National Post (National Edition)
Parliament’s security force seeks outside investigators
OTTAWA • Parliament’s security force says it’s dealt with multiple harassment complaints and now it’s hiring outside investigators to ensure it can manage future cases. The Parliamentary Protective Service sets out its need for third-party help in a publicly posted contract tender that also says the force dealt with a backlog of cases earlier this year.
The security force recently had a “significant number of active, formal harassment complaints,” according to the tender document.
These have since all been dealt with, but third-party investigators are needed to guard against future backlogs, a spokesman for the security force says.
“The reason why we are going with that (request for proposal) is because we need to be able to have our own list of vendors that we can rely on for third-party investigation,” said Joseph Law, chief of staff to the director of the Parliamentary Protective Service.
Law said he could not disclose the specific nature or the number of harassment cases that led to the previous backlog, citing privacy concerns.
The security force has been following harassment prevention policies developed by the House of Commons and the Senate, which call for a third-party investigator.
However, the force sought outside help because it doesn’t have internal resources dedicated specifically to implement these policies or to conduct third-party investigations.
It’s in the process of finalizing its own harassment prevention policy, which is expected to be ready for implementation later this year.