Evidence of meeting #59 for Status of Women in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was rcmp.
A video is available from Parliament.
NDP
Sana Hassainia NDP Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC
Did that woman suffer any retaliation once she resumed her duties at the penitentiary following the incident and the inmate's transfer? Have you heard about anything her colleagues, inmates or even the management may have done to her?
Correctional Officer, Union of Canadian Correctional Officers
Not to my knowledge, as the support among colleagues is genuine. People really tend to support their colleagues in such cases.
NDP
Correctional Officer, Union of Canadian Correctional Officers
We have the Employee Assistance Program.
She did receive.... You can get EAP support, and CISM.
They can also talk to a psychologist at work. In addition, they can seek those services outside the prison.
As far as colleagues go, there's a lot of moral support, with people encouraging officers to charge inmates in situations like this and to pursue a paper trail so that maybe an inmate can, further down the line, get proper treatment if he is considered or diagnosed a sexual deviant.
So that support is there as far as officers go, but employers, not as much. They don't see it as the criminal act that it is. When inmates masturbate in front of officers, our employer considers it more a part of their job. It's expected to be tolerated. But it shouldn't be. It's like any other job. We don't tolerate it anywhere else; it shouldn't be tolerated in the prison environment.
NDP
Correctional Officer, Union of Canadian Correctional Officers
What do you mean?
NDP
Sana Hassainia NDP Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC
Is any recourse available in case of retaliation in such situations?
Correctional Officer, Union of Canadian Correctional Officers
What kind of recourse?
NDP
Sana Hassainia NDP Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC
Legal recourse or access to an office where the person could talk about what may happen to them once they return to work.
Correctional Officer, Union of Canadian Correctional Officers
Are you talking about recourse available to officers when dealing with inmates?
She did charge him—she institutionally charged the offender. There hasn't been any resolution in the case yet. She could charge him with what we call a street charge—go to the penitentiary OPP squad and charge him on the outside, but it is very difficult when you street charge someone to prove intent.
NDP
Correctional Officer, Union of Canadian Correctional Officers
It happened last year.
NDP
Sana Hassainia NDP Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC
Okay.
In other words, a year has gone by, and there are still no results.
Do you think that timeframe is normal?
Correctional Officer, Union of Canadian Correctional Officers
No.
There are a number of similar cases. Another case is awaiting trial. At the Kingston Penitentiary—where I work—an inmate would masturbate constantly. Several officers had submitted complaints and laid charges against the inmate, but an officer finally laid charges against him under the Criminal Code. Yet she has been awaiting the results for six months.
Sana Hassainia NDP Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC
How long do you think it should reasonably take for a similar sexual harassment case to be dealt with?
Correctional Officer, Union of Canadian Correctional Officers
It should be done as quickly as possible, so that the inmate can have more opportunities to benefit from rehabilitation programs, medication or treatments.
NDP
Sana Hassainia NDP Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC
I have a question either one of you can answer.
Do you think the budget cuts announced in 2012 will affect the progress made or the assistance provided to victims of sexual harassment in the case of correctional officers?
Correctional Officer, Union of Canadian Correctional Officers
I couldn't tell you. There's really so much more work to be done with regard to that. It's very much a work in progress. However, I sincerely believe that the budget cuts could have a fairly significant impact.
NDP
Sana Hassainia NDP Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC
Are there any changes you would like the management to make, so that members can have an environment free of sexual harassment?
Correctional Officer, Union of Canadian Correctional Officers
The Canada Labour Code is clear on that issue. Section 247.2 states that “every employee is entitled to employment free of sexual harassment.” That applies to everyone, including correctional officers. Unfortunately, people are often told, based on the same legislation, that those are normal conditions of employment. The issue stems from the difficulty of explaining what constitutes a normal condition of employment.
NDP
Sana Hassainia NDP Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC
Is that a normal condition for women? As you said, as women, you are more subject to jeers, comments and harassment.
Correctional Officer, Union of Canadian Correctional Officers
That's not it. Many people consider that, if we work with inmates in a correctional facility—which is, in a way, their home—death threats and similar things are a normal occurrence. The same goes for sexual harassment. When we come across inappropriate sexual behaviour, we are asked what we expected when we joined Correctional Service, where we are right in their home.
It's as if the fact that those people are already serving a sentence in a prison made everyone forget their other offences, which are also absent from our reports. I don't understand that, in 2013, those offences are not in our reports. Yet that would enable us to do the right thing and create a balanced and healthy environment for everyone.
NDP
The Chair NDP Marie-Claude Morin
I have to stop you there, Ms. Boudreau. Thank you.
I will now yield the floor to Ms. O'Neill Gordon.
You have seven minutes.
Conservative
Tilly O'Neill-Gordon Conservative Miramichi, NB
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you for coming back again.
I was happy to hear you say in one of your replies that things have improved since you have gone there, and that you're glad. It's very important that we all strive to have a work area that's free of sexual harassment, and free of harassment, period. We all know that's something we're striving for.
We're looking at the results that were sent in. The results we're looking at are on how inmates treated men in comparison to women in 2011. That would have been before the budget cuts were implemented. In 2011, while both women and men had experienced harassment once or twice at the same rate, men were far more likely than women to have experienced harassment more than twice. In the survey, it showed that, overall, 37% of men reported more than two incidents of harassment by inmates, while only 22% of women reported more than two incidents of harassment. Women were also more likely to say that they had never experienced harassment—41% of women—versus 35% of men who never did.
Do you think there is a reason for this discrepancy? Is there some reason the inmates act differently towards women? What do you see as the cause of this?