Evidence of meeting #39 for Veterans Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was process.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:10 p.m.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to come back to the situation within the RCMP.
I want to say thank you to you, Mr. Banwarie, for your efforts regarding unionization. I see that as an important key in a lot of this discussion. It also seems to me that you keep coming back to the point that nobody takes responsibility, whether it's for those women who were sexually harassed and who lost their careers or whether it was with regard to a confidentiality breach. I have never heard of it being okay for there to be a breach of patient/provider confidentiality or for files to be shared with the College of Physicians and Surgeons. Over and over again nobody's taking responsibility.
You said nobody's been held accountable. Is that the problem? If, indeed, we are going to make recommendations about how we can assist those who are facing despair and thinking about suicide, does it come down to the responsibility of the employer, the RCMP, or the responsibility of the Department of National Defence, to accept their role in ending this travesty of despair and suicide?
5:10 p.m.
President, Mounted Police Professional Association of Canada
Absolutely, yes, but we're here and we recognize in an organization as big as ours we're always going to have these issues, but not to the extent that they should be happening.
If you're being offered help and resolutions and solutions to reduce the harm, why would you not accept it? The only reason you would not accept the help is control. With that, you've touched on a very key part about the lack of accountability. That is a very big issue.
If you want to take other agencies—for example, big agencies, police agencies—and if you want to be specific just for our organization, how are they managing? What are they doing differently? How come you don't see all these issues happening in metro Toronto or the OPP?
A very simple piece of this is that it is because they have an independent body there that is holding management accountable. There's also a collective bargaining agreement that lays out the framework for the responsibilities of the management as well as the members, and if there are issues, this is how they're addressed and they're addressed in a timely fashion.
That's all part of the process. That's all part of what keeps the members and those agencies healthy and helps toward their overall wellness, because they know if issues occur and things happen, they're going to be addressed and they're going to be addressed impartially. That is what is missing out of all of this. You fix that and you will change the culture. You change the culture and you're going to change the RCMP. That's the solution, and that's why this work is so important.
The files and the investigations and all that stuff—that's important, but your people are more important than all of that.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Neil Ellis
Thank you.
That ends our committee meeting today. I'd like to thank all of you on behalf of all the members for your testimony today and for your continued support to our men and women who serve our country.
If there's anything you want to add to your testimony or any questions you want to elaborate on, if you could get it to the clerk, the clerk will distribute it to the committee.
Thank you. The meeting is adjourned.