Kim Pemberton, Vancouver Sun
RCMP Cpl. Jacqueline Brown says she doesn't feel like a winner.
After succeeding in a human rights discrimination case against the force for denying her a promotion over a less qualified candidate, the 39-year-old officer says the four-year process has left her so mentally and financially stressed she now questions whether going to the Canadian Human Rights Commission was worth the trouble.
"I'm at that point that if someone asked me if I would do it again I'd say it's not worth it. The battle is too hard," she said. "I would have been better off to quit, even though I've wanted to be an RCMP officer all my life. It's my dream job."
The 16-year veteran's troubles with the RCMP began after she was turned down for a promotion to the Columbia Valley detachment in Invermere in March 2000.
Brown, the youngest of 12 in a close-knit family, had applied to the smaller, 10-officer detachment to be closer to her family. She said her father had suffered a massive heart attack and was in Calgary -- a four-hour drive from Invermere. Brown said the force had turned her down for compassionate leave, so her only hope of getting to her dad was to apply for the Invermere job.
"I felt totally betrayed. My father was dying. It was a promotion I had earned. I wasn't asking for a favour," she said.
Brown, who is also married to an RCMP officer, said her husband was supportive of her decision and would have left his Vancouver job to be with her. He had applied to the RCMP for unpaid, child-care leave to look after the two preschool children they had then, but was also turned down.
The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal recently ruled Jacqueline Brown was discriminated against on the basis of family status. The report states RCMP witnesses "openly acknowledged that marital status was the major factor in the decision [not to give Brown the Columbia Valley detachment job] and no real explanation was provided by the Respondent [the RCMP], other than to establish that there were significant expenses associated with moving a member to another posting. The Career Management Unit was under strict orders not to spend money."
The tribunal's report also noted that Sgt. Ed Kallin, the commander in charge of the Columbia Valley detachment, had told Staff-Sgt. Steve Wills he didn't want any more female officers because when they took maternity leave it left his detachment understaffed. The commission's ruling stated that while there "may have been remnants of an historical bias against female members, particularly at the lower levels, there was no "convincing evidence" Brown's gender affected her promotion.
In an interview with The Vancouver Sun, Brown said she decided to take her complaint to the Human Rights Commission after she heard about Kallin's remarks, She said she had unsuccessfully tried to solve the issue through the RCMP's internal grievance process.
"We [female officers] all put up with a little bit, but that was too much," she said.
"To me it was blatantly wrong. The guy who refused to take me is still head of the detachment. He was spoken to, but no disciplinary action was taken. I would have expected an internal investigation," she said, noting that before her being denied the promotion, a female recruit scheduled to go to Columbia Valley was moved elsewhere.
In an interview, Kallin denied having made the comment about not wanting female officers.
However, he agreed that maternity leaves by female members have left the detachment understaffed at times.
"We have female constables and when they go out on maternity that position is left open," he said. "It would cause problems for anyone, whether you work for the RCMP or in the private sector. When you are down one officer, the ramifications are immense. The burden on everyone else is harder. You have to cover the shifts as best you can."
He said one of his two female officers is scheduled to take a maternity year July 11 and that will mean the detachment will be down one officer for that period.
"It's a real problem for the RCMP. Where do you find people to come here for one year? That's also a huge commitment on the taxpayers' dollars."
But Wills, who at the time was an RCMP member representative, said Kallin had gone on a "rampage about females" when he spoke to him by telephone to try to find a resolution of the situation concerning Brown.
"I was taken aback, disappointed and surprised," said Wills, who added he respects Kallin as a police officer but disagrees with his position on female officers.
"Cpl. Brown is a very, very brave woman. There's women in the mounted police that should look up to her for the gumption. She had to right a wrong."
Brown and Wills said women officers shouldn't be faulted when the RCMP doesn't replace them during maternity leaves. Brown added she knows of some officers who don't have large families because "they know their peers will resent them and their careers will suffer."
RCMP spokesman Staff-Sgt. Paul Marsh said it can be a challenge for the force to replace members who take maternity leave and agreed there are instances where they are not replaced. But he said the responsibility is on the detachment commanders to ensure there is an "acceptable level of policing" and to ensure the safety of officers and the community.
After she was denied the Invermere position, Brown said she was offered a position in Burnaby as a traffic officer, but ended up going on stress leave. She is now back working for the RCMP in the Vancouver headquarters' Proceeds of Crime Unit.
She said she never wanted to go public with her story and has always worried her colleagues wouldn't agree with her decision to make a human rights complaint.
"I didn't want to go public or embarrass the force. There are a lot of really good people," she said.
Since her human rights complaint became public, she said, she has had many supportive calls from other women officers, who have also told her stories of discrimination.
"I won't say the force is bad [regarding discrimination]. It depends where you go. Ninety per cent of people will treat women fairly, but unfortunately there are people out there who won't."
Brown said filing a human rights complaint has also been costly, because she had to pay her own legal expenses. She said a lawyer would have cost $60,000, so she ended up using a lay advocate and spending $12,000.
The commission has not yet determined how much she will receive in settlement of her case, but she said she expects it will be about $5,000 -- far less than she spent.
"There's something wrong with the system," she said. "Human Rights is not accessible to most people. If you want to file a complaint you have to pay."
Her husband, Cpl. Collin Brown, said one of the force's mission statements is that it will treat everyone with respect. But in the case of his wife, he said, "the executive rank dropped the ball and they're still not prepared to own up to the mistake and acknowledge there is a systemic problem."
The tribunal ruled the RCMP should promote Brown to a better job in Calgary or Saskatoon, saying she was unfairly passed over because she was married to another Mountie.
"We still feel we have to leave the [B.C.] division. We don't feel we have a future," Collin Brown said. "We feel our careers will be limited here because we've raised complaints. I wouldn't consider us whistleblowers . . . we stood up to what we believe was an injustice."
(Article also appeared in the Victoria Times Colonist and the Regina Leader Post)