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Page 6 OctOber 30, 2017 • Law times www.lawtimesnews.com COMMENT u EDITORIAL OBITER By Gabrielle Giroday All that glitters A mong the lawyers I know in my peer group, there was an incredibly steep drop-off rate when it came to high-paced jobs. This usually accelerated, from what they told me, at about the seven- to 10-year mark of their legal careers. At that point, concerns over work-life balance came to the fore, and some of my peers explained that the cost of a job where the client always came first, regardless of their own well-being, was too high. This is why a report that lawyers who may have high status may have health issues was not surprising, at least not to me. As reported in Legal Feeds, at a presentation at the Action Group on Access To Justice's Access to Justice Week, University of Toronto sociology professors Ronit Dinovitzer and PhD student Jonathan Koltai discussed their recent work and the imperative for the legal community to meet challenges it faces in mental health. They discussed research that indicated that the more lawyers get paid, the more likely they are to experience depression, dissatisfac- tion with their career choice and work-life balance conf lict. "The problem here doesn't start with behaviours at the individ- ual level. It has sources in the way work is organized from the top down, in the organizational climates that require or at least glorify extreme work hours and in those environments that provide very little opportunity for workers to balance responsibilities in their competing life domains," Koltai said. Status does not equate happiness. Gruelling hours take a toll. These are important issues that need to be raised profession-wide. The stigma around mental health issues is eroding, and stud- ies like this support better pathways to success. LT ©2017 Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reprinted or stored in a retrieval system without written per- mission. The opinions expressed in articles are not necessarily those of the publisher. Information presented is compiled from sources believed to be accurate, however, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions. Law Times disclaims any warranty as to the accuracy, completeness or currency of the contents of this publication and disclaims all liability in respect of the results of any action taken or not taken in reli- ance upon information in this publication. Publications Mail Agreement Number 40762529 • ISSN 0847-5083 Law Times is published 40 times a year by Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. 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Karen Lorimer Managing Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jennifer Brown Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gabrielle Giroday Staff Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Alex Robinson Copy Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Patricia Cancilla CaseLaw Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leah Craven Art Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Phyllis Barone Production Co-ordinator . . . . . . . . .Catherine Giles Electronic Production Specialist . . . Derek Welford Harassment on the Hill BY SUSAN DELACOURT I t's rare when Ottawa beats Hollywood to a story. But all the explosive allegations this fall surrounding sexual harass- ment in the movie industry, triggered by producer Harvey Weinstein's reported serial misconduct, is provoking a not-so- welcome feeling of nostalgia in Canada's capital. It was three years ago, almost exactly, in fact, when Parliament Hill was sud- denly awash in stories of sexual impro- priety in the corridors of power. It all began with Jian Ghomeshi, who was abruptly fired from his CBC hosting duties on the last Sunday in October 2014, amid a growing f lood of complaints about his behaviour on and off the job. Though Ghomeshi would later be found not guilty in a much- publicized trial, the controversy seemed to get all Canadians, especially women, talking about the prevalence of sexual harassment in the workplace. Of course, the political workplace was not spared that national conversa- tion. Emboldened by the women who were coming forward in late 2014 to talk about what had happened at the CBC, women in Ottawa started talking, too, about what happened in political offices. It was not unlike the "me too" phenomenon we saw in the last few weeks on so- cial media, post-Weinstein, when women started attach- ing the hashtag #metoo to their Twitter and Facebook posts to show the pervasive- ness of harassment in their own workplaces. But in Ottawa, heads started to roll three years ago. Justin Trudeau, then leader of the third party in the Com- mons, abruptly expelled two Liberal members of Parliament from his caucus one chilly November morning. The MPs, Massimo Pacetti and Scott Andrews, were the reported subjects of complaints from young New Demo- crat members of Parliament. The sub- sequent controversy and investigation ended their political careers (although Andrews did try, unsuccessfully, to run as an independent in his Newfoundland riding in the 2015 election.) Flash forward to today. Has anything changed on Parliament Hill? Well, one concrete result of that controversy was the establishment of a formal policy for reporting on and in- vestigating harassment on Parliament Hill — not just sexual ha- rassment but all kinds, in- cluding abuse of authority and discrimination. It was set up by the Commons in early December, 2014, even as the conversation was still swirling. We haven't heard much about that process or any investigations since then, but two annual reports have been issued — which, inter- estingly enough, didn't get a whole lot of attention. It's understandably so, per- haps, since the number of complaints re- mains relatively few and the reports are devoid of any details. In 2015-16, a total of 10 complaints were registered, five in which MPs were the alleged harassers. At the time of the report, one of the complaints had result- ed in an informal resolution and another one came to a mediated end. It's unclear how the other eight turned out. In 2016-17, the number of complaints had nearly doubled, to 19 in total, but only one was reported resolved. Again, nearly half of the complaints involved an MP, but only two had to do with sexual harassment in particular. Most of the problems, at least seen through this re- porting system, revolved around "abuse of authority." In both years, complaints were direct- ed to male and female alleged harassers, but no details are provided on partisan association or any identifiers, really. What is clear is that the outrage of three years ago over sexual harassment on the Hill has now faded to a whisper. Maybe that's good news — perhaps the airing of stories, not to mention the coming to power of a declared feminist government, has put the bad old days of harassment in the past. Then again, it's also possible that the problems still exist and that they've just gone underground again. A lot of women in Ottawa, of all political stripes, seemed to be posting #metoo on their social media feeds this fall. That's a bit like Hollywood, too, where bad movies don't really go away — they just pop up again in reruns. LT uSusan Delacourt is an Ottawa-based political author and columnist who has been working on Parliament Hill for nearly 30 years. She is a frequent political panellist on national television and au- thor of four books. She can be reached at sdelacourt@bell.net. The Hill Susan Delacourt Susan Delacourt

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