Educator recalls 'horrific' experience giving sexual harassment talks at RMC

An educator and activist says she was subjected to cat calls, rape jokes and an extremely hostile environment at the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ont., last fall as she gave presentations about sexual harassment to cadets.

Julie Lalonde, the creator of the “Draw the Line” campaign, was invited to deliver a series of presentations on consent and sexual violence to officer cadets at the RMC in October 2014.

She gave four presentations, one to each year, and said that the day “actually got worse as it went on, even though the students were older and had been at RMC longer.”

“It was clear from the get-go that there was incredible hostility, not only towards me but towards the content and they were very, very resistant to my message,” Lalonde told CTV News Channel Friday.

She said it was sadly ironic that she was being harassed while trying to deliver a message about sexual harassment and the need for witnesses to step up and speak out against it.

“If the experience wasn’t so horrific, it would have been funny,” Lalonde said.

She tweeted that although the majority of cadets “participated or condoned what happened,” some of them did defend her.

Lalonde said she complained to the military college but it took five months for the RMC commandant, Brig.-Gen. Al Meinzinger, to send a formal letter of apology to her employer, the Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres.

In the February letter, Meinzinger acknowledged that some of the officer cadets acted unprofessionally and said the RMC was working on identifying those who were involved.

While she’s grateful for the apology, Lalonde said it should not have taken five months of “back and forth” between the RMC and her employer to receive it.

“The fact that it took so long to get it speaks to the fact that I don’t think they really believe that I was wronged or that there is a problem at the RMC,” she said.

Lalonde also said that, had the Deschamps report about misogyny and sexual harassment in the Canadian military not been released, people likely would not have believed her experience at the RMC.

The RMC could not be reached for comment Friday.