(Canadian Press) – Female Mounties are afraid to come forward with allegations of sexual harassment and bullying on the job because they don’t have faith their complaints will be taken seriously and they believe it will be them — not the problem officers — who will ultimately be punished, an internal RCMP report has found.
The report, conducted in response to a number of high-profile allegations of sexual harassment, details the results of focus groups involving 426 RCMP officers and employees from B.C., many of whom told their own stories of being bullied, belittled and in some cases sexually harassed and assaulted by colleagues and superiors.
Those same officers said the force and its senior officers are ill-equipped or even unwilling to properly deal with the problem.
“There was an overwhelming perception, based on personal observations, that there are no consequences for the harasser other than having to transfer and/or be promoted,” says the report, obtained through access-to-information laws.
“This perception of no ‘real’ consequences left participants feeling that coming forward was not worth it. . . . Overall, the participants felt the consequences for filing a harassment complaint outweighed the complaint itself.”
But Insp. Carol Bradley, the team leader for the B.C. RCMP Respectful Workplace Action Plan, said the report concluded harassment wasn’t rampant but was a problem.
“We agree that any amount of harassment is not acceptable,” said Bradley.
Bradley said the report was a result of a proactive initiative by Deputy Commissioner Craig Callens, the commander of the force in B.C., who sought the opinions and concerns of employees.
Multiple lawsuits
It also follows a string of lawsuits and media reports involving sexual harassment.
The most widely reported case involves Cpl. Catherine Galliford, a former media relations officer who detailed years of abuse she says left her with post-traumatic stress. The RCMP has denied her allegations.
The internal report, completed in April by Simmie Smith, an RCMP diversity strategist in B.C., suggests gender-based harassment was common among the women who participated in the focus groups.
Participants recalled a range of problems, including aggressive male supervisors, cases in which women were assigned to menial tasks and ignored in meetings, sexual innuendo, inappropriate touching and indecent exposure.
Fear of reprisal
If they or their colleagues attempted to complain, the participants said, they often faced retribution. They believed their careers would suffer and they risked being transferred to new jobs or locations as their superiors targeted them, not the offending officers, to deal with the problem, the report said.
Participants attributed the problem to an “old boys’ club” mentality they said permeates the force, in which officers with connections “never have to worry about being held accountable.”
“I would never report harassment,” one participant said during the focus groups. “I have seen what happens to those who have and their life was made hell by those in management positions who have used their authority to intimidate.”
“We wear a bulletproof vest to protect ourselves from the bad guys out there,” another participant said, “but really we need to be wearing the vest to protect ourselves from the bad guys inside our own organization.”
Exaggeration alleged
At the same time, the report reveals a widespread belief within the force that such complaints, and the media coverage of them, have been exaggerated and blown out of proportion.
Indeed, the report notes statistics related to complaints don’t show significant numbers of harassment cases. But the report suggests that discrepancy is likely due to the fact that women aren’t reporting abuse when it happens.
“The result is a significant failure to report incidents and an unwillingness to discuss the issues with supervisors or management,” says the report.
“This failure has, in turn, resulted in the release of a pent-up need to have the issues addressed. This, in part, seems to explain the recent spate of revelations to the media.”
Recommendations
The report makes a number of recommendations, including the creation of a dedicated unit to investigate harassment complaints.
In response to the report, Callens, announced the creation of a 100-member team dedicated to investigating harassment complaints.
“I acknowledge, without reservation, that we have some issues that we need to deal with,” he said when he announced the team in April.
“I’m committed to ensuring that we take the type of action that our employees deserve.”
The report also recommends the creation of a system to track complaints and identify the worst offenders, improved resources for officers who are considering filing a complaint, and new anti-harassment education programs for officers and civilian members of the RCMP.
Employees responsive
Bradley said the RCMP is glad so many employees came forward and shared their concerns and solutions.
“We’re developing a respectful workplace action plan and we have a number of initiatives that are intended and designed to address the concerns of employees, and, in fact, contain many of the suggestions they made for improvement,” she said.
Since Galliford made her complaints public, several other Mounties have also come forward with similar allegations in lawsuits of their own.
Those cases include a class-action lawsuit that is making its way through the courts. That suit was launched by Janet Merlo, who alleges she suffered through 19 years of harassment and discrimination during her career at the detachment in Nanaimo, B.C.
None of the allegations in any of the lawsuits have been proven in court.
[Source]
There seems to be a misconception that there is some “dedicated 100 member team”. What is actually happening is that 100 persons are receiving training. Get grip. There is not going to be a CFSEU like team for harassment investigations. Nobody said there would be.
Don’t put all your marbles on Galliford either. She is not the poster child for harassment she would have you believe.
Also s&t dont mix promotion process with rewarding wrong doing. The promotion system is not affected by such behavior, a fact which you should know if you are a SME and sit on the boards. Been there, done that and the names and examples before you do not include a resume of past behavioral history. Only if you are under internal can you be denied the process. If you are not, you are good to go. Unlike the old days where any whiff of scandal and your name did not get put forward.
And where have you been Boommer, there is a database that hold all the internals thats been around for years. And there is a separate trial database being implemented right now that tracks your internals, public complaints, PC accidents, traumatic incidents, SBORs, and 3414s. Or do you not read the emails on ROSS? Probably not even a member.
Its Orwellian like somebody here already said, and I can hardly wait for the first person to be hitting the red flags of the combined score of the various entries noted above, to be hauled in for some psych evaluation / discipline on account of a computer program. Your entire Force history will be open to the bottomfeeders every time you go to court once they gain access, and they will. Be careful of what you wish for.
I agree that the dedicated 100-member team is primarily a smokescreen – simply another attempt to appear as if something is being done.
The RCMP will be investigating itself and that fact alone will do nothing to reassure the victimized. And how are they going assign these dedicated members to investigations? To guarantee at least the perception of fairness you’d need to find an investigator who has no connection to either the complainant or the subject of the complaint – they can’t be and can’t have been a troop mate, a friend, a co-worker, a subordinate, a supervisor. And really, given the RCMP’s propensity to forgive and often promote wrong-doers, those investigators are going to be thinking about what could happen down the road if they end up working for the guy they once recommended for a criminal charge or service court. Hard to do in BC. Even harder in the smaller divisions.
I also have no faith in the dedicated 100 given the RCMPs shameful reaction to Katherine Galliford’s complaint – by conducting a quickie “investigation” and then smearing the complainant publicly. If ever an action was specifically designed to deter anyone considering making a complaint that was it.
There is no “100 Harassment investigators”, like most everything else that comes out of the mouths of RCMP it is a lie.
Boomer is on the trail.
The bad (corrupt) apples are at the top of this tree and the top is like a 500 year old red cedar………rotten to the core.
Incorrect, all it proves is that there are complaints lodged and that people have been assigned to investigate. Nothing has been proven. If you think all complaints are automatically legitimate, you are under a misconception.
“In response to the report, Callens, announced the creation of a 100-member team dedicated to investigating harassment complaints”
Publically the force is telling the public that the complaints have not been proven, this comment just proves their complaints have been proven. Why would you commit 100 members to a section if there wasn’t a problem? I do agree with starting a data base for the worst offenders but this is only going to create more cover ups when they discover most of the offenders are in the Officer’s rank.