Status of Women Committee on Jan. 29th, 2013

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

If you don't mind, we will begin.

First of all, I would like to wish you all a happy new year.

We are continuing our study on sexual harassment in the federal workplace. This is the 55^th meeting of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women.

We have a new member of Parliament on our committee. Joan Crockatt is replacing Mr. Aspin. Welcome to our committee.

Let us begin now. Joining us today are many people from the same group, the Public Service Alliance of Canada. We have Robyn Benson, Andrée Côté, Mary Chamberlain, Bob Kingston, Janet Hauck, Robin Kers, Anne-Marie Beauchemin and Francine Boudreau.

Welcome. Thank you very much for accepting our invitation. Your testimony will be very useful to us.

I apologize, but I have to correct the record. We have two witnesses, Ms. Beauchemin and Ms. Boudreau, who are from the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers. My mistake.

Without further ado, we will start.

Ms. Benson, you have 10 minutes.

[Robyn Benson, National President, Public Service Alliance of Canada]

Thank you.

Good morning, Madam Chair and committee members. I am proud to be here to represent the Public Service Alliance of Canada. I'm happy to appear with representatives of our components, which in our union have a key role in representing our members on the front lines in the workplace.

With me today, as you've introduced, are Mary Chamberlain, executive vice-president for the Union of National Defence Employees; Bob Kingston, president of the Agriculture Union; Jan Hauck, national vice-president for the Union of Solicitor General Employees, and Robin Kers, one of their national representatives; and of course, Andrée Côté, the women's program and human rights officer for the PSAC.

The PSAC is the largest federal public sector union, representing more than 180,000 workers from coast to coast to coast. The majority of the PSAC members work for the federal government and its agencies, and almost two in three of our members who work in the federal public service are women.

The PSAC has a long-standing commitment to ensuring our members are free from sexual harassment. Our own constitution recognizes that every member of the PSAC is entitled to be free from harassment by another member, both within the union and in the workplace. Our first sexual harassment policy dates back to 1984. In 1986 we negotiated the first sexual harassment clause in a PSAC collective agreement.

It is fair to say that the PSAC leadership on sexual harassment was ignited by the efforts and courage of one of our members, Bonnie Robichaud. At times Bonnie pushed her union and her employer to go in the right direction, and we should all thank her for that.

A PSAC member who has been sexually harassed will usually seek support from her local union shop steward or another component representative.

I should note that while the overwhelming majority of cases of sexual harassment that come to our attention are brought forward by women, we acknowledge that men are also sometimes sexually harassed.

The PSAC will support a sexual harassment complainant through the various options that are available to our members: a complaint under the Treasury Board harassment policy; a grievance under the collective agreement; a complaint to the Canadian Human Rights Commission; and a health and safety investigation.

All of these mechanisms play different roles. Taken together, they are essential in ensuring that sexual harassment, indeed all forms of harassment, in the workplace are properly investigated, and that appropriate sanctions are imposed on the perpetrators. Hopefully they will be effective in creating a safe working environment.

Given the sensitive, often private, nature of the issues at play, the majority of harassment complaints and grievances are treated through mediation. Mediation offers a less adversarial and a confidential process wherein the parties are able to craft a mutually acceptable resolution.

While ideally the grievance process results in resolution in the workplace at the earliest level, the process can become lengthy and conflict-laden. It can result in additional stress and hardship for victims who are engaged in a protracted litigation. In our brief we have provided a few examples of these difficult cases. My colleagues can also provide examples.

Education and training are also key to changing workplace culture and preventing sexual harassment. For example, in the context of the joint learning program with Treasury Board that PSAC has negotiated, the anti-harassment course is the most popular. Over 800 workshops have been delivered across departments since 2007.

Despite all this, sexual harassment and other forms of harassment remain pervasive in the workplace. The public service employee survey indicates that almost one woman out of three reports that she has been harassed at some time in the workplace. That proportion increases dramatically for women of colour and women from the other equity groups.

Clearly, Treasury Board is not living up to the expected standards of providing a workplace free of harassment and discrimination. This is why the first recommendation in our brief is to require Treasury Board to review the process and the outcomes of all settlements, internal investigations, arbitrations, and human rights complaints involving sexual harassment and to report back to the standing committee within one year.

