Woman who spoke up on RCMP harassment dies
VANCOUVER Krista Carle, a Vancouver Island woman who spoke out against nearly two decades of sexual harassment and bullying in the RCMP, has died.
Carle, a former RCMP officer, died by suicide Thursday at the age of 53, according to friends.
Catherine Galliford, a former RCMP spokeswoman who graduated from the RCMP with Carle in 1991, said Tuesday that she was heartbroken.
“Krista was a strong woman who fought a lot of tough battles. She was very quick to laugh and she loved her kids,” she said.
Galliford said Carle was her best friend and they spoke at least once a week, but she never suspected she would take her own life.
“I do think it was the (posttraumatic stress disorder), which never goes away,” said Galliford, who also suffered PTSD and was a plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit about harassment and abuse of women within the RCMP. The federal government settled the class-action lawsuit in 2016 for $100 million.
“She went through a very hard time with the RCMP ... I don’t think anyone understands how hard it was to go public about the harassment the way we did.”
With PTSD, there are “very dark days,” said Galliford, and “she had a lot of very dark days.”
In a 2011 interview with Postmedia, Carle said she was diagnosed with PTSD in 2004 after being sexually harassed by colleagues for 19 years. She applied for medical discharge in 2009 due to stress.
Carle started in the Alberta RCMP in 1991. Pornography was placed inside her desk and she endured sexual jokes and inappropriate touching from male colleagues throughout her career, she said.
She described the RCMP as “an old boy’s culture” and said she knew others who had been harassed but were too afraid to speak up.
A former RCMP officer and group spokesperson for many Mounties said Carle’s decision to take her own life won’t be the last time it happens if changes aren’t made soon.
Rob Creasser, of the Mounted Police Professional Association of Canada, said the force has had dozens of opportunities to change its “toxic” culture — and he places a lot of blame on the federal government for that not happening.
Creasser said the government has failed to act on reports commissioned about the RCMP’s workplace, and he accuses the government of “doing nothing.”
Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale has repeatedly said there is zero tolerance for harassment and bullying in the force and has made it clear that the culture needs to change.
Janet Merlo, who was the lead plaintiff in the class-action suit and was also part of the same RCMP graduating class as Carle and Galliford, posted a tribute to her friends on social media.