Status of Women Committee on Dec. 6th, 2012

[Vicky Smallman]

Each union has their own educational programs. At the moment, we don't have any specific workshops that we provide on sexual harassment prevention, but it's kind of incorporated into other types of educational programs. I can't speak for what happened 10 or 15 years ago, when we really started to ramp up the work, so I don't have a good answer for that one.

[Timothy Edwards]

Our office is relatively small. As a union of only 1,400 members, we have an office staff of seven. It's not very large: two men, five women. The head of our office is a male, and most have been working for years, if not decades, for the association.

So the short answer is no, there is no training in place on harassment topics. In the view of the executive of the association, there's no need for it. Coded into our terms and conditions of employment is a very strict “no tolerance for harassment” policy, so it's there already.

If I can speak to the departments where we work, they do have harassment and gender-sensitivity training available. It is mandatory. I took it years ago when I first joined the department, and I do have to say that I think, along with a more general culture change, it is having an impact. The fact that I'm here not trumpeting a whole slew of sexual harassment cases in which our members have been victimized by fellow Government of Canada employees is probably indicative of a positive trend.

To answer your question specifically, there is training in place within the workplace, within the departments where our members serve.

[Vicky Smallman]

If I could elaborate on that, it exists like that because ensuring a harassment-free workplace is the employer's responsibility, so we want to make sure that employers have that training in place, have those supports in place. That's our job as unions. When we train our members, it's to help them represent members effectively. That's the distinction, although we also have a lot of other programs around human rights training and anti-discrimination generally. But the specific role of preventing harassment in the workplace is the responsibility of the employer.

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

I understand that managers do take some of this training before they go into a position as a manager. Do you know how much one of those courses cost, and who would pay for that? Is there a cost for the training of a manager?

[Timothy Edwards]

Certainly, there is a cost. There's no such thing as a free lunch. But because it's provided internally by the departments, the only cost you ever see is if you cancel, in which case our training department will then dock you I think $350 for a half-day course and $700 for a full-day course. I don't think that reflects the actual cost of offering the training, so I'm sorry, I don't have an answer on that. The departments would, though.

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

Ms. Smallman.

[Vicky Smallman]

No, because we don't conduct training for managers.

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

The Canadian Industrial Relations Board appeared before us earlier in this study, and they mentioned they are the ones responsible for ensuring that unions fairly represent all the employees. This includes complaints from employees who are identified as harassers in sexual harassment grievances, and they got back to us with the statistics since 1999. There were 16 employees accused of sexual harassment who filed complaints with the board alleging that their union had failed to fairly represent them. They also indicated that this number does not include cases where the complaint against the union was successfully mediated by CIRB staff.

Can you tell us if you maintain statistics for your organization with relation to the number of respondents whose cases escalate to the CIRB?

[Vicky Smallman]

I don't think I have any statistics on duty of fair representation complaints. Perhaps the individual affiliates might. But if they're kept at the CIRB.... It happens very rarely, but in cases where you have a member-to-member conflict...that's why we have processes to hold unions accountable for their duty of fair representation.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

I will have to stop you there, Ms. Smallman. Thank you.

[Timothy Edwards]

I can get that information for you if you want, but I don't have the numbers now.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

That is a good idea.

The floor now goes to Ms. Sgro for seven minutes.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Ms. Smallman, I have to initially acknowledge the work of the Canadian Labour Congress, and the work that you do especially on behalf of women, in particular the missing aboriginal women. The leadership you've shown with the Native Women's Association of Canada is very much appreciated by many people.

You referenced a survey that was done in 1993. Could you elaborate? Was that a general survey of Canadians?

[Vicky Smallman]

Yes, it was a Statistics Canada survey, and my understanding is that it was a survey of individual women. I think they had aimed to contact a significant number of women. You'd have to look at the study to see how many they did contact. It asked them a range of questions around their experience of violence, and some of the questions did have to do with the violence and harassment they encountered in the workplace.

In trying to prepare for this, I looked at other violence against women reports from Statistics Canada. It doesn't really touch on the issue of workplace harassment unless it has escalated to criminal harassment, and then you get the questions from the surveys on victimization. This was more of a general question on whether they had experienced harassment or other forms of violence. It was a fairly comprehensive survey, and it had some really interesting results that would be interesting to replicate now, 20 years later.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

That would be, but I think Stats Canada is quite limited in its ability to do a lot of things.