Canada has a commitment to promoting women's equality and eliminating discrimination and harassment under the Canadian Human Rights Act, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as well as under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Beijing platform for action.

We call on Canada to reaffirm its commitment to eliminate sexual harassment and other forms of discrimination and violence against women. It can start by doing that at the upcoming session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, which will begin on March 4.

We also ask that you recommend that the federal government respond to the call by national women's organizations and trade unions for a national action plan against violence against women. Finally, as you can see in our brief, we have other important recommendations, and we would be happy to discuss these further during the time allotted for questions.

I'll stop here, but of course, I invite you to raise questions with my colleagues, Mary Chamberlain, Jan Hauck, and Robin Kers. They deal with sexual harassment complaints in the RCMP and in the Department of National Defence, and I'm sure you will be interested in hearing from them. For his part, Bob Kingston is co-chair of the public service-wide policy committee on health and safety and he is an expert on the Canada Labour Code regulations on violence prevention in the workplace. We hope these regulations will be instrumental in preventing sexual harassment in our workplaces.

Thank you for your attention.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

Thank you, Ms. Benson.

We will now proceed to the question period.

I am sorry, I was about to forget the second presentation. I apologize.

I will now give the floor to Ms. Beauchemin. You have 10 minutes.

[Anne-Marie Beauchemin, Correctional Officer, Union of Canadian Correctional Officers]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

If you don't mind, we are going to split the time.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

No problem.

[Anne-Marie Beauchemin]

I am Anne-Marie Beauchemin, the Ontario Regional Status of Women representative for UCCO-SACC-CSN. I have been a correctional officer for 12 years and I currently work at Kingston Penitentiary, a maximum security institution for men.

I will be discussing CSC policy and legislation, both of which make the job of a female correctional officer more challenging than that of our male colleagues.

In May 2012, the Minister of Public Safety, , Vic Toews, was made aware that federal inmates had access to pornography on television. He announced that he would be putting an end to this unacceptable practice. To date, this has not happened. The satellite and cable television to which inmates have access for only pennies a day still includes sexually explicit channels and movies.

Inmates are also still permitted to keep sexually suggestive and explicit magazines and personal photographs that continue to subject female officers to unwanted attention, unwelcome comments, and intentional displays of sexual gratification. How is it that inmates are not allowed to have material in their possession that has gang or alcohol-related logos because these are considered to be anti-social, but pornography is acceptable?

Female officers do report incidents of inmates deliberately masturbating and exposing themselves. In one of these cases, a female officer was conducting a routine hourly range walk on a midnight shift at a medium security institution. She observed an inmate masturbating in his cell. During each subsequent walk, the inmate appeared to position himself in such a way to make sure that she saw him masturbating. Later that night he handed her a note, offering to put on a show for her and asked her not to tell anyone. The next time she passed his cell, he asked her for an answer and whether or not this would get him in trouble.

The officer reported the incident to the correctional manager on duty, yet despite the situation she was not redeployed to another post. She submitted an observation report at the end of her shift but the incident was not reported to the incoming correctional manager on the day shift. When asked to have the inmate moved to segregation, management refused due to a lack of bed space in the unit. Eventually the inmate was relocated to segregation and institutionally charged by the officer. When the police were approached with a request to press outside charges on the inmate, they informed her that there really wasn't anything to charge him with.

Subsequently, the officer booked the next shift off and ultimately used up to 200 hours of sick leave. After a lengthy battle with senior management at regional headquarters, the inmate was transferred to Kingston Penitentiary where he was reassessed and found to be a sexual deviant.

The officer has since returned to work but has not yet returned to full duties as a result of this traumatic experience.

CSC policy states that inmates must be respectful to officers. The CCRA, the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, also addresses this matter. Unfortunately, intentionally masturbating in front of an officer is not clearly defined and this needs to change. Officers must be given a viable avenue in which corrective measures can be consistently applied.

