“It’s safe to say that the assessment from the public servants is that changes in C-42 won’t make a hill of beans of difference in the handling of harassment, sexual harassment, or many other issues at the RCMP,” said Mr. Kers at the House Status of Women Committee Jan. 29. Mr. Kers represents RCMP employees west and north of Ontario. The union has 15,000 members who work in the federal public safety and justice sectors.
He told the committee that in his view, the bill would make little difference in how sexual harassment cases are handled.
The bill, called the Enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability Act, was introduced by Public Safety Minister Vic Toews (Provencher, Man.) in June 2012 in response to the sexual harassment allegations and their mishandling.
“Recent allegations relating to misconduct and harassment in the RCMP are well-known and I am deeply troubled by these allegations. … That is why we believe it is vital to reform the discipline, grievance and human resource management processes within the RCMP and to do so through legislation,” he said at the time.
The legislation would broaden the RCMP commissioner’s power to fire and discipline members, and find ways to resolve harassment disputes. It’s also meant to modernize the dispute resolution process to make sure issues are dealt with in a “timely and fair manner.”
The bill is back from the House Public Safety Committee and is waiting for concurrence in the Commons.
It does not change the RCMP’s existing Code of Conduct, but it makes procedural changes aimed at getting disputes heard more quickly and flexibly. The current practice requires a hearing by a panel of adjudicators that can take up to five years, according to Public Safety. The bill would scrap this practice in all cases except where firing a member is a real possibility, giving managers more authority to handle cases.
Mr. Kers cited the case of Alberta Mountie Donald Ray, who used his authority to harass several women over the course of years. The RCMP’s disciplinary board came close to firing Mr. Ray, but in the end he was demoted, stripped of 10 days’ pay and reprimanded. He was also transferred to a unit in British Columbia.
The case was a missed opportunity to send a clear message that harassment would not be tolerated, said Mr. Kers.
“At the end of the day, people like Donald Ray should be fired. If they were to be fired, if that was a clear message that was pronounced in the media and within the departments, I think it would embolden, provide courage and support to females who are being harassed to come forward with these issues. But until such time as the government and its various arms are prepared to take that step and deal with this issue in a concrete fashion, change will be very, very, slow,” said Mr. Kers.
When the government fails to deal with workplace harassment seriously, it causes a chilling effect in other members who may be experiencing sexual harassment, he said.
“The message gets out, that when you try to complain about harassment, and in particular when you try to complain about sexual harassment, you’re at extreme jeopardy,” he said.
He said that when the union tried to follow up with Mr. Ray’s victims to see how they had been treated by the employer, most were afraid to speak.
“They fear job loss, they fear career damage, they fear retaliation,” he said.
Efforts to reduce harassment in the RCMP and the government at large are also hampered by the lack of statistics on the resolution of harassment cases, and the non-disclosure agreements most victims are forced by their employers to sign in order to get a settlement, he added.
There is “example upon example” of sexual harassment cases in the RCMP, said Janet Hauck, national vice-president of the Union of Solicitor General Employees. She represents RCMP civilian members.
She cited a recent case where a young female RCMP member was sexually assaulted by another member of the Force. Ms. Hauck said she was too scared to press charges with Ottawa police and ended up not reporting the crime.
“The key in the RCMP is that the police officers are our protectors. They are our members in society that we turn to each and every day to say, ‘Please keep us safe.’ The last thing we believe as an employee is that they will be the offender,” she told the committee.
The RCMP is not the only federal organization whose harassment polices are in flux. In October, the Treasury Board Secretariat introduced new harassment policy for the scores of agencies in the core federal public service.
“In my view it’s a dramatically weakened policy,” said Mr. Kers.
“An example: the old policy gave the complainant the right to review a report before it became final, provide additional witnesses where necessary, documentation, clarification. The new Treasury Board policy has eliminated that,” he said.
Bob Kingston, co-chair of the service-wide policy committee on health and safety and president of the Agriculture Union, was a union representative during TBS’s consultations on the new policy. He said that the new policy doesn’t comply with the government’s obligations to its employees under the Canada Labour Code.
