Status of Women Committee on Jan. 29th, 2013

[Bob Kingston]

First of all, I'd try to make it compliant with the law. The first thing is that the policy gives unilateral authority to a manager to determine how it will proceed, and the law doesn't. The law makes it absolutely clear. HRSDC has, in fact, issued directions to many employers when managers have taken that role upon themselves, but Treasury Board didn't have anybody at the table who understood the Canada Labour Code when they were drafting their policy. That's where that went off the rails.

In terms of following the procedures coming under the Canada Labour Code and the section on violence, the advantage would be that it's not complaint driven, so it's as soon as they're aware. That means even if the victim is too intimidated, somebody else can raise the issue and have it dealt with.

The investigation itself has required visible impartiality: the investigator is required to be seen as impartial by the parties.

As to the scope and depth of the investigation, they get to root cause. That's the only way you will ever get long-term prevention, by identifying what's going on in the system, what's going on at lower levels of management and supervision that allows these situations to evolve in the first place. Usually, if you just lop off the top where the problem is, it keeps happening. Anybody who has worked for a while in the public service can tell you about stories where managers two or three levels down, not necessarily through intent but just because of the managers' styles or the systems they have in place, allow these problems to flourish.

The investigation under the code gets to the cause of that, and is required to make recommendations about preventive measures. The investigations under other formats are not required to do that. They're required to make those preventive measure recommendations even when there's an informal resolution to the process.

Those are all positives. The other big difference is that when you go under policy, you have fences built around the investigation, not only in depth but in time. You're usually limited to a year back, and it's very difficult to build case history. Disciplinary letters disappear off a file after two years. One year is the cap that relates to the incidents you can investigate.

No such parameters exist under the Canada Labour Code. You go where the investigation takes you. In fact you're required to look at the history to figure out what's actually going on.

It's a whole new world, and I think there are all kinds of very positive possibilities. It has only been in place for a couple of years. There will be a learning curve, but the faster we get there, the better for all, I think.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

Thank you.

I will now give the floor to a government member.

Ms. O'Neill Gordon, you have seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Welcome to all our guests. It certainly is great to have you here.

We have been working diligently on our study, and we've spent many hours doing it. From all the presentations there is one thing we hear along the way, and that is seeing that workplaces strive for a place free of sexual harassment. We feel this is very important to all.

I'm wondering, are there specific changes you see that still need to be made to contribute to a harassment-free workplace for your members? Is there something missing that we need to have put in there so that we can always have this harassment-free workplace?

That question is for anybody.

[Mary Chamberlain]

I'll speak as a 35-year public service worker with DND.

We need our employer to respect legislation and the policies that they actually put in place. The harassment policy that we have in DND they call harassment prevention. They promote zero tolerance, but at the same time the policy, as brother Kingston spoke to earlier, gives the employer the latitude to determine whether or not an allegation of harassment meets the definition, and it's the definition in the eye of the receiver of the complaint, not in the eye of the person who filed it. Quite often complaints of harassment and sexual harassment are dismissed because the employer does not believe the complaints meet the definition of harassment or sexual harassment.

We're looking forward, actually, to the violence prevention policy coming forward.

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

Okay.

Someone spoke about how quite often people fail to report it because they're afraid for their jobs. I wondered if you had any numbers, or any specific incidents, that would show us this pattern over time. Do you have any examples of people who are really worried about losing their jobs, and what would the numbers be over time?

[Robyn Benson]

Ms. Hauck.

[Janet Hauck, National Vice-President, Union of Solicitor General Employees, Public Service Alliance of Canada]

We don't have numbers because we would never really know who was not willing to come forward because obviously they haven't come forward, but my colleague and I can probably give you too many examples whereby, because of the fear of coming forward and reporting wrongdoing, they have reached out to the union because they feel somehow that we're neutral, that we're safe.

I had a case right here in the national capital region within the RCMP, a sergeant, a young woman, a young mom who was raped. She went to the Ottawa police. She couldn't go through with the allegations and the charges and ended up not reporting it, which is sad, extremely sad. She was fearful. She was 24 at the time and asked what she was going to do, who was going to believe her against the word of a police officer. No one. No, I don't have numbers for you, but we have examples.

[Robin Kers]

Yes, if I may.

We have some specific examples and numbers in terms of a specific scenario. For example, the case of Donald Ray, and just for your benefit, it's a matter of public record. The case has been much publicized. The disciplinary report was publicized on the Internet and by the media. In that case, the adjudication board or the code of conduct investigation of Donald Ray substantiated a whole series of allegations relating to his abuse of authority and sexual harassment of a number of public servants.

I could go into as graphic a detail as my colleague from UCCO-SACC, but it may be pointless. In our follow-up to this we determined that the RCMP focused on the code of conduct and dealing with the recalcitrant member, but it doesn't have a process to deal with the corollary, which is the sexual harassment and the suffering of those individuals. The union and our local would follow up by talking to these people to find out exactly what the employer had done for them on this matter because it was kept very secret. The majority of them are afraid to even speak to the union about their issues because they fear job loss, career damage, retaliation, a whole host of things. I'm talking about a group of seven individuals who are public servants who were affected in that particular case.

In case two, as I think it's referred to in our brief, which I represented in British Columbia, the individual also suffered retaliation in a variety of forms while pursuing her case.

The problem is that aside from what you hear in the media and what you read about, word gets around within organizations. People will talk to their close friends. It's relatively secret, but the message gets out when you try to complain about harassment, and particularly when you try to complain about sexual harassment, you're in extreme jeopardy because in the system, the old boys' network, not just in the RCMP and DND and other quasi-military organizations but even in other federal government departments, the network and the understanding of dealing with sexual harassment is not there, so women are fearful about complaining.

