution of complaints and we have undertaken preventive activities to help foster a harassment-free workplace. These activities have aimed to reduce the potential for harassment and, or perceptions of harassment in the workplace.
Over the last two years, Status of Women Canada has delivered two mandatory training sessions to all staff to promote and foster a healthy workplace. First, we have offered a program called A Respectful Workplace. This program was recommended by Health Canada's employee assistance program. Then this year, we have also added another training session called Communicating Effectively in Challenging Situations.
In a demanding work environment that brings together diverse individuals, misunderstandings and interpersonal conflicts are inevitable. Through these training sessions, Status of Women Canada has promoted the awareness and practice of good communication and effective interpersonal skills. We have also reminded employees that ongoing effort to demonstrate respect is everyone's personal responsibility.
Our intent is to regularly provide training that will foster a harassment-free workplace. Nonetheless, there will be occasional instances of conduct incompatible with public sector values. In such cases, like our Treasury Board colleagues, we encourage early, informal approaches to manage conflicts promptly.
At Status of Women Canada, we have also developed a three-year values and ethics plan identifying activities to promote and raise awareness of public sector values, including the value of respect for people.
Early this year, an organizational code of conduct was launched—this is a code to guide and support employee behaviours in all their professional activities.
The overarching objective of these tools and activities is to ensure consideration of values and ethics in all aspects of our business, and help public servants make appropriate decisions when faced with ethical issues in the workplace.
Thank you. Please feel free to ask us any questions you may have.