A high-ranking RCMP officer has decided to retire instead of appearing before a disciplinary hearing on a case of inappropriate sexual behavior that involves a colleague, according to the information obtained by radio-channel.
The personnel sergeant was twice as much age of the plaintiff, 20 years at the time of alleged events, which included flirtatious text messages and brief sexual encounters in 2022 and 2023.
By summoning him at a conduct hearing last year, the RCMP sought to formally fire the police officer experienced by an inappropriate relationship that implies an imbalance of power.
Upon retiring, the sergeant of the staff will avoid a disciplinary hearing that, if he had continued, he would have revealed within the organization and made public on the RCMP website.
According to data obtained by Radio-Canada, 74 RCMP employees decided to retire after being called to a behavior audience between 2020 and 2024. These employees maintain their pension, although the matter is observed in their human resources file and can be shared with future employers as part of the reference controls.
The woman who filed a complaint against the sergeant of the staff is disappointed with the result. She works for the RCMP as part of a federal part -time employment program for university students.
“Justice is not done or done to [complainants] And his case is swept under the carpet because we are protecting the officers who are doing bad things, “he said in an interview.
To protect the plaintiff’s identity, Radio-Canada has decided not to reveal certain details about his former RCMP colleague.
The RCMP has dealt for a long time with problems related to sexual harassment. In 2016, the then commissioner Bob Paulson apologized with hundreds of victims of sexual harassment. The RCMP concluded its collective action agreement of $ 125 million on harassment, discrimination and sexual abuse claims with more than 2,300 people in 2020.
The RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme said that the sanctions have recently hardened for some inappropriate behavior, including the relationships that involve a superior in a position of authority.
“Anything that has to do with sexual assault, sexual harassment, the inappropriate relationship within the organization or abroad, is not tolerated,” he said in an interview. “People who are abusive or do not respect the code of conduct, or what is more important, the ethics of the organization, I do not want them in the organization.”
Duheme praised those who denounce unacceptable behavior within the force, and added that he hopes that none suffer a violent reaction.
“I greet the courage of the people who present themselves,” he said. “As leader of the organization, I want to make sure that this person has all the support he needs to make sure they are accompanied throughout this, because it is not an easy task.”
The woman was just over 20 years old, while the personnel sergeant was about 40 years old, when they met in the gym in an RCMP building in 2022.
Later they fraternized in The Mess, a work bar where employees drink drinks and play the pool on Thursday night.
Shortly after his first meeting, the police officer sent him a friend request on Facebook, he recently told Radio-channel.
The two seemed to enjoy messages from each other, but he was the one who started most of his conversations, he said. He added that his texts became a more sexual nature after he asked him to communicate with the signal of the encrypted messaging application.
Over time, staff sergeant gave her small gifts and invited her to join him on work trips, according to some of her exchanges in 2022 and 2023.
“I admired it and how they all admired him and then gave me a favor. So I felt special,” he said.
In the course of a few months, his contact also evolved, starting with hugs and kisses on the cheeks, especially after the two took some drinks in the disaster.
One night in the spring of 2023, the RCMP officer offered to take the student to his car, adding that he first needed to finish some tasks in his office. It was then that his relationship took an unexpected turn for the student, who said he was watching a toy RCMP car in his office.
“It was then that he approached me and began to kiss me and grabbed my leg and he was touching me everywhere. It didn’t last long, it was like a couple of seconds. And I was very surprised that that happened,” he said. “I felt really uncomfortable.”
The plaintiff says she did not know at the time the actions probably violated the code of conduct that governs RCMP members. He admired the sergeant of the staff, whose range is generally assigned team managers.
“I thought it was normal because I told me that he knows that I am a student, so it must be fine,” he said.
That incident was followed by another similar one, after another night at the RCMP bar.
In a state of shock once again, the student decided to end the relationship, saying that his interactions went against his values. Although he was seeing someone else, the sergeant of the staff allegedly tried to convince her to maintain the relationship, that she rejected, she says.
“I did not plan or prepare for that. So I was crying in my car, feeling a deep sense of repentance for doing that,” he said.
After discussing the matter with colleagues, they encouraged her to file an official complaint, which he did in August 2023.
“My main motivation to inform is that I did not want other students to be persuaded in that way and then do things that would later regret having done because they were not informed,” he said.
After an investigation and review of the RCMP lawyers, the organization concluded that there were reasons to bring the matter before a conduct hearing. According to the RCMP, this hearing is “begins in cases where the dismissal of the member is sought based on the general circumstances of the accusations.”
‘That is not a punishment’
More than a year and a half after presenting her complaint, the student recently learned that her file was ready to be closed.
The personnel sergeant decided to retire instead of appearing before the Disciplinary Hearing, where he would have had to respond to accusations of inappropriate sexual behavior, conflict of interests and abuse of power.
The student said the result gives the impression that the RCMP offered an elegant exit to his officer.
“That is not a punishment. It’s almost like a reward,” he said.
In addition to the incidents with the staff of the staff, he said that the work environment in the RCMP includes numerous sexual jokes, including at least one attempt at humor in reference to the rape drugs of the date.
The RCMP Commissioner did not comment on the specific case of the staff of the personnel who decided to retire, but said he was satisfied when the employees left their own volition.
“There is nothing in the law that allows me to prevent these people from retiring. On the other hand, if a person is gone, I am happy because it is not someone who should be in the organization,” Duheme said.
Radio-Canada contacted the staff sergeant, who did not respond to our requests for comments.
Janet Merlo, one of the main plaintiffs in collective lawsuit, was launched against RCMP in 2012, said the RCMP is ignoring its obligations to end discrimination against women.
“In terms of the agreement, they paid the money, which was the easy part for them,” said the former agent in an interview.
But the number of harassment incidents that regularly inform him of people within the RCMP is proof that culture has not really changed in recent years, he said.
“It is the same play book, it is the same story that we have heard again and again. And to keep happening, and someone in a higher range that should know a young person better, only shows how toxic it is still,” said Merlo.
The former judge of the Supreme Court, Michel Bastarache, who produced a scathing report on harassment in the RCMP in 2020, blamed Ottawa for not solving problems within the Federal Police.
“The problem now is whether this government will implement my recommendations instead of publishing a rhetoric as [former prime minister Justin Trudeau]. I would like journalists to tell the public that the scandal is real and huge and that the government cannot leave the matter aside, “said Bastarache, whose report was called broken lives, broken dreams: the devastating effects of sexual harassment on women in the RCMP.
The RCMP said it plans to publish a portal on its website this fall to demonstrate how it is responding to the recommendations of the Bastarache report, published five years ago.
The organization says that it has adopted stricter measures in several cases of employee’s misconduct, including cases of intimate parts violence and the exchange of confidential information of their databases.
In its 2024 behavior measures guide, the RCMP specifically lists a federal program for student workers as “additional vulnerabilities” of a subordinate in the context of an intimate relationship.
In addition to wanting to accelerate the process to discard certain employees, the RCMP plans to use degradations or freezing in promotions more frequently as disciplinary measures.
“I expect a higher standard from all our RCMP employees because we are subject to a higher standard than all Canadians,” Duheme said.
