We are changing our monthly updates. In short, we will update you matters when they roll out rather than fall into a monthly lock step and less than informative process. This may lead to more posts or less. Please take note of this change moving forward. Where things stand presently is this: substantively, nothing has changed following Dana and the employer’s submissions to the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC). We are still waiting to hear from the investigator who oversees the next steps of this process.
When the investigator does contact Dana, we will advise you that it is starting. However, apart from this general news, we will likely not be able to share much else. It is likely that we be asked by the investigator to keep the actual content and inquiry lines of the investigation that she/he discusses with us confidential to avoid compromising the process.
What we will continue to post and highlight moving forward are news and articles related to this complaint that may interest you. Under our news section you will find a recent new post outlining the steps Calgary Police Services is taking to audit its processes given the on-going issues its members are experiencing relating to bullying and harassment (to access this article click here).
Acknowledging, seeking out and understanding a problem is the first step in solving it. With its stakeholders and external experts, organizational leadership should, as a second step, develop a public plan to deal with the issues an audit discloses. This public plan and its execution should be periodically reviewed, and organizational leadership must be held accountable for its implementation, on-going amendment, and success. This plan should be viewed as an important business objective just like any other. Like other important business objectives, it will require resources, energy, and attention to succeed.
To bring about real change, the plan will need to do more than just consist of a few “listening” meetings, parade floats, single day annual seminars of preaching to the choir and being satisfied with superficial “catch phrase” button and poster campaigns. There is much more to dealing with this significant set of issues than a Senior Manager posting a picture on Twitter wearing his pink underwear. That’s not solidarity. This and all the other stuff are just fluff, pandering and half-hearted tokenism. Enough already. These things do not bring about substantive change. Most everyone sees this fluff for what it is and finds it underwhelming and less than satisfying. These “woke” activities insult Men who support meaningful change and want a better functioning workplace. It also goes without saying that Women in the Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) deserve way better.
Management and Union leadership need to get serious. No more tabling of Labour Management Consultation Committee (LUMCC) standing items about low morale and member on member bullying and harassment from meeting to meeting, year after year. Just dig in and discuss these. Real work needs to be done on assessing and remediating agreements, memorandums, policies, implementing effective redress and zero tolerance programs, and supporting same with educative programs – all of which will bring about long needed change in organizational culture. Unless you have been locked away in a cave, it is impossible to deny awareness of the issues that have been raised by Women within the CCG and Dana’s Human Rights complaint. We need Senior Management and the Union leadership to stop being passive and willfully blind to these issues. Men and Women in the organization need you both to stop posturing and just do the work to make the CCG a safer more inclusive workplace. DO BETTER.
That is all for now. We feel blessed by the loud, uncensored and unblock able voice this website lends us and the Women at the CCG. It is an important platform for speaking plainly and freely about our concerns and openly calling out what we see happening. It lets us share our perspective, expose facts and peel back the false narratives.
We also appreciate the venue it lends for sharing various topics of information like the recent happenings at the Calgary Police Services. We will continue to monitor and post these types of events to see how they roll out. We believe it is important to post these types of articles as they may have value to addressing some of the problems the CCG is experiencing.
In closing, we hope you are doing well. We remain open to hearing from any of you and may be reached at the contact information set out in our website. As always, we continue to stand firm in seeing this matter progress forward.