The regular meetings of the Calgary Police Commission are usually orderly and unemotional affairs.
But not last week when a 14-year female police veteran seized the limelight and broke open a scandal that has been simmering in the Calgary Police Service for several years.
Jennifer Magnus Ward stood in the public gallery and tearfully read her letter of resignation, which included accusations of sexual harassment by fellow police officers and cover-ups by police brass.
“I have been bullied, sexually harassed, degraded and chastised. The stresses of this have had a tremendous impact on not only me and my mental and physical health, but also my family,” she said as she read from a prepared statement.
“I am not leaving the Calgary Police Service, it has left me,” she added.
Police Chief Roger Chaffin and the entire police commission, which provides public oversight of the police service, were caught off guard as news media cameras caught the scene and reporters scrambled to record every word.
Ward said emails obtained through a Freedom of Information request suggested some members of the executive had branded her a “chain jumper, challenging and not to be trusted.”
This was not the first time serious allegations of sexual harassment in the Calgary Police Service had been brought to public attention.
Ward, who is married to a police sergeant, was one of two officers who brought forward a complaint to former chief Rick Hanson. He launched a human resources audit on the Calgary force’s culture in 2013.
The final report found evidence of a culture of bullying, harassment, intimidation and retaliation. “Some of the women interviewed reported that over their career they had … ‘1,000 stab wounds’ from workplace interactions,” the review notes.
But the report wasn’t made public until late last year after Ward and 14 other female officers obtained it through a Freedom of Information request and brought it to the attention of city councillor Diane Colley-Urquhart, who sits on the police commission.
The city councillor went to bat for the female officers and the police commission and the police service promised to “change the culture.”
But how long is that going to take? Given the growing awareness of sexual harassment in the workplace, especially in military-style organizations, one would expect the Calgary Police Service, and other police services, would be on top of it.
After all, it was only last October that RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson delivered an apology to women in the force who had been routinely harassed, bullied and taunted by colleagues and superiors ever since the force was opened to women 42 years ago. That long-awaited apology led to a $100 million settlement of two class-action suits.
Calgary’s police service has been known as one of the most progressive, if not the most progressive police service, in the country. In 1995, Christine Silverberg was named chief, the first time a woman had been appointed police chief in major Canadian city.
But that reputation has taken a beating in the past year. The accusations of sexual harassment are only one of several disturbing incidents involving police.
According to statistics gathered by CBC News, in 2016 Calgary police officers shot and either killed or injured more civilians than officers in any other Canadian city. Ten people were shot by police in Calgary, five fatally, while six were shot in Toronto with three fatalities
In October it was announced that three Calgary police officers are facing assault charges after the arrest of a man in July left him with broken ribs, a collapsed lung, cuts to his face and “significant bruising.” Two of the three are also facing charges of public mischief after investigators alleged the officers lied, saying the 34-year-old man resisted an officer when evidence showed he did not.
Two weeks ago, Les Kaminski, president of Calgary’s police union was charged with perjury and assault with a weapon related to an incident in 2008.
Calgarians confidence in their police force has been shaken and it will take much more than empty promises from the police commission and police brass to restore it.
Gillian Steward is a Calgary writer and former managing editor of the Calgary Herald. Her column appears every other week. gsteward@telus.net
Gillian Steward is a Calgary writer and former managing editor of the Calgary Herald. Her column appears every other week. gsteward@telus.net
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