[Bob Kingston]

An added aggravation to this is the way the recent downsizing is having an effect. In theory departments were supposed to identify work to be cut, not individuals. What's happened instead in many of the headquarters is that they have started identifying people and they'll sort out what work they're going to get rid of afterwards. This has put a huge chill on our members. I know of many headquarters in this town where people have been afraid to come forward with cases like this because of that, because it is well-known at the headquarters level that it's not the work that's being cut, it's the people who are being cut. They are scared to death to come forward. If that had been handled better and if departments had been forced to identify work, as the WFA, workforce adjustment, requirements indicate, instead of the individuals, it wouldn't have that chilling effect. It's very sad to see.

We're trying to figure out how to raise those issues on a more global and less personal level to try to protect some of these people. We have several complaints about the abuse of that process.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

Thank you, Mr. Kingston.

We will now go to Ms. Sgro. You have seven minutes.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Welcome back, everyone.

It's great to have all of these witnesses, but there's not enough time. I'm going to suggest, because I have a variety of questions for representatives of the Solicitor General's office, that we could have the Corrections Canada representatives come back at a subsequent meeting. I put that forward as a suggestion.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

Ms. Sgro, some committee members would like us to ask the witnesses to stay an extra 15 minutes since we are not expecting anyone else to appear afterwards.

So, if you all agree and are available—I see that the committee members welcome this suggestion unanimously—our witnesses can stay with us until 12:15 p.m. I think everyone agrees.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

I still think that the Corrections Canada issues that have been raised deserve more time than we're going to be able to give them with the extra 15 minutes. I put that forward for the consideration of our subcommittee at a further discussion.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

We will continue for 15 minutes and perhaps continue this discussion under committee business.

Is that okay with you, Ms. Sgro?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Yes.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

You can continue.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Kers and Ms. Hauck, thank you very much for being here. As you know, we initially started the study in response to some of the issues being raised by a variety of RCMP officers. Certainly, the issue of Donald Ray is one of those that I have mentioned in the House and which many of us have talked about.

I'm going to echo my frustration as well. No matter what policies we bring in, there are people who are going to feel intimidated no matter how great our unions can be. There's a culture that has to change and a mindset that has to change.

In particular cases such as the Donald Ray one, where the punishment means being transferred to another division, department or area, and he can just continue on, what do we need to do? What kinds of policies do we need to have in place? Should it not be an automatic dismissal if the person has clearly been found in contravention of the kind of code of conduct that is expected? Why, in Mr. Ray's case, was it not just a dismissal?

I would appreciate your comments, to the degree that you can comment. It has all been very public, as you've said.

[Robin Kers]

A lot of problems have been identified in dealing with the issue of sexual harassment in the federal workplace. Part of the problem is a lack of accurate statistical information. In a PSAC brief, for example, a suggestion was made that when we do our next public service employee survey, we clearly delineate a question concerning sexual harassment.

When Ms. Truppe raised a question earlier about informal, I mentioned that one of the problems is that essentially, the so-called solutions to these issues are being kept hidden. Too often in government departments, whether it be the RCMP or whatever, the resolution is buried in legalese and the complainant is essentially obliged to agree to a confidentiality agreement in order to obtain some form of redress to address the complaint. The consequence of this, of course, is that there's no statistical information for government departments at the end of the year so that they can say that they've had x number of sexual harassment files. The other problem is that this methodology for dealing with cases doesn't provide any assurance to co-workers who may have similar problems with respect to how their department or their government handles sexual harassment in the workplace. There's no way, for example, to advertise successes in dealing with sexual harassment.

In Donald Ray's case, for example.... I sit on the RCMP working group that's going to deal with a response to the changes as a consequence of Bill C-42. I pointed out to the RCMP regular member chair of that committee the other day two particular areas I thought we needed to deal with. One was that not just at the RCMP but throughout the federal government recognition needs to be given to applying the reasonable woman standard of assessing evidence when dealing with sexual harassment in gender discrimination files, rather than always looking at it through the optics of a man's eyes.

The other point I raised, in particular with the RCMP, is that you can't always focus on how we're going to change the way we deal with regular members in the RCMP. You have to have a corollary process that addresses the victims and the victimization. They've taken cognizance of both things.

At the end of the day, people like Donald Ray should be fired. If they were to be fired, and if that was a clear message that was pronounced in the media and within the department, I think it would embolden and provide courage and support to females who are being harassed to come forward with these issues. Until such time as the government and its various arms are prepared to take that step and deal with this issue in a concrete fashion, change will be very, very slow.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Is Bill C-42 going to really do much in its current form?

[Robin Kers]

In my view, no.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Can you give the committee a list of some recommendations you think need to be done, over and above Bill C-42, that our committee can make specifically to the RCMP and the kind of people working in the Solicitor General's office and so on?

[Robin Kers]

You have the RCMP and then the other departments we serve. Let's look at Treasury Board policy, for example. Yes, there's a new harassment policy, but in my view, it's a dramatically weakened policy.

I'll give you a classic example. The old policy granted a complainant the right to review a final report before it became final and to provide additional witnesses, where necessary, documentation, and clarification. The new Treasury Board policy has eliminated that. While Treasury Board says to all the departments that they have a minimal policy and they're free to expand it, it's a crucial element which, in my view, should be obligatory for all departments when they deal with harassment cases, sexual or otherwise.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

If you could supply the committee with some suggestions and ideas based on your role and your experience, we would very much appreciate that.

[Robin Kers]

I'd be pleased to do so.