:
Good morning everyone. I see we have a quorum, so we'll get started.
Welcome to the 49th meeting of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. Today, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we are continuing our study of sexual harassment in the federal workplace.
We have with us this morning, from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Assistant Commissioner Sharon Woodburn, Director General of Workforce Programs and Services, and Superintendent Michael O'Rielly, Director of the Legislative Reform Initiative.
Good morning and welcome. Thank you for joining us today. Your input will certainly make for a more in-depth study by the committee.
Without further ado, I turn the floor over to you. You have 10 minutes for your presentation, and then we will move on to questions and answers.
You may go ahead.
:
Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the committee, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you so much for this opportunity to come before the committee to contribute to your study of sexual harassment in workplaces in the federal jurisdiction.
Here with me today is Superintendent Michael O'Rielly, who is leading the legislative reform initiative for the RCMP. He will be able to answer any questions relating to Bill .
The work of the RCMP has a profound impact on all Canadians. The RCMP's mandate is multi-faceted, and every employee within the force contributes their skills and expertise to deliver quality policing services. All employees of the RCMP are responsible for enhancing and maintaining the health and strength of the organization. The commissioner and senior management have committed to an “every employee engaged” approach, whereby expectations of conduct relating back to our core values are discussed with each RCMP employee and agreed to.
[Translation]
Men and women are recruited into the RCMP with the expectation that they will become part of a world-class policing organization. Employees of the RCMP expect that their colleagues, no matter their position or role, will do their very best to maintain and further this image, in how they deal with the public and each other.
[English]
The RCMP is privileged to enjoy high levels of public approval and support, and the vast majority of the women and men carry out their duties every day in a professional and diligent manner. However, over the past few years, concerns regarding harassment, accountability, and existing human resource management practices have been raised. In this regard, we are not meeting the high expectations of Canadians.
[Translation]
I would like to take this opportunity to describe some of the efforts we are making to show accountability and establish a work environment with zero tolerance for inappropriate behaviour, such as harassment.
[English]
The RCMP is taking steps to effect organizational change that will address two key factors: numerative inequality, or the difference between the number of men and women in the workplace; and normative standards, or those aspects of organizational culture that can contribute to harassment.
According to Statistics Canada, the representation of women within policing services across Canada has increased from 17.3% in 2005 to 19.6% in 2011. The representation of female regular members within the RCMP has kept pace with this increase, rising from 18.1% to 20.1% over the same period. In spite of this, these rates remain below the labour market availability for women who are interested in a career in policing, which was estimated to be 27% in the 2006 census. This means there is room to have more women in policing.
The commissioner has announced an increase in the recruiting benchmark for women from 30% to 35% to have a more equitable level of representation of female police officers in all ranks throughout the RCMP. We are committed to achieving a more equitable gender balance to help create a better, more respectful workplace.
I will now talk about the normative factors. The RCMP must develop the means to change behaviours, to set new standards and expectations, and to hold all employees accountable for their behaviours.
[Translation]
The results of the Public Service Employee Survey, in both 2008 and 2011, indicate that about 30% of RCMP respondents reported being harassed in the past two years. This percentage is essentially the same as those found throughout the core public administration.
[English]
Since 2005 there have been 1,102 complaints of harassment filed in the RCMP. This is an average of 150 complaints a year. Of these, 57% refer to interpersonal deportment; 36% are identified as abuse of authority; 4% relate to discrimination, as defined under the Canadian Human Rights Act; and 3% relate to sexual harassment.
What this tells us is that harassment continues to be reported at a consistent rate in the RCMP. This is unacceptable. The steps we are committed to taking to overcome this issue include focusing on a more respectful workplace, improving training practices, and establishing procedures and processes to prevent, investigate, and resolve harassment complaints.
[Translation]
Part of changing our culture is the identification and handling of harassing behaviour at the onset. Some unacceptable actions are more obvious than others, and some forms are more insidious.
Any definition of harassing behaviour, sexual or otherwise, will always be subjective to a certain extent. The challenge is to clearly define what is considered to be unacceptable conduct and to know when to intervene.
[English]
By identifying such behaviours, expectations can be established that action will be taken to point out and stop improper conduct immediately. The RCMP is identifying and developing a continuum of what is considered to be disrespectful and harassing conduct to better hold employees, especially supervisors and managers, accountable for taking action.
Establishing the responsibilities of supervisors and managers is also vital to achieving this. The commissioner or senior manager, such as commanding officers, cannot oversee the daily interactions of every employee. We put this trust in our many managers and supervisors. We must also give those managers and supervisors the training and tools to prevent and effectively handle conflict in the workplace and any inappropriate behaviour they see at an early stage.
