Mr. Speaker, this is very important. First, on the issue of privacy, obviously there can be extraordinary sensitivities at play when a person is dealing with the subject matter that might involve something like sexual harassment or sexualized violence. The harassment people experience when they come forward will shock members. If we sit with someone who has been through that experience who is brave enough to come forward and say they have been subjected to this kind of treatment, oftentimes they are disbelieved. People come out of the woodwork to criticize them, tell them they should not be doing this to the perpetrator of sexualized violence and that is not okay.
One of the things I had real concerns about and I know it is a controversial issue, particularly in a small workplace, is the potential for workplace committees to have previously been involved with investigations. My opinion is that the better approach is to have a confidential process through a competent person that does not involve all the people an employee has to sit next to when they are at work the next day, being aware of some of the rather intimate details of a very sensitive personal situation.
Measures like this would help ensure that we can get to the root of individual complaints, but share the systemic nature of problems that exist in the workplace that change policies that will help people going forward while maintaining the privacy of the individuals.