“Treasury Board didn’t have anybody at the table who understood the Canada Labour Code when they were drafting their policies. That’s where that went off the rails,” he said.
Treasury Board disagrees with Mr. Kingston.
“We have ensured that the new Treasury Board policy and directive are in accordance with the Canada Labour Code, and both policy instruments refer to the Code,” spokesperson Theresa Knowles told The Hill Times.
Policy limitations include a one-year time limit on investigating incidents, said Mr. Kingston, who added the limitation does not exist under the labour code. Mr. Kers said that too much is left up to departments to decide on how to deal with harassment in their department.
In late December, TBS released a new guide on the harassment resolution process.
“So far, the Treasury Board Secretariat has received positive feedback from departments and agencies because the policy allows for flexibility to tailor their processes according to their organizational needs,” Ms. Knowles also noted.
According to TBS, the principles guiding the new policy include giving department heads the flexibility to adapt programs to best meet the needs of their organizations, while providing general principles and standards to adhere to.
While most government polices deal with employees who are harassed by fellow workers or their supervisor, some public service workplaces, such as the Correctional Service of Canada, present a unique challenge when it comes to protecting workers from harassment.
“An ugly fact remains: we are exposed to sexual harassment from our clientele—namely, inmates—a phenomenon that is uncommon or extremely rare in other kinds of work,” explained Francie Boudreau, a 26-year veteran of CSC and the Quebec status of women co-ordinator for the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers.
Through nine months in 2011, there were nine reported cases of male inmates masturbating in front of female corrections officers, said Anne-Marie Beauchemin UCCO’s Ontario status of women co-ordinator.
In one case at a federal institution, an inmate repeatedly exposed himself and propositioned the female officer on duty doing hourly institutional walkabouts. She reported the incident and asked to have the inmate put in segregation. The request was first denied, and the officer was not re-assigned to another duty. While the situation was being resolved, the officer used more than 200 hours of sick leave and eventually the inmate was transferred to another institution.
“The officer has since returned to work, but has not yet returned to full duties as a result of this traumatic experience,” said Ms. Beauchemin, who has 12 years of experience in corrections and currently works at the Kingston Penitentiary maximum security men’s institution.
She explained that while a corrections officer can charge an inmate under the internal prison discipline system, it’s difficult to gather the necessary evidence that the inmate intended to disrespect and harass the officer.
“While zero-tolerance protocols exist for harassment between colleagues, resources are scarce when it comes to sexual harassment from inmates,” said Ms. Boudreau.
The issue of prisoners’ access to pornography has not been resolved, despite Mr. Toews’ commitment in May 2012 to end the practice, said Ms. Beauchemin.
“He announced that he would be putting an end to this unacceptable practice. To date, this has not happened. The satellite and cable television to which inmates have access for only pennies a day still includes sexually explicit channels and movies. Inmates are also still permitted to keep sexually suggestive and explicit magazines and personal photographs that continue to subject female officers to unwanted attention, unwelcome comments, and intentional displays of sexual gratification,” she said.
She explained that the presence of such materials create an unnecessarily difficult and disrespectful working environment for female corrections officers.
“How is it that inmates are not allowed to have material in their possession that has gang or alcohol-related logos, because these are considered to be anti-social, but pornography is acceptable?” she added.
The Hill Times asked Public Safety to clarify the policy surrounding the possession of pornography by inmates, and whether it was aware that some inmates continued to have access to pornographic channels.
“Minister Toews has been clear that this is a completely unacceptable practice that needs to be brought to an end. He is working with his officials to do just that,” said Julie Carmichael, spokesperson to Mr. Toews.
“What is being permitted in our federal jails, and its impact on female officers, is contrary to CSC’s own mission statement, which purports to rehabilitate offenders into law-abiding citizens,” said Ms. Beauchemin.
“These kinds of inmate behaviours, which seem to be without any consequence ... cause female corrections officers, sworn in peace officers, risks to their emotional well-being, and results ultimately in a loss of dignity.”
Original Article
Source: hilltimes.com
Author: Jessica Bruno
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