The RCMP has had mandatory online harassment awareness and prevention training for all employees since 2005. This was a step in the right direction in raising awareness; however, we recognize the need to do more.
We are also enhancing leadership development focusing on core components, such as how to manage workplace relations, how to identify and address conflict and harassment, and how to build and maintain respectful workplaces.
The RCMP is implementing a respectful workplace program that sets out expectations for all employees of what supports respectful and harassment-free workplaces. The program also outlines how to recognize when these expectations are not being met, how to engage in early intervention, and how to rebuild relationships. The program is built on the Treasury Board policy on the prevention and resolution of harassment in the workplace and supplemented by the RCMP Act; however, the two processes do not align in purpose, process, or outcome.
[Translation]
Bill , if passed, would provide the RCMP with a number of tools in the areas of conduct, grievances and discipline.
The proposed legislation will provide the commissioner with the authority to deal with harassment directly, by establishing streamlined procedures for the investigation and resolution of harassment complaints.
[English]
I would like to thank the committee for inviting us here today and for undertaking this study. Our intention is to continue making changes through the actions that I have outlined today. Our goal is to become a primary contributor to the creation of safe, healthy, and respectful workplaces in the federal public service.
Thank you.
My colleague and I would be pleased to provide further information in response to any questions.
Thank you to our witnesses.
[English]
To be frank, the driver behind this study began with wanting to look into the egregious experiences brought forward by women in the RCMP. It was extended more broadly to sexual harassment in the federal workforce. But as we know, the stories brought forward by women RCMP members have gripped Canadians, and they have also had a general impact on how they view our national police force.
We've had few occasions to discuss what is going on, and unfortunately, today, we're not hearing from rank-and-file women members who would have experiences to share that reflect the harassment and discrimination they have faced. Certainly for us in the NDP, that is an omission, especially when our role as a committee is to bring forward recommendations on how things can be improved within the RCMP and, more broadly, in federal workforces.
On the public safety committee I also had the chance to work on Bill . I just want to pause on that for a moment to say that I was shocked to know that Bill C-42 doesn't use the word “harassment” anywhere in the entire document, which I think to anybody is an indication of the.... I mean, if you don't actually name the problem, is it the elephant in the room? I know there's a reference to “incidents”, but certainly the words—“sexual harassment” particularly—that have been at the top of mind for so many Canadians aren't actually mentioned in Bill C-42.
The NDP initially said that we would support it, based on what we believed to be a true intent to modernize the RCMP and to deal with critical issues like sexual harassment. Unfortunately, we saw that it was lacking, and the amendments we put forward were not passed. Whether it was adding specifically to the RCMP Act mandatory harassment training for RCMP members, ensuring a fully independent civilian review body to investigate complaints against the RCMP, adding a provision to create a national civilian investigative body that would avoid police investigating police, and creating a more balanced human resource policy by removing some of the more draconian powers proposed for the RCMP commissioner, and by strengthening the External Review Committee in cases involving possible dismissal from the force—all of these amendments were not passed. We believe, therefore, that Bill is inadequate in dealing with a host of gaps, but, very predominantly, sexual harassment in the RCMP.
We've been made aware of the intention of dealing with sexual harassment, which is encouraging, but intention isn't enough. It's not as though these allegations came up in the last couple of years; they've been going on for a long time, and talk is not enough. We have also heard about the disincentive to women, and men as well, in joining the RCMP as a result of these allegations of harassment.
When we hear about intention—and certainly we believe training is important, but one of the recurring themes is of the culture in the workplace. Commissioner Paulson referred to it as well when he first came to speak with us a number of months ago. We've heard from other witnesses that when you have a highly hierarchical organization—like the RCMP, but others as well—and you don't have women in positions of power or women represented in an equitable manner, that creates a culture far more prone to harassment.
We've heard about the target to hire 35% more women, and you spoke a bit about how you're planning to do that. What is the timeline, and how solid is that target? We'd like to see 50% so that the RCMP actually reflects our population.
What are your solid timelines and goals, so we know when to look forward to that result?
:
The best way to approach it, and the way we've been approaching it since probably 2008-09, is through a systems approach. As Assistant Commissioner Woodburn says, it's not one thing that will be the magic bullet to overcome these challenges. C-42 will definitely help, because it will provide the opportunity to overcome, as I was describing before, this structural challenge we have right now. The Treasury Board policy on the prevention of harassment in the workplace is designed to rebuild relationships and help relationships recover within the workplace. There is also an anticipation that if harassment is found, there is a consequence, and oftentimes that's discipline.
