Status of Women Committee on Dec. 6th, 2012

[Timothy Edwards]

Yes. We provide people with familiarization training on the culture of the country where they will be posted. We also hire Canadians from that country who have worked there. They have one day or so of training to become familiar with local practices, cultural, business and so on.

Generally, there is also the training on harassment, on values and ethics, about which I talked earlier. People do not necessarily do that training before they are sent abroad; they can do it at any point in their careers. Usually, they are required to take the course during the first or second year of working for the department.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you.

Ms. Gordon asked a question earlier about the cost of training, and you answered it brilliantly. In your view, what is the cost per person when harassment results in illness, absenteeism, burnout, even resignation? What could those costs be for an organization like yours, compared to the costs of training?

[Timothy Edwards]

I am hesitant to answer, because we do not have specific data. But we could certainly ask our members the question and forward the estimated costs to you at a later time.

Still, I would say that, when the person is posted abroad, there are multiple costs, compared to those for a person working in Ottawa. Obviously, you have to pay for living expenses abroad, as well as the foreign service directives, meaning the compensation paid to make up for the high costs abroad and risks taken when you are living abroad. We estimate the cost per officer abroad at about $400,000 per year. That includes their salary and all associated costs. So I would say that the costs for lost hours of work are much higher for someone abroad than for someone here in Ottawa.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

You said that you did not have the figures on situations where staff members were subject to harassment in the community, not in the workplace, where employees do not have protection and you do not provide them with the service. However, those cases still occur.

[Timothy Edwards]

Yes, but I have to say that it's very rare. I have of course consulted with our office, and they said that, quite frankly, they were not aware of any cases where the association was involved, over the past three or four years. That is a good sign.

At any rate, we could do a bit more research on the data for the past 10 to 20 years to get more detailed information.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

I would imagine that you would still offer support to women in those cases.

[Timothy Edwards]

Absolutely, there is no doubt about that.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Okay.

I still have so many questions, but I only have one minute left.

You talked about a culture that was encouraging women to keep quiet. Most women who filed complaints have become ill or quit; one way or another, they disappear from the structure. That means that they are withdrawing by themselves rather than putting up a fight.

[Timothy Edwards]

Yes.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

That is one third of the staff. Are they situations where men are in charge, or are we talking about both men and women?

[Timothy Edwards]

In our survey, the question was rather broad. We were not talking only about sexual harassment, but also abuse of power, such as constantly yelling at the employees or any other type of abusive behaviour. We could look into this further to determine exactly the type of behaviour and the percentage that goes with each category—harassment, abusive behaviour, and so on.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

Unfortunately, I have to stop you there, Mr. Edwards.

That concludes our discussion with our first panel of witnesses. I think we could have spent three hours together this morning and we would have still not had too much information. It has been very interesting. Thank you very much for agreeing to appear before our committee.

I think that some people have asked for information in writing. Our clerk is going to be in touch with you.

Thank you very much and enjoy the rest of your day.

[Timothy Edwards]

It was a pleasure.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

I am now going to suspend the proceedings for a few minutes so that the next panel of witnesses can take their places.

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

With your permission, we will resume the proceedings right away.

Good morning. Thank you for accepting our invitation once again. On Tuesday, our meeting was cut short. That should not happen today.

Today, we are going to focus on the questions, since you already made your presentation. We have until 10:30 a.m to ask questions.

Let us start the first round of questions.

Ms. James, you have seven minutes.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and welcome back to both of our guests today.

In the last visit, you talked about the different orientation training that you offer, and you indicated that approximately 4,200 people have attended that orientation training, and 57,000 have attended the “Essentials of Authority Delegation” training for managers.

The three courses that specifically deal with sexual harassment in the workplace are more geared toward that direction: Creating a Respectful Workplace, Investigating Harassment Complaints, and Managing Harassment Complaints.

I am wondering if you could indicate how many individuals so far have attended each of those three courses, which are really more geared toward this particular topic in our committee.

The first one was Creating a Respectful Workplace.

[Jean-François Fleury, Acting Vice-President, Learning Programs, Canada School of Public Service]

Sure. Just as a point of clarification, in the orientation program it was 42,000.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Yes, I'm sorry. I have 42,000; I just misread it.

Thank you. I even have my glasses on.

[Jean-François Fleury]

That's fine.

As I mentioned last time, and as the opening remarks outlined, the number of learners who go through the school has sort of a pyramid effect. The wider, the more foundational the learning part of it is, the more users we have at the school. The more precise we go, the smaller the target audiences are for those products.

For Creating a Respectful Workplace, since 2010, over 3,000 employees have taken that course.

For the more specific courses geared to the labour relations specialists and those who work in the field, that number goes down significantly because it is proportionate to the number of potential learners who can take the course. We are dealing with 142 for Investigating and 243 for Managing Harassment Complaints.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Is that since 2010?

[Jean-François Fleury]

Yes, 2010.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Are any of these courses mandatory? Are the ones that I am more interested in mandatory?

[Jean-François Fleury]

They are not mandatory.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

They're not mandatory.

So what percentage of people actually take these courses, or do you think should be taking these courses?

[Jean-François Fleury]

Creating a Respectful Workplace, in itself, is a very valuable product, but the concepts of Creating a Respectful Workplace are included in many other products that aren't listed here. We did not want to go through the whole school curriculum.

In terms of the more precise courses, we don't have here the statistics of the whole community, so it is hard to tell the exact proportion that we are hitting. I would argue that the numbers we have there, proportionate to the number of labour relations specialists in a department, reflect an important segment, but I don't have the exact percentage.