Chad Skelton (Vancouver Sun) – A serious gender gap exists within the RCMP in B.C., with female officers far less likely than their male colleagues to believe they are treated fairly and that their rights are respected, according to an internal survey obtained by The Vancouver Sun.
The survey, obtained by The Sun through the Access to Information Act, suggests the force still has a long way to go before women are fully accepted within its ranks.
For example, in the Vancouver Island district, only 36 per cent of female officers surveyed agreed that “everyone is treated fairly,” compared to 60 per cent of the male officers.
And in the North district, less than half (46 per cent) of the women agreed that their “personal rights and values are respected,” compared to 65 per cent of the men.
In a phone interview, Eli Sopow, the civilian RCMP employee who conducted the survey, said the results have troubled senior brass.
“They’re very concerned,” he said. “The officers here are taking this very seriously and saying we’ve got to improve this and improve it significantly.”
Sopow also said that while accommodating women has been a challenge in many fields, the RCMP — which only began accepting women for full police duties in 1974 — has been slower to change than most.
“I think there’s been a lag with the RCMP,” he said.
“For one thing, [female] officers haven’t been in the RCMP from day one. There’s an adjustment lag and I think they’re catching up in a lot of areas.”
Sopow said district commanders in B.C. are currently looking at how to respond to the survey results — including focus groups with female officers “to find out specifically what some of the issues might be.”
The surveys, which were all completed last spring, covered three of the four policing districts in the province: Vancouver Island, North and Southeast.
The Lower Mainland has not yet been surveyed.
But Sopow said the gender gap is likely province-wide.
“The results you’re seeing in those three districts pretty well reflect the RCMP members working in the [entire] division,” said Sopow.
In addition to the gender gap, the survey also found that officers in the north are less happy than in other districts, something Sopow said may be due to higher turnover in remote locations.
About 19 per cent of the RCMP officers in B.C. are women compared to 23 per cent for the Vancouver Police Department, which became the first in Canada to hire women in 1912.
Rob Gordon, head of criminology at Simon Fraser University and a former policeman, said women face many challenges in policing.
“I think the role of women in policing … has always been one that has been fraught with difficulties around acceptance and an unwillingness on the part of more conservative police officers … to accept women as equals,” he said.
And while it’s a problem in all police forces, said Gordon, he suspects the RCMP’s strict paramilitary structure makes it a tougher fit for women than municipal forces like the VPD.
“It is … a traditional organization that prides itself on spit-and-polish as opposed to more modern forms of policing,” he said. “[And] it’s an organization that’s slow to change.”
Female Mounties have made important strides in B.C.
For example, in 2001 Bev Busson became the first female deputy commissioner of the RCMP when she was appointed head of Pacific Region.
However, the RCMP in B.C. has also experienced its share of sexual-harassment scandals.
In 2002, Ridge Meadows RCMP Sgt. Jack Nisbet was docked two days’ pay after a disciplinary panel found he had harassed a female colleague, including referring to her bullet-proof vest as “nothing more than a glorified bra.”
In 2005, Surrey RCMP Sgt. Glen William Anderson was docked four days’ pay and ordered to receive harassment training after a disciplinary panel found he had made lewd comments about two female colleagues’ breasts.
And in 2006, former Merritt RCMP officer Nancy Sulz was awarded $950,000 in damages after the B.C. Supreme Court found her superior officer, Staff Sgt. Donald Smith, began harassing her after she got pregnant.
The judge in that case, Justice George Lamperson, ruled that Smith’s actions, while “abrupt, demanding and unfeeling … were consistent with his experience of the paramilitary command structure of the RCMP,” a style the judge found “was no longer appropriate in the modern RCMP.”
One of the survey questions asked of members in the North district was whether “the RCMP works to ensure that I am provided a harassment-free environment.”
Three-quarters of the men surveyed (75 per cent) agreed with the statement, compared to just 62 per cent of the women.
Above the law- I didn’t get to see the article. If you post a link I will take a look at it.
You are right about the truth surfacing. A couple of years ago a former S/sgt told me that the RCMP is riding the coat tails of the Red Serge. He said give it a few more years and everyone is going to know what they are all about. Guess what… That couple of years has arrived.
Why are so many RCMP members getting killed? Because they are a rural police force? Well the OPP and the Surte de Quebec do the same job in their respective provinces, yet they are not getting killed in even close to those numbers. The RCMP themselves used to patrol these same area’s and not have the fatalities they do now.
If you ask me it is the training. Yes, they have a top notch fire arms training program that gives a real survivalist mentailty. That does little good when they go into the Applied Police Sciences classroom and learn this “armed social worker” politically correct B.S.
The Truth is Political Correctness is a higher priority in the RCMP than public or their own safety.
Do you Like or Dislike the above comment:
1 
0
It is time that the RCMP gave up the old adage: “there is the right way, the wrong way and the RCMP way”. The former Commissioner (some irony there) was big on the RCMP “doing the right thing” and “being transparent”. Too bad there is nothing but hot air for actually practicing that.
Do you Like or Dislike the above comment:
0 
0
Above the Law thanks for the confidence. However, what I just stated in the “new” RCMP (or any other federal department) constitutes what Orwell would call “thought crime”. The RCMP know how to circle the wagons like nobody else and when they tell you that 2+2=5 you have to go around saying that it is five. It is this form of reality control that has enabled the RCMP for years to hire thousands of people who wouldn’t make good private security guards, but yet hide behind the red serge and continue to call themselves the best in the world.
One has to discipline themselves to commit this form of thought crime by forgetting what you know and your senses tell you and by focusing only on what the organization tells you. You have to look past that too many women are not dedicated and show up to training and can’t even pass the basic minimum physical standard. You have to look past the fact that too many of them get thrown out of training for incompetence while others that make it through are not much better off. Too many women have the idea that they are armed social workers or are merely there because they have some feminist goals to achieve. Talk to anyone who has come out of Depot (that isn’t some politically correct, liberal lackey) and they will tell you that in any given troop there are usually only 1 or 2 women that are even worth hiring. Far too many of them are a mere liability. You rarely hear this said because it is a good way to find yourself on the street and without a job. Because the RCMP is so political and is full of cut throats who will sell out their gender and betray you that this information is never made public. In the RCMP the truth will set you free- free to find another job.
Do you Like or Dislike the above comment:
2 
0
You cannot fight City Hall goes the saying. Its no secret that the “target groups” did not need to score near as well as the WASP to get hired. Fill with the target groups and then secondarily move onto the rest. Federal govt’ guidelines at work. Respect is only one casualty in such folly.
Do you Like or Dislike the above comment:
2 
0
They should hire or promote you – sounds like you have some wisdom here.
Do you Like or Dislike the above comment:
1 
0
There is a reason for this. Due to hiring targets and quota’s the bar has been set lower for women. Women did not need as high of a mark on the exam and when not enough of them were passing the PARE test they watered that down as well. Liberals deny it up and down, but I have seen it with my own eyes.
For years white males were not hired by the RCMP in the name of “progress”. It is silly to think that pushing women to the front of the line by hiring them over more qualified men is going to get them “Respect”. There is always a price to pay when short cuts are taken and respect is that price.
Do you Like or Dislike the above comment:
2 
1