Status of Women Committee on March 5th, 2013

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Can you advise whether grievances that have come forward under the collective agreements have been included in—

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

You have one minute.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

—your data on harassment?

[Monique Marcotte]

Yes, they have.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

How many grievances have been filed in the last five years in relation to sexual harassment?

[Monique Marcotte]

I can't speak to the last five. We've only studied since January. We had three cases, as Hubert mentioned earlier. One of those was filed under a collective agreement, the Canadian Media Guild agreement that I referred to earlier. The other two were filed under the policy.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

You have 30 seconds left. If you do not want to use them, that's fine; I will give them to the rest of the committee.

Now we start our second round.

Your turn, Ms. James. You have five minutes.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and welcome to both our guests from the CBC.

I'm going to go back to the definition of sexual harassment. You've indicated that it has been defined by the Canada Labour Code. I ask this question in many of the committee meetings because it often has to do with interpretation or what one person feels is objectionable, an offence, or humiliation, etc. The paragraphs here state “(a) that is likely to cause offence or humiliation to any employee”; or (b) “that might, on reasonable grounds, be perceived by that employee...."

What's offensive or objectionable to one person may not necessarily be to another person. I know as politicians we are pretty thick-skinned. We have to be, otherwise we wouldn't be here. I'm wondering who, at the end of the day, makes that determination. It states here, "on reasonable grounds". Who within the CBC makes that judgment call? Again, is there any leeway in what may be offensive to one person but the vast majority of others would not think so?

[Monique Marcotte]

When we think of harassment, our perspective in human resources is the recipient of the message or the recipient of the action and how they are perceiving that action or that comment. That, for me, is the test. The other test is the test of the reasonable person, which we refer to in the language here. Ultimately, when an investigation is conducted, if there are witnesses, we will test whether they feel that the comment or behaviour.... All three cases we've spoken about today are all related to inappropriate comments. The breaches of behaviour are not more serious. They don't run the gamut of touching or more serious breaches of behaviour. In all three cases, we're talking about inappropriate comments.

When we do the investigation, if there are witnesses, we will test whether they felt that on reasonable grounds, those inappropriate comments crossed a line. Ultimately, the investigator, who we hope is an objective investigator, will make a recommendation or a finding as to whether a line was crossed. In all three cases, there was a determination that a line was crossed, and discipline was taken.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

You mentioned it was the person who received the comment. You've stated in the three complaints you've logged that one was a written reprimand, one was a written reprimand plus sensitivity training, and one was a two-day suspension plus sensitivity training as well.

Would one warrant one over the other, for example? You've said they were all comments. I want to try to understand the difference between those comments when one only received something on paper saying they'd crossed the line, one required training, and one was suspended. What was the difference between those comments?

[Monique Marcotte]

Let's start with the most serious case, which is the case where we had a suspension. In that particular case, there had been an earlier incident. How our documentation works is that we keep all files for a period of two years. If the file is clean for two years, then we expunge the documents from the file. That's our policy. That's in our collective agreements. In that case, there had been a situation when another incident occurred within that two-year window. This was a recurrence, so more serious measures were taken.

I don't have the final report of the investigation, but in the other two cases, I believe the comments were more serious in the situation where sensitivity training was imposed than in the other case.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you. I was reviewing the policies that you handed out, and I appreciate that you did give them to us. It limits our questions to things we don't find in them.

One of the things I did not find anything related to has to do with relations or fraternization within the CBC, within departments, between employees, and so forth. Is there anything I've missed in here? Did I miss it when I was reading it? Do you have any internal policy, whether it's written down or just a verbal policy, on that particular type of—

[Monique Marcotte]

We do not have a formal written policy on fraternization between employees. When we become aware of a situation, particularly if it involves a manager and an employee within the same unit, we have conversations with each of those employees and we ensure that the reporting lines are distinct. So, as an example, if we have a manager who has a relationship with a journalist, we would ensure that the reporting lines would be changed. If they have a reporting line, we would change the reporting line to ensure there's no—

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

Very quickly, sorry.

