Status of Women Committee on March 5th, 2013

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

Good morning. Welcome to the 62^nd meeting of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we are continuing our study on sexual harassment in the federal workplace.

In the first part of the meeting, we are going to hear from two people representing the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. They are Hubert T. Lacroix, the President and Chief Executive Officer, and Monique Marcotte, the interim Executive Director of Human Resources. I am not going to read out her entire title, because it is rather long. But I think you get the idea.

You have 10 minutes for your presentation. I will tell you when you have one minute left. We will then move to a question-and-answer period.

You may begin right away. We are listening.

[Hubert T. Lacroix, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation]

Madam Chairman, bonjour.

Members of the committee, good morning.

Thank you for allowing Monique and me to appear before you today and to participate in your study on sexual harassment in the federal workplace.

Let me start with a quote, if I can:

CBC/Radio-Canada considers all forms of discrimination, including discriminatory and sexual harassment, to be unacceptable; will not tolerate its occurrence; and will make every reasonable effort to ensure that no employee is subjected to it.

That commitment actually comes from our corporation's policy on anti-discrimination and harassment, which is posted on our website. You have a copy before you.

The policy defines discrimination and discriminatory harassment and gives examples. It sets out mechanisms for redress including disciplinary action. It establishes confidentiality provisions and tells employees how to get action on complaints or concerns.

Together with our policies on the prevention of workplace violence and our policy on discipline, which you also have before you, our corporation strives to ensure that all CBC/Radio-Canada employees are treated with dignity and respect. Should this not happen, we deal with it as quickly as possible.

CBC/Radio-Canada currently has 8,599 employees across Canada, 4,597 men and 4,002 women. Over the past three years, the corporation has received, in all of the 48 cities across Canada and the territories where we have a presence, a total of three complaints of sexual harassment. In one case, an employee received a written reprimand. In the second, an employee received a written reprimand and was ordered to take sensitivity training. In the third case, the employee was suspended for two days and also ordered to take sensitivity training.

As far as I'm concerned, one complaint is one too many, and we continue to strive to improve our record.

In 2007, all employees, as well as their managers across the organization, were required to complete “Respect in the Workplace” training. That included the President and Chief Executive Officer. This training was a joint program developed and offered by the unions and management. Right now, we are running an online training session against violence in the workplace, which every employee is required to complete. Once again, that includes the President and Chief Executive Officer.

Today, across the entire corporation, we do not have a single outstanding complaint of sexual harassment. I am proud of our continuing efforts to ensure that people who work at CBC/Radio-Canada can thrive in an environment that is free from harassment of any kind.

Given our record, you might wonder why you have been seeing stories in Quebecor newspapers, the Sun and Le Journal de Montréal, and also on the television network Sun TV, suggesting that CBC/Radio-Canada is a hotbed of sexual harassment. Quebecor Media based its story on an access to information request that it made, and that asked for, and I quote:

Provide copies of all documents, including e-mails, complaints, memos, internal reports etc., regarding reports of harassment or inappropriate behaviour involving CBC employees since January 1, 2010. Please limit the search to the Toronto and Ottawa operations of CBC.

We provided this information. There's a copy right here in front of me of 1,454 pages, mostly e-mails between human resources staff, working to resolve human resources issues. Most of those details are blacked out because they contain personal information. That's the law. Quebecor's Brian Lilley used that as an excuse for speculation and innuendo. Here I quote from a QMI story that ran in Le Journal de Montréal on January 31.

It says “CBC/Radio-Canada provided a pile of documents relating to 1,454 cases processed between January 1, 2010 and halfway through 2012, limited to the Toronto and Ottawa offices”.

Lilley further linked the CBC to sexual harassment at the RCMP, and linked us also to the recent revelations of sexual abuse at the BBC, the now famous Jimmy Savile story.

He insists that he's just doing his job, holding us to account.

Well, if that were true, you would think he might have asked us a single question before he launched his attack.

If he had, we could have told him the facts: of the two locations he requested, Toronto and Ottawa, over the time period he requested, since January 1, 2010, we have had one complaint of sexual harassment, which we addressed.

Sexual harassment in the federal workplace is a serious issue. It deserves to be treated as a serious issue.

Last fall David Suzuki, CBC host of The Nature of Things, was invited by Montreal's John Abbott College to speak to students. Another access for information request, for all the documents about this visit, followed.

Then, a few weeks ago, Quebecor was at it again. Sun TV's Ezra Levant used the documents to make this outrageous claim: that David Suzuki was, and I'm quoting, “procuring girls to be his escorts”.

You have copies of his stories and transcripts of his program in front of you.

Once again, untrue. Once again, the Quebecor employee didn't check with the college, with David Suzuki, or anyone else who would actually tell him that his allegations were false.

After his first story, John Abbott College made a response, a copy of which you also have in front of you. I'd like to read one section:

There was no rider in Dr. Suzuki’s contract specifying the gender or dress code of those assisting him throughout the day. The negative comments and innuendos made are demeaning to those students and to the College....The College is committed to providing our students with an expansive view of society to assist them on their path to becoming critical thinkers. It is a shame that along the way, they are also witnesses to the falsification of information considered to be acceptable practice by news professionals.

Now, I don't expect Sun Media's agenda to change. But I believe it is important to call them out when they are deliberately misleading Canadians, when they're taking a serious issue like sexual harassment and turning it into a weapon for their own interests. I am sure I am not the first person to feel unfairly treated by a reporter. There are probably some people who have been unhappy with their treatment by CBC/Radio-Canada, maybe even in this room. They're thinking “Welcome to my world, Lacroix”. Fair enough.

