Dear colleagues, I rise to speak to the amendment I just proposed to the third report of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration.

I stand today to ask for your support to amend the third report so ably presented by Senator Saint-Germain. Before I say more about my proposed amendment, allow me to express sincerely both admiration and appreciation for the dedicated work of the senators and officials who produced the proposed policy on the prevention and resolution of harassment in the Senate workplace.

The amendment that I will present at the end of my remarks is in no way an attempt to delay or derail our consideration of this collective decision to update and strengthen this policy. It is because this proposed policy will have such a tremendous impact on many lives and on the reputation of this constitutionally entrenched institution that I am asking to have the proposed policy referred to one more committee for review through the lens of human rights.

In addition to sending the policy to the Ethics and Rules Committees, this amendment, if adopted, would also send it to the Human Rights Committee, or RIDR, to be authorized to study and recommend amendments to the policy.

In the report, a deadline of April 30 has been set for the Ethics and Rules Committees to report back. My amendment has been guided by the importance of timeliness for strengthening our commitment to prevention and resolution of harassment in the Senate workplace.

RIDR would have 30 days to report after they have been formed. If their report was adopted by the Senate, the content of that report would be deemed referred to the Ethics and Rules Committees so that they would have the benefit of human rights analysis in following through in preparing their or reports back to this chamber.

To ensure that this human rights analysis is available to the Ethics and Rules Committees before their reports are completed, this motion asks that the RIDR report be tabled with the clerk and made available within 30 days of RIDR being formed.

Colleagues, in my legal career as a human rights specialist and an educator prior to being appointed to the Senate, my experience included representing victims of harassment by more powerful individuals in cases that originated in corporations, universities, governments and other institutions; developing new policies and laws addressing harassment; chairing three independent inquiries into the sexualized exploitation of patients and co-authoring a textbook on preventing sexual abuse in health care professions.

You may be familiar with what is now a worldwide standard used extensively that speaks to zero tolerance of exploitation and abuse. That term was developed in the early 1990s and can be traced back to the first report of the first inquiry that I chaired, where we developed and explained why a zero-tolerance standard was so important.

Since my appointment, I established a confidential line for reporting harassment experienced in the Senate work environment and, along with a number of other senators, I have advocated for better protections for Senate employees who face harassment, with particular attention to the example of the staffers who suffered under former Senator Don Meredith. It was ably sponsored by Senator Nancy Hartling, and many senators faced and named the power imbalances on Parliament Hill.

At the forefront of our consideration in the last Parliament of Bill C-65 — An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code (harassment and violence), the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act and the Budget Implementation Act — at the gracious invitation of Senator Saint-Germain, Chair of the CIBA subcommittee, I was pleased to participate on occasion in the early work on modernizing the Senate’s anti-harassment policy. While CIBA’s thirty-seventh report from the last Parliament is an important part of our next steps in this matter, the final report ultimately presented by the CIBA subcommittee is of some concern and I do believe that giving the Human Rights Committee the opportunity to also look at this report would be very constructive.

We now have the opportunity and the obligation to pay close attention to our responsibilities in ensuring that a new policy is fair to staffers and does not exacerbate dynamics of privilege and power in Senate workspaces. This is no longer a process delegated to a subcommittee of very proficient individuals. This is now our collective responsibility.

Without human rights analysis, I am concerned that we will not have had the opportunity to consider how this report may impact those who are most vulnerable in this institution. As such, I would like to highlight several points of concern with the proposed policy, which I respectfully offer for your consideration within the context of this amendment.

First, while confidentiality is a mainstay of any complaint process that would create a safe mechanism for vulnerable complainants, I am concerned that the proposed policy effectively enforces non-disclosure provisions — or NDAs, as they are often known — on all participants in the process, from beginning to end, while raising the spectre of disciplinary measures for employees who contravene this requirement.

This is a particular concern given that there seems to be no prospect of an effective appeal for complainants. A complainant who has been wronged will not be able to speak out without risking job-related sanctions. As senators, the secrecy of this regime means that we will have no way of knowing if the proposed policy is meeting its objectives.

Second, and related, the fact that the proposed policy provides that remedial, corrective or disciplinary measures will remain confidential and will not be shared with the complainant is of significant concern. Of course we must respect confidentiality, but to leave a gap for a complainant in not knowing what actually happened as a result of the complaint process is not likely to enforce trust within a system like this.

Third, unlike the 2009 policy, the proposed policy requires claimants to renounce other means of redress, such as under their collective agreement, the Canadian Human Rights Act or even the protections of Bill C-65, once in force, before accessing the formal complaint process in this policy.

The former process reserved discretion to the Director of Human Resources to address instances of overlapping complaint procedures on a case-by-case basis. At a minimum, that discretion should be maintained for the impartial third party under this proposed policy.

Under the 2009 policy, whips were the ultimate decision-making authority for complaints involving senators and staff in senators’ offices. Under the proposed policy, CIBA steering committee is responsible for complaints involving staff in senators’ offices. The Ethics Committee and a subcommittee of CIBA will be responsible for senator-to-senator complaints.

I suggest we can learn from the thoughtful work of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence last year. It is perhaps ironic that in the last session of Parliament, in its twenty-third report entitled Sexual Harassment and Violence in the Canadian Armed Forces, our very own SECD was of the view that the Canadian Armed Forces required an external body with the ability and authority needed to conduct “stringent external oversight.”

External oversight, whether stringent or any other kind, is completely lacking from the proposed anti-harassment policy. When I say this, it is because the impartial third party and the determining authorities, as they are set out, will be employed by CIBA. In effect, they would be employed by us. And I think it is worth at least looking at this through a human rights lens as to whether or not, over time, there is a tilting toward the institution by the proposed new positions.

Given these points of concern, I am wary that the approach articulated in the proposed new policy may perpetuate the Senate as a closed work environment augmented by increased and forced secrecy of the complaint process. This is not likely to benefit those who provide their labour from less privileged positions, positions that we may not always be receptive to as senators.

I note that the Human Rights Committee studied Bill C-65 in the last Parliament, and in their study, I am hopeful that we might receive the benefit of external advice and expertise with respect to the ways in which we might offer the greatest protections for those who assist us in completing our important mandate as senators.

If there are non-disclosure agreements in place for support persons, as the new policy indicates, how can those persons give evidence related to what did or did not happen in the Senate’s process? Does their knowledge or the complainant’s own knowledge of events become subject to the confidentiality clause that could lead to disciplinary measures because it is information that is likely to reveal the identity of a person involved in a complaint — parties or witnesses — outside of the complaint resolution process?

Furthermore, as making a complaint pursuant to the Canada Labour Code is not a disclosure that is required by law, I am finding it difficult to see how a complainant who brings in an unsuccessful use of the Senate’s process will not fall afoul with the letter of that confidentiality wording and would open that employee up to some form of disciplinary action as making an unauthorized disclosure.

These issues are deeply concerning. There is a preliminary examination that has led to my making this amendment. I conclude by reminding honourable senators that secrecy far more often serves perpetrators and their host institutions than it actually helps victims of abused power and breaches of trust.

I will now read into the record the motion that I propose.