However, within the RCMP Act there is only one way to attain or reach the goal of determining whether misconduct has occurred, and that's through part IV of the RCMP Act, which is the discipline system. That's a very different process, a very different target, with a very different intention. It is really focused on determining guilt. It is very adversarial, whereas the Treasury Board policy is much more focused on early resolution and on the accountability of managers and supervisors. It is also focused on bystanders, if I may use the term, getting involved and putting a stop to inappropriate, uncivil behaviour when it happens, rather than letting it build.
The whole systems approach really comes down to needing to make sure that we set expectations, establish responsibilities, and hold people accountable for whether they are taking the action they need to take in response to what we identify as inappropriate behaviour.
Assistant Commissioner Woodburn referred in her opening remarks to the concept of a continuum of respectful behaviours. What we find, and what you will find in the literature as well, is that there is this hesitancy among some people to take action if they're not quite sure that it's inappropriate or not. That hesitancy is what can lead to delay. It can ultimately lead to the frustration of people who feel that, first, they can't report because it won't be taken seriously, because it is not taken seriously at the time, and second, there is an expectation that we're not really sure where it's going to end up and whether it will become discipline or harassment.
To cross the bridge, there is no clear crosswalk. We have to figure it out as we go along. C-42 will help us address that one chunk: the investigation. But the TB policy, especially the new one, will help us address the resolution.
:
Probably the easiest way to describe it—and I'll give a rough sketch—is that if an incident occurs and it is not addressed immediately, it is allowed to fester, the person who is the target of the inappropriate behaviour looks around for an opportunity to bring this to someone to have something done about it.
Under the Treasury Board policy, the expectation is that you'll be able to enter into an early resolution process. Efforts will be made to try to bring the parties together, if appropriate. There are different dispute resolution processes to address balances, power balances and issues like that. But the expectation is that you will be able to conduct an entire process focused on the harassing behaviour and come to a determination of whether harassment has occurred, and determine what steps need to be taken to rebuild the workplace relations to address the relationship between the parties, if it's recoverable at all.
There's a lot of good work that can be done along the harassment continuum within the Treasury Board policy, including at the end of it, if it is found that...where a manager within the core public administration is in a position to say, “I see what has happened here and I will now issue discipline, if I feel it's appropriate.”
In the RCMP world we can only go so far with that. We can attempt to engage in early resolution if it's a harassment complaint. However, as soon as it appears—and that's the test under the act, “appears”—to the person in command or in the chain of command of the respondent in a complaint that there is a violation of the code of conduct, then they initiate an investigation. They could rely on the harassment investigation that was done under the Treasury Board policy, but the challenge there is that the statements may not have been taken in such a way to allow it to feed into an adversarial process, a very court-like process. That is ultimately one of the outcomes of our conduct system, our discipline system. Once it's into the discipline world, it's no longer dealing with relationships. It's no longer trying to address the issues that are in the workplace. It's no longer focused on how we can assist the complainant, how we can deal with the inappropriate behaviour of the respondent. It becomes very much a matter of what evidence I need to gather in order to prove there was a violation or a contravention of the code of conduct.
As soon as we get into that, again, it's very court-based. There are certain rights that a member who is subject to the discipline system can access. There are certain limitations on what can be done within the code of conduct process. You can't engage in early resolution, for example, once that's engaged.
The other piece is that under the Treasury Board policy there is a requirement to provide the complainant with access to a draft report in order to make sure that in their eyes everything has been done that needs to be done. But if it's done under the code of conduct, we don't have that right, because the process is designed, as I said, to prove or disprove a contravention of the code of conduct.
Therefore, these two processes do not line up and come out at the same place. The harassment process starts, but at some point it stops, and then part IV picks it up and runs with it. As soon as that is done, you're not looking at the same issue any more. You're not looking at harassment; you're looking at the code of conduct.
The other challenge is that the outcomes are very different. The ability of the complainant to play a role in influencing that outcome is minimized, outside of being a witness. They are two very different processes with two very different intentions.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
As you've just said, my name is Catherine Ebbs. I've been chair of the External Review Committee since 2005, and I'm happy to have with me Mr. David Paradiso, who's our executive director and senior counsel.
I have a very brief opening statement of about five minutes.
[Translation]
Madam Chair, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today.