Although officers have the ability to charge an inmate in these circumstances through the internal inmate discipline system, the officer must be able to prove that the act was committed by the inmate with intent to insult, offend, disrespect, and harass the officer. In our region, a review of charges filed in 2011 within a nine-month period demonstrated that nine charges were submitted for inmates masturbating in front of an officer. These charges were all classified as minor, and in one case, although the inmate did admit his guilt, there did not seem to be any final resolution.

Criminal charges could be an avenue for officers as well, but again, there remains the difficulty of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and further that the offence is punishable by summary conviction.

What is being permitted in our federal jails and its impact on female officers is contrary to CSC's own mission statement, which purports to rehabilitate offenders into law-abiding citizens. The ongoing exposure to pornography and to these kinds of inmate behaviour, which seem to be without any consequence, causes female correctional officers, sworn-in peace officers, risks to their emotional well-being and ultimately results in a loss of dignity.

Female correctional officers face different challenges than their male counterparts do. Many of these can be addressed by amending the Criminal Code, the CCRA, and other policies providing clear direction within the Correctional Service of Canada. We are not the problem.

Thank you for your interest in addressing this problem. Francine and I look forward to your questions.

[Francine Boudreau, Correctional Officer, Union of Canadian Correctional Officers]

Good morning.

First of all, I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak before you. My name is Francine Boudreau. I am currently working at the Cowansville federal penitentiary, which is a medium-security institution. I have been a correctional officer with the Correctional Service of Canada for 26 years. For all those years, I have had to work at five men's institutions with various security levels—maximum, medium and minimum security. I am also a coordinator for the status of women as part of the Province of Quebec delegation for the UCCO-SACC-CSN union.

The prison setting used to be exclusively for men. But, over the past few years, women have been able to take their places in prisons by filling various positions. It was not easy for the first women who were hired to take up the challenge of legitimizing the place of female officers in penitentiaries. It was not easy for them to move up the ladder and to achieve employment equity and recognition for women's contribution to correctional settings. They were able to get people to recognize that the correctional setting was no longer a place where physical strength was the only consideration in hiring.

Although we commend all the steps taken by government authorities to achieve this significant representation of women as full members in the criminal justice system and although we are seeing a definite improvement in the status of women, a particular problem can still be observed. It is not very common—we may even say it is very rare—in other fields of work. I am talking about sexual harassment by clients, in this case by inmates.

Over the past decades, women had to demonstrate that they had the necessary physical and psychological abilities to work in this harsh environment, largely designed for men. By demonstrating that they had the skills, the capacity and the strength to deal with inmates, women were able to make a place for themselves in this environment.

But the fact remains that they may be subject to sexual harassment by the inmates, which male colleagues do not have to face. So it is wrong to assume that women are on an equal footing with their male colleagues in their careers. And that is precisely because they are women.

If a woman is a victim of sexual harassment by an inmate, she may experience various emotions. She may be very worried and stressed, particularly because she may feel that she has to justify herself and prove that she did not bring this about through her femininity. This reaction comes from the fact that the woman will probably have to live with value judgments, second-guessing her own actions and words, as well as lack of trust on the part of her work colleagues and superiors. So she may end up with a number of questions on her mind. How will her colleagues and superiors react? What did she do to bring this about?

If she isolates herself as a result of this type of harassment and the ensuing questions, her career may be undermined and she will be doubly penalized. All too often, women second-guess themselves and feel guilty, although they have no control over other people's reactions. Being a woman should not be a difficulty in itself. Yet others often blame them or question their actions. When women are hired, they must not be expected to become more masculine. Women have a right to advance in their jobs without inmates harassing them. They should never feel powerless in those types of situations.

The employer has zero tolerance for harassment when it happens between colleagues. However, when the inmates are responsible for sexual harassment, the resources are more limited. In fact, this type of situation is little known because the person going through it does not report it right away. For all the reasons I listed earlier, the victim will not easily confide in her work colleagues or superiors, which only complicates the problem and does not provide any solutions.