But let me point out a few differences between CBC/Radio-Canada and Québecor Médias. CBC/Radio-Canada has journalistic standards. Our guide, Journalistic Standards and Practices, sets out how our journalists are to do their jobs. In fact, the guide is used as a model for journalistic organizations around the world. We also have two ombudsmen who investigate complaints of unfair coverage and issue a public report.

Should there be a debate about public broadcasting? Absolutely. There should be a debate about CBC/Radio-Canada, about what services we provide, about how we respond to incidents of harassment or violence in the workplace. But, to be useful, the debate must be based on something other than attacks by media competitor.

I thank you for your time. Yours is an important study. Monique and I would be pleased to take your questions.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

Thank you. That was very interesting.

We now immediately move to the question-and-answer period.

Mrs. Truppe, you have seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for being here today. I'm glad to hear that...sexual harassment in the federal workplace is a serious issue, so I appreciate that.

Just so I'm understanding, in your report you indicated that the people who are attacking you asked for copies of everything, and then you gave them copies of everything. But I guess I'm not clear on where they're getting the data that they're accusing you of having so much more of than what you're saying you have. Where is this data coming from that they're getting, even though...?

Like, what made them ask you to provide those 1,500 pages, for example?

[Hubert T. Lacroix]

As you know, CBC/Radio-Canada is subject to access to information. Any kind of request made by a requester is sent to us. We analyze the request, and as you know, the mechanism of the act says that we have to respond when it's a question of general administration, which this was. We were very proud to provide them with the 1,000 and whatever pages, and they decided to write it up in that way. We provided those pages to them.

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

So you provided the pages, but are they saying they found information in those pages that would be relevant to sexual harassment?

[Hubert T. Lacroix]

I'll ask Monique to tell you exactly what was in those pages.

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

I'm just wondering where they found this information.

[Hubert T. Lacroix]

Your guess is as good as mine.

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

The stats are so different. They're way off compared to what you're saying.

[Monique Marcotte, Interim Executive Director, English Services Human Resources; Executive Director, Strategic Planning and Human Resources Corporate Groups, People and Culture, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation]

I've gone through the 1,454 pages in detail. First of all the request was for incidents of sexual harassment or inappropriate behaviour. We interpreted inappropriate behaviour to mean any disciplinable offence. Within those 1,400 plus pages there are 62 complaints of which 23 are informal. Eight were withdrawn, and the remaining 31 were formal. Within those 31 there was one incident of sexual harassment.

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

Thank you.

How do you collect your data? How do you get your data?

[Monique Marcotte]

Each of our human resources bureaus is responsible for ensuring that we keep records regardless of whether there is a formal complaint related to sexual harassment or another matter. All formal complaints we keep on file. We have just started to track the trends regarding the nature of incidents or complaints. We also keep informal records for informal complaints, because we do obviously have informal complaints that an employee might bring forward. Those we generally destroy if the complaint is withdrawn or the employees settle the matter between themselves.

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

I guess I'm just trying to understand. How is the training provided to the women, for example, at the CBC. Is there an area? Is there a harassment coordinator? What's the series of events that happen if someone has a complaint?

[Monique Marcotte]

Once we become aware of a complaint, whether it's anecdotally or through a third party or even directly, there are a number of ways an employee can access or can advise.... They can go through human resources, and we have bureaus in all of the major centres in Canada. They can also advise through their union, whether through a union representative or a member of their executive or their national union office, or they can advise their manager. If their manager is the subject of the complaint, obviously it wouldn't be appropriate to advise their manager, in which case they would either advise the manager of the manager or they would come through one of the other venues. Once we become aware, we meet immediately with the employee and we discuss the nature of the behaviour. We discuss their options with them, whether it is an informal complaint, which is generally a type of mediated complaint, or a formal complaint, which begins a formal investigation process.

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

Thank you.

You said there was one case of sexual harassment. Is that right?

[Monique Marcotte]

Within the documents provided under the ATIP request, there was one. Since January 1, 2010 within the organization we have had three formal complaints of sexual harassment.

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

What's the difference between formal and informal? Would informal be by someone who doesn't want to take it to the next level?

[Monique Marcotte]

We will always discuss with them what their options are. For an informal complaint, generally we mediate with the employee. It's not a formal process.

A formal complaint kicks in when a written complaint is filed with human resources. Then we do a triage with senior management in the human resources department as to who will conduct the investigation. Human resources will not conduct investigations for our own client groups. For example, I support corporate clients. I would not conduct an investigation with my clients, because I'm familiar with a lot of the managers and the employees. We try to ensure that we have an objective party who can conduct the investigation. At times if required we will bring in third party investigators. Sometimes it's because of the complexity or the location.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

You have one more minute.

[Monique Marcotte]

In terms of the types of complaints that we manage, they can be sexual harassment, misuse of a corporate card, or lack of respect in the workplace. Something that we're very focused on is lack of respect. Really, it runs really the gamut of human behaviour.

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

But you differentiate between harassment and sexual harassment, right?

[Monique Marcotte]

Yes, we do.

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

We've had witnesses in the last few months, and not everybody differentiates between them. They might have x number of harassment complaints, but there may be none or a high level of sexual harassment.

[Monique Marcotte]

So we have had eight complaints of harassment within those three years that I spoke of earlier, three of which were sexual harassment. The remainder were more in the area of personal harassment, which actually falls under our prevention of workplace violence policy.