Regina Leader-Post
A Manitoba RCMP officer is suing her employer for what she calls “an intentional and reckless campaign” of sexual and emotional harassment and discrimination that allegedly spanned 15 years and two provinces.
Sherry-Lee Benson-Podolchuk is seeking unspecified financial damages from the Mounties and the federal government in a statement of claim obtained Monday by the Winnipeg Free Press.
Benson-Podolchuk, 44, claims the alleged abuse forced her to go on disability from stress and has caused other ailments including clinical depression, anxiety and loss of self-esteem.
None of the allegations has been proven in court and the parties being sued have until the end of January to file statements of defence.
Lawyer Darryl Buxton, who is representing Benson-Podolchuk, said Monday the lawsuit is one of the first sex-harassment suits against police in Manitoba.
His client has been buoyed by a similar case out of B.C. in which a former female officer was recently awarded $950,000 in damages.
Benson-Podolchuk, a resident of Winnipeg Beach, Man., says her problems began while she was posted at the RCMP detachment in Tisdale in 1991 to start what she thought would be a promising career in law enforcement.
“She was repeatedly subjected to sexual harassment and other harassment by male members of the RCMP,” her lawsuit claims.
Benson-Podolchuk cites specific alleged incidents including hearing improper sexual comments from fellow officers in public, at the police station and even over the RCMP radio.
She said a dead chicken was placed in her private gun locker, with blood dripping down into her personal belongings.
Another so-called “prank” involved tampering with the stall door inside the women’s washroom, she claims.
Benson-Podolchuk said she filed a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission in 1992, which resulted in her being transferred to a new posting in Selkirk, Man.
Her lawyer claims the human-rights complaint essentially “blackballed” her in the eyes of her superiors and co-workers.
She suffered a shoulder injury during firearms training in 1994 that required surgery and months of rehabilitation.
RCMP deemed her “not fit for duty” in November 1996 because of lingering problems from the injury, according to the lawsuit.
Benson-Podolchuk says she was given two choices — resign or be medically discharged.
She rejected both offers and filed a grievance that resulted in her being reassigned to desk duties at the RCMP headquarters in Winnipeg, which involved a job more becoming of a secretary, including photocopying, filing and shredding documents. However, injured male Mounties were being given more important tasks, she claims.
Benson-Podolchuk won her grievance following a six-year battle and was allowed to continue working. She claims the verbal and emotional abuse continued until she finally broke down and went on disability because she was unable to cope with the stress.
She remains on paid leave.
Benson-Podolchuk has also accused RCMP of trying to obtain confidential medical information from her doctor, pulling her over during a highway traffic stop for no reason and threatening “consequences” if she didn’t quit. She says the abuse left her afraid to go to work, embarrassed, intimidated and afraid for her personal safety.
Nancy Sulz, a former RCMP constable in B.C. who was harassed by her supervising officer, successfully fought a decade-long battle against the federal government and the RCMP and won $950,000 damages last year.
The harassment award is the largest-ever imposed against the RCMP.
A B.C. Supreme Court judge and an internal RCMP adjudicator found Sulz had been the victim of continuing harassment while working at the Merritt detachment in the mid-1990s.
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