'Time's Up': RCMP, military harassment survivors joining forces to push for change

OTTAWA -

Content warning: The content may be distressing to some readers.

Survivors of harassment in the RCMP and Canadian military are joining forces to pressure the federal government to act on years of calls for stronger independent oversight and measures to stamp out misconduct and mistreatment within those institutions.

Sparked by what one survivor has described as the “shameful” and “triggering” spotlight put on both the Canadian Armed Forces and Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the last year, the effort intends to push the government to implement “totally independent” oversight of misconduct claims.

“We just keep seeing these stories come week after week after week,” said Janet Merlo, a former RCMP officer who led the fight as a representative plaintiff in a $125.4 million federal class action lawsuit, and who is now part of the small group of Canadians spearheading this initiative. “And so, a few of us got together and thought, ‘Maybe if we join forces … to put some pressure on the government basically to do something.’”

She said that despite a years-long fight for change, including through lawsuits and numerous reports and inquiries recommending solutions, meaningful results have yet to materialize.

“Time's up,” she said in an interview with CTVNews.ca on Tuesday.

While the alliance and its planned actions are still coming together, Merlo said she’s calling on both current and former RCMP and military members as well as members of the general public who want to see things changed, to reach out and add their voices to this new effort.

Merlo said part of the aim will be to educate the public about the strain she said is still being felt by the police and military members who are tasked with keeping them safe, as well as drawing attention to tax dollars being spent “paying out lawsuits rather than fixing a problem.”

“Report after report is ignored, and their initiatives are far from being adequate,” she said. “What every report has said over the years is that nothing will cure it, or fix the problem other than totally independent oversight of all the misconduct, and it's just not happening. They won't do it.”

“It’s shameful... for other countries to look at Canada and look at what's happening, the whole police and military structures are in crisis. And it's not good enough,” she said.

Merlo is set to speak more about this new effort on Tuesday evening at an event marking the fifth anniversary of the Institute of Change Leaders (ICL), a training organization founded by former NDP MP Olivia Chow.

It was during a recent ICL training session that the idea for this alliance started to come together, Merlo said.

Her message to Defence Minister Anita Anand and Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino heading into the new Parliament is: “Do something. People are dying, people are losing their careers, they’re committing suicide… It shouldn’t be happening,” she said.

Merlo’s RCMP colleague and friend Krista Carle died by suicide in 2018, after fighting against sexual harassment and bullying in the service for years.

“She would be mortified to see that we’re still here years later,” Merlo said. “For those still serving, we need to make it better and we need to do it in memory of those who are no longer with us.”

Many of the women who came forward in the Merlo-Davidson class action process—named after Merlo and joining plaintiff Linda Davidson—have been diagnosed with serious psychological injuries including depression, PTSD, substance abuse, and anxiety, with many expressing a lack of trust in others, feelings of isolation, a lack of self-esteem, and challenges in personal relationships.

Merlo said that despite the long-lasting mental and emotional toll that her experience with the RCMP and public backlash amid the lawsuit has taken, she would “totally” do it all again.

“I don't think the journey is over until we see the change that we set out to bring about,” she said.

APOLOGY, SETTLEMENT NOT THE END

After enduring years of sexual harassment when she was an officer, Merlo filed the class action lawsuit in 2012.

The settlement was announced 2016, alongside an apology from then-RCMP commissioner Bob Paulson. The settlement saw 2,304 women receive compensation for claims of bullying, harassment, sexual assault, and discrimination while working for RCMP.

“After the lawsuit was done, I think they thought we'd all just go away, and that was never the point of it. The point of it was to make change in the system,” Merlo said.

However, she said there’s been a continued need for advocacy for reforms because in her view, not enough has been done and the “political will” to change things is lacking.

In June, Merlo was among the former employees and sexual harassment survivors who cast doubt on how truly independent the new harassment resolution centre that the national police force implemented was.

The Independent Centre for Harassment Resolution (ICHR) was created following a scathing report released in November 2020 titled "Broken Dreams Broken Lives," that detailed a persisting “toxic” culture and tolerance of misogyny, racism, and homophobia amongst RCMP members and leaders.

The report—prepared by former Supreme Court of Canada Justice Michel Bastarache in relation to the implementation of the Merlo Davidson settlement agreement— called for external help and an independent study of all aspects of the RCMP to identify and remove the systemic barriers that prevent women in particular from succeeding within the force.

At the time, then-minister Bill Blair said that he’d spoken with RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki and insisted that reforms were urgently needed.

Merlo said to this day “the system isn’t there for people to confidently report.”

STORIES OF MILITARY MISCONDUCT 'TRIGGERING'

Merlo said that watching the ongoing flow of news stories over the past year of senior military officials accused of and investigated for misconduct has been “very triggering.”

“Knowing that all we fought for, and nothing has been done, it's just frustrates me to no end,” Merlo said.

With the news that the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces are still planning an apology to victims of military sexual misconduct tied to a separate class action settlement, and are in the process of transferring sexual misconduct cases to civilian authorities, Merlo cautioned that these steps won’t exercise the systemic issues from the military.

“Don't do the apology, if you're not going to follow it up with action,” she said.