In addition, since these situations are not often known, it is more difficult to raise awareness in the workplace and, as a result, to demystify the issue. Moreover, from a disciplinary perspective, it is much easier to prove offences when offenders' language and behaviour are abusive. Sexual harassment is open to interpretation and the grey areas leave less room for recourse. Yet the situation is very real, and it is important for everyone to know that, in 2013, women who take their places in correctional settings still have to continue to fight on a number of fronts to achieve respect for their rights and to be respected as individuals in order to really have equal status with men.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

Your presentation was exactly 10 minutes. You timed it well.

Thank you very much. It was very interesting. I must admit that this is the first time I have heard correctional officers testify. Your testimony was very interesting.

We will now proceed to the question period. I will warn you when you have one minute left so that I don't have to stop you in the middle of the sentence. As long as you know that you have one minute left, you can still continue with your remarks.

We will start with a government member, Ms. Truppe.

You have seven minutes.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to welcome our guests. I think this is the largest group we've had since we've been doing this study. Welcome and thank you for your testimony.

I have some questions for PSAC, so, Ms. Benson, they might be for you, or if you want to refer them to anyone else, feel free to.

I have a couple of questions in regard to your report. It states that most of the complaints are resolved informally and that confidential agreements are drafted between the parties. Can you give me some examples? I noticed that a lot in this report. It seems as though a lot of different things are being resolved informally. How would they resolve them informally? Can you give me a couple of examples of the consequences if they're resolved informally?

[Robin Kers, National Representative, Union of Solicitor General Employees, Public Service Alliance of Canada]

I can respond to that.

Informally is a bit of a misnomer, because it can be informal without the utilization of various redress mechanisms, or it can be informal at the end of a process of using redress mechanisms. For example, in one of the cases I was involved with, at the end of a protracted process of trying to resolve it, with grievances having been filed and with investigations and so on and so forth, a settlement offer was proposed and subsequently agreed to.

It's informal in the sense that normally some of the agreements are considered confidential, so they're not precedent setting, they're not publicized, and they provide no information to the larger body of workers about a sexual harassment file having been dealt with in x way. In that sense it's informal.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Would the results be monetary? Are they settling with money? It says, "54% of the respondents said they were satisfied with the way informal complaints were resolved." What about the other 46%? What happens to them? Fifty-four per cent are satisfied with what: with the recourse that was given to the harasser, or was there a financial settlement? What do the other 46% who aren't satisfied do? What would the next step be for them?

[Robyn Benson]

Certainly when you look at the actual brief, what we are quoting is that the public service employees survey indicates that 54% of the respondents said they were satisfied with the way informal complaints were resolved. That's the survey in and of itself.

We have a process, the alternative dispute resolution, as an example, and they'll go into a form of mediation. No grievances are filed. There may not be an actual complaint filed, but they've gone to the ADR officer. There's been a resolution in that manner.

When Mr. Kers speaks to some of the resolutions, there is some compensation with respect to monetary awards, but there is also some resolution with respect to individuals being moved to other workplaces. Certainly we haven't seen enough individuals being moved to other workplaces so that the employer can provide a safe environment for its employees.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Case number one was about the habitual harasser. It seemed as though everybody knew this person was a harasser, so much so that nothing really ever got done. When new women were hired, they would fill them in on this harasser.

I'm just wondering, because I don't understand how it works. I have not been in that situation. I assume you represent both. I'm assuming in that case—it doesn't say that it's a boss—they are both on the same level, in which case the union would represent both, I think. In this case, the management did not fire the harasser, and the woman was forced to still be in the same area as the harasser, so new women who came on board had to be apprised of this before they got there.

Can anything be done? The union is obviously representing both, so that must be difficult. How do you do that? How do you represent both? You are representing this guy who is still harassing women, but you are also representing the women who are charging him with harassment. How does that work? It must be complicated.

[Robyn Benson]

PSAC will give information to the individual who is accused of harassment. We'll tell that individual what their rights are, but in the true sense of representation, we won't go into the investigative meetings with them. We will, however, go into meetings with the individual who has made the claim of being harassed.

At the end if the individual is found guilty of harassment, then we will certainly look at the discipline, if you will, in terms of its quantum and whether it is appropriate and whether the employer did a proper and thorough investigation. At that point there might be some representation. We will let the individual who is accused of harassment know what their rights are, but this is an employer investigation, so we just ensure that everyone is represented fairly. We will go in with the individual who has laid the charges.

