Anti-harassment ‘tool kit’ for new council hires falls short, city told

Recommendations to better protect Ottawa councillors’ assistants, following allegations of predatory behaviour, fail to address systemic sexual harassment, the city’s finance and economic development committee heard Tuesday.

The recommendations from the clerk’s office come as a result of the city integrity commissioner’s continuing investigation into College ward Coun. Rick Chiarelli and allegations that he sexually harassed applicants and employees.

Last year, integrity commissioner Robert Marleau received multiple complaints about Chiarelli’s allegedly inappropriate conduct with potential hires and office staff. Chiarelli has denied all allegations.

“This is so systemic,” Somerset Coun. Catherine McKenney said, adding there are examples of wrongdoing and discrimination at city hall, but “we know that most of the time it’s not addressed” and that the person making complaints against their bosses will, at some point, “pay a price for that.”

The recommendations include a standardized “tool kit” for council members that would require new members to have training in hiring and recruitment, and new council assistants would have mandatory orientation sessions. Assistants voluntarily leaving their jobs could have exit interviews to help inform the hiring process.

All council members and their staff would have mandatory gender equity, diversity and harassment training.

City clerk Rick O’Connor launched the review of the process for hiring council assistants, who are non-union, in response to the Chiarelli investigation.

The city hasn’t had a standardized recruitment process for the assistants. Councillors can run the hiring on their own, or they can use HR support from the clerk’s office.

Fiona Mitchell, herself a councillor’s assistant, told the committee that assistants have had to deal with trauma on the job and that there’s no manual to consult on how to navigate the community, deal with a homicide in the ward or handle the allegations made by co-workers against a boss.

“These were our colleagues,” she said.

Mitchell asked that a mental-health counsellor be available to assistants and called for assistants to be consulted before the final policy is adopted.

Erin Leigh, the executive director of the Ottawa Coalition to End Violence Against Women, said in an address to the committee that she was “confused and disappointed” to read both the reports of both the consultants and the city clerk, which she described as bureaucratic.

She called for adoption of all the clerk’s recommendations but also made several suggestions, including asking to develop the means for anonymous reporting, open-door policies to foster reporting and a citywide campaign detailing what sexual harassment in the workplace looks like.

McKenney asked consultants Samson & Associates how council can protect vulnerable employees.

“Raising awareness towards sexual harassment is the key to what you’re referring to,” one of the consultants said.

That consultant heard from assistants who didn’t know where to turn when they have a problem. The recommendation is that proper guidance for new employees, with instructions on where and whom to turn to with concerns, would address that.

With files from Jon Willing