Status of Women Committee on Feb. 14th, 2013

[Robin Kers]

Well, I know that training is not being done on a sound basis.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

Ms. Bateman, I have to stop you there. You have gone over your time.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

Ms. Ashton, you have seven minutes.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Kers, and thank you for joining us again. I want to note that what you brought forward in the last go-around as well, in your capacity, is very useful and very much appreciated by the committee.

In your previous testimony you mentioned that you believe the new Treasury Board policy on sexual harassment isn't strong enough. Could you go into more detail as to how that policy can be strengthened?

[Robin Kers]

There is no Treasury Board policy specific to sexual harassment; it's a generalized policy on dealing with harassment.

The concern we have, and I believe I mentioned it at the last sitting, is that the trend appears to be for Treasury Board to shrink its core policy and rely upon departments to develop their own policies. The concern we have, which was also mentioned by PSAC in their brief, is that, for example, this particular iteration of Treasury Board harassment policy has removed certain things—for example, the responsibilities of various parties.

Within its dealing with responsibilities of various parties, the old policy made it very clear to complainants that they had an entitlement to review a draft report into their harassment complaint before it was finalized. It's been our experience with a number of departments, but more particularly with the RCMP, that this has been a failure, with the consequence that the report is incomplete, that the findings are as a consequence inaccurate, and that as a consequence there is no successful resolution of the complaints at hand. This subsequently leads to other processes available to public servants under various pieces of legislation.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

I think it's very important to hear that kind of feedback, especially with the new policy. As you point out, it's not specific to sexual harassment, but if we're going to say that it actually responds to it and is a framework to prevent it, then it should be done properly. So that kind of feedback is very important.

There's no question that a lot of our discussion here around sexual harassment is serious for the women who go through these experiences, and also for others in the workplace—and really, as well, I would note, for their families.

I want to take a moment to recognize that today around the world people are recognizing the One Billion Rising movement against violence against women. Today in the House we're also focusing a great deal on what is perhaps the biggest level of abuse when it comes to gender: the gross level that is exercised against aboriginal women.

I would like to read a motion into the record for this committee to deal with when the time is fit. It is that:

Whereas the numbers of missing and murdered Aboriginal women and girls in Canada continue to rise;

Whereas there are serious allegations of ongoing failures to protect Aboriginal women and girls from violence and violent behaviours including reference to incidents by police officers against Aboriginal women in Northern British Columbia;

Whereas it is the mandate of the committee to guide Status of Women—

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

Pardon me, Ms. Ashton. The interpreter is telling us that he doesn't have the motion and is having trouble following.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

I will speak more slowly.

Whereas it is the mandate of the committee to guide Status of Women Canada, which has the ability to direct other government agencies and departments;

Be it resolved that, given the legal mandate of Status of Women Canada “to support action...that will lead to equality across Canada”, the Committee call on the Government of Canada to launch a national public inquiry into missing and murdered Aboriginal women and girls in Canada, including an examination of police misconduct against Aboriginal women.

Thank you very much. I'd ask how much time I have left.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

You have a minute and a half left.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Monsieur Kers, there is no question that in your capacity you interact with people on the ground who face a different reality from women, say, in the public service in the national capital region—women who have different avenues and sometimes don't feel they have avenues at all.

Can you speak to the trends and challenges that you hear from women on the ground who work for the RCMP as civilians, or for other departments, when it comes to coming forward about their experiences of sexual harassment?

[Robin Kers]

That's a pretty big question.

I would say that the first challenge for women would be a lack of confidence in current policies and procedures and the resources necessary for people to successfully raise their concerns. That would be the first challenge.

I guess the second challenge is that, like it or not, this is a male-dominated society and male perspectives have prevalence in Canada, and it's difficult for many women to properly pursue their complaints when a good part of the management cadre is male—and in the case of the RCMP, a lot of the investigators are male, and it is a male-dominated hierarchy.

That would be it. Those are the two primary challenges, I would say.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

You've given us a lot to think about. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

Are you finished?

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Yes.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

Thank you.

We now go to the government party.

Ms. Truppe, you have seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

And thank you, Mr. Kers, for coming back again.

You were just mentioning some of the challenges: the lack of confidence maybe in policy procedures; that they maybe feel they can't get their concerns heard.

There were some results that were posted from the 2011 public service employees survey for the RCMP, and I notice that within the gender breakdown, the tendency was for women to respond more positively to questions—for example, about the effectiveness of their management, 57% versus 51% of men; feeling treated with respect, 81% for women, 76% for men. Women feel more supported in flexible work situations at 77% versus 72% for men, and they say they get the training required more often than men, 69% versus 64%. They also feel the department does a better job in helping them develop their careers—59% for women, 52% for men.