We have gone over the allotted time. I had it in my head that we were still doing seven-minute rounds. I am sorry.

But I will let you finish anyway.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you. I had more questions. I'll ask the last one.

With regard to Ms. O'Neill Gordon, she was asking about employees and how they're aware of the situation. You said there are online surveys and that you make them aware that you're interested in this issue.

But how do you make them aware? Is there a campaign? Is there advertising? What is it that you do, on a regular basis, so your employees know and can identify sexual harassment, and so they're aware of the procedures that they need to follow to report it?

[Monique Marcotte]

We don't have a formal anti-harassment campaign per se. Our focus in the last few years has really been on respect in the workplace, of which sexual harassment is a key piece. So in terms of any complaint, whether it's sexual harassment or harassment or bullying or ostracizing, or any of that gamut of behaviour, we ensure that all our employees are trained on respect in the workplace and all our employees have access to information online as to what the process to file a complaint is.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

Thank you.

Since it was my mistake, I will take responsibility for it. Since I gave Ms. James one minute more, I will give one minute more to the official opposition as well.

Isabelle Morin has the floor now.

You have six minutes.

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I am new to this committee too. For the next meetings, I will be replacing a colleague who is pregnant; so she has gone home for about the next month. I have made myself very familiar with the study that we are conducting here.

I find your case very interesting. You are doing a lot to make sure that there is no sexual harassment in your workplace. That said, in your opening statement, you insisted on the fact that there have been official complaints. To date, there seems to have been only one complaint. In the last two years, there seem to have been three complaints. Have you had any unofficial complaints?

You also mentioned that, from the complaints you have received, seven were dropped. Why were they dropped? Could you please comment on that?

[Monique Marcotte]

We treat sexual harassment very seriously. Even if an employee has decided not to register an official complaint, we in human resources still have the option to do an official investigation.

In all the cases that resulted in a complaint of sexual harassment, we did an official investigation. Therefore, in any of the cases where the discussions were informal, there was no sexual harassment. Those cases involve a lack of respect or perhaps the use of an inappropriate tone. Often, informal cases have to do with interpersonal conflicts. To the extent possible, we try to have the employees, the parties involved, take part in mediation sessions.

[Hubert T. Lacroix]

In the respect in the workplace seminars, we pay a lot of attention to words used in interactions between people, even if there is a deadline, even if there is a lot of pressure, even with a breaking news story. Often, if people are not very good with words, their way of speaking to other can result in informal conversations with human resources.

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Okay. Thank you for the clarification.

You say you provide good online training. Since I was previously a teacher, I am familiar with learning principles. Online training is not for everyone, in my opinion. We studied it at university. It works for a small part of the population, those who are able to learn on their own. You need concentration to fully understand online training. Are you looking at providing training in another form?

I was also wondering if there were self-evaluation forms as part of your training and, if so, what people say. Do a reasonable amount of people consider that the training is good?

Is online training just one aspect? Is there ongoing training? Is it provided just once, because you feel that that is enough, or is there a continuing process?

[Hubert T. Lacroix]

There are a lot of aspects to your question. I will let Monique get her answer organized.

But, in any case, we have to recognize the fact that we have about 8,590 employees and that we are working in 48 different cities. To provide access to training that makes sense, we are working more and more with online training. We have webinars, questions, surveys.

For us, it is a very practical tool; we are going to continue to make a lot of use of it so that the training is available immediately. As Monique told you a little earlier, we can see who has done the training and who has not. We can remind the people who have not and set reasonable deadlines. For us, this online training concept is really interesting.

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Before I move on, could you tell me what happens if someone does not do the training. You send a reminder, but…

[Monique Marcotte]

The managers follow up on it. Once an employee has done the training and completed it—he has to go through it to the end—it is recorded. Then he can do an evaluation of the training, which allows us to get ongoing feedback on the modules. About each quarter, managers check to see who has not done the training and then ask for a follow-up on those who have not.