I don't know if Mr. Kingston wishes to speak to case one, because it is from Agriculture, but maybe he could.

[Bob Kingston, National President, Agriculture Union, Co-Chair, Public Service Wide Policy Committee on Health and Safety, Public Service Alliance of Canada]

In addition to that, what we do now in a case like this is we go back and address it under the Canada Labour Code. There are no timeframes around that.

This happened within the time that the legal requirements to address it under health and safety were in place. As we find cases like this, we're going back and we're redoing them. So far, we are very successful. What that provides is a requirement on the employer to keep people safe—everybody. It's not complaint driven, it's awareness driven. As soon as the employer is aware of the situation, they must follow certain requirements. It's much more easy to enforce. They have to have preventative measure recommendations that can be implemented, and that health and safety committees can monitor for effectiveness, that provide ongoing prevention. They also get down to what's called root cause where you find out what was wrong at the management or supervisory level that allowed this situation to unfold and persist. As long as the situation still exists, which in this case it does, then it's open to be addressed. We will go after this.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Okay, thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

Thank you.

We will now go to a representative from the official opposition.

Ms. Ashton, you have seven minutes.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Thank you very much to all of our guests today, and for your very important testimony for the study we are doing. Obviously, it's a very key issue for so many people working in the public service and the federal workplace.

I came across some shocking statistics in the brief that you provided. Thirty-one per cent of all women report having experienced harassment according to the 2011 public service employee survey. Fifty-four per cent were satisfied with the way informal complaints had been resolved. It's obviously an indication that a significant number weren't satisfied. Forty-four per cent of respondents felt that they could not initiate a formal recourse process without fear of reprisal. There are some pretty big numbers, which speak to the real challenges and the duty we have as a committee to come forward with some serious recommendations here.

My first question, Ms. Benson, is, having heard these statistics, could you tell us in your opinion why sexual harassment complaints aren't filed more often? Do you believe this is a cultural or a systemic issue?

[Robyn Benson]

Ms. Chamberlain.

[Mary Chamberlain, Executive Vice-President, Union of National Defence Employees, Public Service Alliance of Canada]

Thank you for the question.

When you are identifying statistics out of the public service employee survey, you have to also take into consideration where the statistics came from in regard to the geography of the country.

Coming from a DND perspective, our numbers were considerably high in relation to the overall public service survey. But when we actually looked at the satisfaction levels—if you want to call it that—the satisfaction levels came from the NCR. Out in what I call the real world, out on our bases across the country, harassment and sexual harassment are not treated the same way as they are in Ottawa. The same level of satisfaction is not there.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Do you have some of those numbers on hand? Could you provide them to the committee?

[Mary Chamberlain]

I could give them to the committee following this meeting, yes.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Okay, thank you very much.

All of the public service has been subjected to some severe job cuts. In fact, in some departments they have been more severe than in others. Perhaps Ms. Benson or somebody else could answer this questions. During this period in which the public service is facing such job cuts, there is tension in the air, of course, but do you believe that might prevent an employee from coming forward with an allegation of experiencing sexual harassment?

[Robyn Benson]

I certainly do agree that is going to prevent them. It's difficult for our members in terms of filing complaints whichever avenue or redress mechanism they use with respect to sexual harassment, let alone in the climate they find themselves now. We have young women, our members, who are expecting their first child and because of the cuts are afraid to tell the employer, their immediate manager, that they are three months pregnant. They feel they would be cut because they're expendable. They are going to go on maternity leave, so when they do the retention process, they feel they wouldn't fare as well.

It's not just sexual harassment right now that makes it an unsure climate for our membership. It's every member ducking their head, thinking, “not me, not me”, because of the cuts that are taking place. They are all very much affected.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

That's a very powerful example of the deterrents that are out there.

Mr. Kingston, as you know, the Treasury Board has come up with a new policy on sexual harassment. Given your involvement and in-depth knowledge of policy, would you say it's more effective? How would you change the Treasury Board policy on sexual harassment to make it more accountable?