[Vicky Smallman]

Indeed it is, yes.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Maybe we're going to have to rely on the Labour Congress to do that.

Mr. Edwards, because of your comments, it strikes me that there are huge opportunities for problems. When you've got one-third responding that they have witnessed...or whatever. I don't think we ever hear enough about the foreign service aspect of it and what goes on there. Do you have some examples that you might want to share with us of some of the individual cases you're aware of, or the kinds of complaints you have? It just strikes me in your comments that we might be able to improve on an awful lot of areas and better protect the foreign service members.

[Timothy Edwards]

Unfortunately, the short answer is no, we don't have a catalogue of anecdotal cases. We could mine the data in greater detail that we collected recently from our survey, especially the anecdotal comments on harassment, and get back to you.

I think that for better or for worse, and probably for worse, a lot of these incidents abroad go unreported. I think they're seen as an occupational hazard. When you sign up to be a foreign service officer, whether you're male or female, you go abroad and you know that you're going to encounter a number of different risks, whether they be risks to health and personal safety or of political violence. Harassment, sadly, is one of them, and there is a higher systemic chance of your encountering that if you are posted to certain countries rather than others.

So because it's underreported, or unreported, we don't have a compilation of statistics or specific examples. However, we would be pleased to solicit some feedback from our members on this subject should this committee wish to have access to perhaps a greater range of anecdotal cases.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

I think it would be very helpful for us, because my sense, from your comments, is that among your 1,400 members...and again, we're talking about females primarily, but the reality today is that we're dealing with.... There could be sexual harassment of a variety of different people in different ways. But I can't help but sense the vulnerability of people who do take on the job of foreign service workers and have that kind of a rotation.

You've indicated that you have to apply for various postings, and I would also imagine that the women, in particular, looking at some of those postings, even though they're very desirable of the experience, would be quite concerned with some of the issues you reiterated earlier. They're there and very vulnerable. They're not in a huge organization that has a lot of backup for them.

There must be ways that we can somehow strengthen the foreign service to be able to attract the right people into that particular job and give them the protection they need.

[Timothy Edwards]

Yes. I couldn't agree more.

For political reasons, some of our like-minded countries, the Nordics in particular, make a point of assigning female ambassadors to places like Saudi Arabia, for instance. We don't have a policy like that, but obviously should a female candidate be determined to be the most meritorious, then yes, they would be assigned as head of mission.

The fact that I don't have a long laundry list shows this is not a topic that our members have said needs to be a high priority for the association. This is perhaps indicative that at least when you're interacting with Government of Canada employees, while there are isolated cases, I'm sure, on the whole we're doing relatively well within our departments.

But I appreciate the sentiment on the environment abroad and the vulnerabilities, and we can certainly try to gather some more anecdotal information. I'd be pleased to.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

I think that would be helpful. The kinds of recommendations we might make as a committee, that would strengthen those areas, are important, so I appreciate that.

Ms. Smallman, in the recommendations we're looking for, to strengthen our policies for a healthy workplace as we move forward, the big issue is the retribution that happens to the so-called troublemaker who has the courage to lodge a complaint. Empowering those individuals is a real challenge. I don't believe that people make these complaints lightly against someone.

[Vicky Smallman]

No, they certainly don't. Think about what a woman has to go through to even consider talking to somebody. Many women don't; they will just put their head down and work and hope that it changes, they will try to avoid the situation, or they'll just leave.

When you see a department with a high turnover, you should probably think about that.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

I will unfortunately have to stop you there, because Ms. Sgro's time is up. Thank you.

We will now proceed to the second round of questions.

Ms. Ambler, you have five minutes.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you both for being here today.

Mr. Edwards, on the survey you referred to, you mentioned that there are 1,400 employees in the foreign service. One third of those surveyed indicated they had experienced some form of harassment and 45% had witnessed some form of harassment.

How many employees filled out the survey?

[Timothy Edwards]

As I said, it was 56% of our total membership, so somewhere in the neighbourhood of 750 individuals.