I am delighted to be able to explain the RCMP External Review Committee's mandate, the scope of its powers, and the rationale for its existence and responsibilities.
[English]
The RCMP External Review Committee, or ERC, was created in 1986 to provide RCMP management and regular and civilian members with an independent, arm's-length labour relations tribunal. For almost 25 years the ERC has provided the RCMP with an objective and neutral service. We also offer the general public a unique window into the labour dispute mechanisms of the RCMP. Because the RCMP is the only non-unionized police force in Canada, the ERC's independence from the internal processes is essential to assuring that grievances and disciplinary rulings are examined in a fair and completely neutral manner.
[Translation]
Our committee plays an important role in maintaining the public's confidence in the RCMP, ensuring that the force respects the act and individuals' rights in labour relations.
Our committee is mandated to review grievances, disciplinary measures, and discharge and demotion cases referred to it by the RCMP. Following its review, the committee makes recommendations to the RCMP commissioner.
[English]
We conduct a full, impartial review. In all grievance, discipline, discharge, and demotion matters referred to it, the ERC bases its review on the record before it. This includes all of the original documents, submissions of the parties, and the decision made. In this respect, we operate somewhat like a court of appeal, as we only conduct our review on the record of evidence; however, unlike a court of appeal, our reports are not rulings, only recommendations. Our word is not law. We prepare recommendations and findings that are given to the parties, as well as to the Commissioner of the RCMP. The law requires that the commissioner consider our recommendations, but is not bound by law to accept them. The RCMP commissioner has the final say in all cases. Historically, the RCMP commissioner's acceptance rate of ERC recommendations is in the range of approximately 85%. If the commissioner decides not to follow them, the commissioner is required to explain in writing the reasons why our recommendations were not followed.
[Translation]
It is my understanding that the Standing Committee on the Status of Women is mainly interested in the perspectives of various experts on the roles and challenges of female RCMP members and public service employees.
Cases of harassment in the workplace, be it sexual or otherwise, are a major concern for all of us.
[English]
In its 25-year history, 99 cases related to harassment have been referred to the ERC for review. These 99 cases deal with such subjects as alleged abuse of authority, on-the-job pranks, peer-to-peer bullying, as well as sexual harassment. I would like to stress that it is the ERC's view that workplace harassment of any kind must be dealt with in a manner that is both timely and fair. Those with the responsibility of dealing with complaints need to be fully trained, and there needs to be consistency in how complaints are managed across all regions of the country.
We believe the focus should be on prevention, early detection, and intervention as a way of limiting all harassment.
[Translation]
Thank you. I would now be pleased to answer your questions.
Welcome to both of you. Thank you for the work that you attempt to do. Clearly, a lot of people don't have the confidence levels to get up and just walk away, and they don't even bother to appeal.
I wanted to read a couple of quotes from three different members that were in the report I referenced earlier, which I hope the committee will have shortly.
One of them is from one of the RCMP officers interviewed:
I would never report harassment. I have seen what happens to those who have and their life was made hell by those in [the] management positions who have used their authority to intimidate.
The second one:
We wear a bullet proof vest to protect ourselves from the bad guys out there, but really we need to be wearing the vest to protect ourselves from the bad guys inside our own organization.
The third one reads—and again these are different people:
The women I know that have encountered difficulty were strong, independent and confident. These women were pushed out of jobs when they had expertise and interest and had to start over at an advanced point in their careers at jobs they did not choose. This is a serious and very real problem [in the RCMP], going well beyond an unwelcome joke. It is uglier than most people think.
You've no doubt been reading newspapers and hearing reports of a variety of comments and so on, in particular about harassment, specifically sexual harassment of women, which is why we're really looking at this issue from the Status of Women's perspective.
In the work you're doing at your senior level of appeal, what was your feeling when you were hearing these comments, knowing what you deal with at your level? And how few get to you? Did you question why you weren't getting more complaints, even though you're at an appeal process?
:
Yes, absolutely, I think we all agree with that in this room.
Given that, and the different appeal systems—and we've heard about the Treasury Board guidelines and what the RCMP have to go through—would you say, because we ended up here in the last place, that Bill will have an impact?
Given the lead in management and the importance the commissioner has put on this, obviously, and the fact that earlier on we had people who said there's no magic bullet, there's no one solution that's going to make all this go away or solve all these problems, we have to do a number of different things, because there is an existing, very complex system that we have to improve on in various aspects, whether it be training, whether it be leadership, etc.
What are your thoughts, given that you have a bit more time now, on Bill C-42 and how it will help the system?