Political staffers split on whether harassment legislation will work: survey
OTTAWA — The Liberal government has proposed strict new rules to govern harassment in federal workplaces — including on Parliament Hill — but political staffers are split on whether the changes will make a difference.
“Legislation is one thing,” wrote one respondent to a recent survey of political staffers by The Canadian Press. “Hearts and minds is another.”
The Canadian Press distributed a questionnaire to those working in offices of MPs, senators and cabinet ministers in Ottawa, asking them to share their opinions and experiences with sexual assault and sexual harassment on Parliament Hill.
The non-representative results of the survey, which garnered 266 responses, don’t allow broad conclusions about the scale of the problem, since there’s no way to verify the size of the population. But they do illustrate the challenges faced by male and female staffers alike as they contend with a culture many say fosters the conditions for abuse.