Women in the RCMP are far more likely to identify faith in their employer, management. They are even more likely to indicate that the union-management consultation process works and that supervisors respect their collective agreement. The list goes on. It sort of looks like a trend. Women in the RCMP seem to have more faith in the process than the men do, for whatever reason. They seem to like their job better for the most part, and they feel strongly that the employer is helping to support employee career development.

Most of the sexual harassment issues that you had mentioned previously involved women as the complainant, with the exception of one, I think, which was between two men.

If women have more faith in the system, management, and union support, do you think they would also more likely take advantage of opportunities to resolve the sexual harassment complaints in the workplace, or maybe they would have more confidence? You feel they didn't have confidence. Would this help them with maybe more confidence in procedures?

[Robin Kers]

A number of the statistics that you've outlined, while valuable and important in their own right, don't really deal specifically with the issue of how women feel about their managers and how their departments deal with harassment. I am not saying that every woman who works for the RCMP is unhappy, but our concern, our focus here, is dealing with those women who work for the RCMP who experience harassment and sexual harassment.

So, yes, there are women who work for the RCMP and have wonderful careers and they don't experience this, but there are too many who don't, and there are the women who have excellent working relationships with their supervisors and their careers are fostered and supported, but there are a lot of women who don't.

If you want to use the responses to those questions and statistics in this context, I think we would have to go back to a more refined questioning, such as that suggested by PSAC in its brief on the issue of sexual harassment. Then we might have a better comparator to use.

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

I understand that there are certainly some people, obviously, who don't feel they are getting enough help and don't feel that the policy or procedure is working for them, but I just found it strange or odd that there seemed to be more happy women there than men, which totally surprised me.

What is your role when an allegation is raised relating to sexual harassment? At what point does the union become involved? If someone calls up right now and there's a sexual harassment complaint, what do you advise them to do?

[Robin Kers]

Well, it depends. Let's assume we're going to be talking about the RCMP and not other departments.

Any employee who has a concern about harassment has a number of different avenues available to them, and it's going to depend on what stage of the game and how serious.

For example, if it's euphemistically called a minor issue of harassment, the issue can be raised one on one with the individual concerned, it can be raised with a supervisor, informal conflict resolution can be sought, and so on and so forth. And the unions generally support informal conflict resolution if there's a well-developed policy and process within X department.

Should there be more serious or more numerous allegations of harassment where initial attempts to try to resolve them have failed, at that point in time an employee is faced with having to use one of a variety of means of redress.

In many environments they will come to the union right away and say, “We need your help. What's the best approach here?” In some other environments those environments are such where there's a fear of even coming to the union to discuss their concerns. I made a reference to that in the case of Donald Ray at my last sitting.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, someone comes to us with some allegations. We would obviously obtain more information to determine what's an appropriate course of action. Depending on the seriousness of the allegations and the department we're dealing with, in this case the RCMP, my personal inclination would be to say to a public servant, use the grievance process to resolve your harassment concerns rather than the internal complaint process, because at the present time we don't have confidence in the current process. And the grievance process gives people certain rights under other legislation that the internal complaint process doesn't.

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

Okay. Thank you.

I was going to ask you about the grievance process. But just very quickly, when you mentioned...let's take, for example, a minor issue like a minor harassment issue, in your terms, what would be a minor harassment issue?

[Robin Kers]

All harassment is serious, but I guess when it comes to classification of minor versus serious, it leads more to what are appropriate measures to be taken, how extensive an investigation needs to be conducted, and what the severity is, potentially, of disciplinary measures down the road.

For example, if somebody came to me and said my colleague made a joke that could be interpreted as a racist joke, I would recommend in a situation like this that there be a one-on-one dialogue, potentially, with the assistance of an informal conflict resolution professional to try to resolve that issue at that stage.

However, if there was an incident where one employee made severely racist remarks on more than one occasion to another, then clearly a one-on-one dialogue, an informal conflict resolution, is not going to resolve the situation. That would require an elevated, more detailed process.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

Thank you.

I will now yield the floor to Ms. Sgro, for seven minutes.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Mr. Kers, thank you very much for coming back to help us through this.

As we know from many of the claims and much of what has been public news in the newspaper, sexual harassment or harassment seems to be alive and well in the RCMP, and that's very regrettable because those kinds of things end up smearing everyone, and needless to say this is isolated to certain specific individuals. We must always keep that perspective in mind.

Examples like Donald Ray, though, just continue to feed into that dislike and disapproval of what is going on. If Donald Ray had been fired, I would tend to think that would have sent a very different message to people in the service.

Do you have any other examples over and above Mr. Ray of the kind of frustration that continues in the service?