“I think we should dissolve the human resources department in the Calgary Police Service, and have police officers and police employees report directly to the city HR department for complaints and personnel matters,” said Diane Colley-Urquhart, who also serves as a member of the police commission.
Colley-Urquhart spoke out after meeting secretly with female officers in her home who told her they were fearful of reporting discrimination and sexual harassment to their own HR staff. “I realize it’s a very provocative position to take, but time is of the essence to get this right,” she noted.
Police officers should be able to go to the city’s human resources department instead, Colley-Urquhart suggested. An internal report credits the police’s HR staff with doing a few things well, but said the officers handling HR are not trained to deal with other employees.
Colley-Urquhart also called for a reconciliation process to make clear that female officers are equal to their male co-workers and for superiors to denounce the treatment the officers have faced. “This has created an aftermath of casualties along the way, with no resolutions,” she said, according to the article. “We’re talking about loss of careers, mental health problems, depression, anxiety. It has to stop.”