Female police officers in B.C. Appeal Court to fight for class-action case against sex abuse

Former police officer Lauren Phillips speaks outside B.C Supreme Court. Photo by NICK PROCAYLO /PNG

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Six female police officers proposing a class-action lawsuit against 13 B.C. municipal forces for bullying, discrimination and sexual harassment want the B.C. Appeal Court to overturn a lower court’s decision to have their case heard through union grievances.

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They are appealing a Supreme Court judge’s decision in October that the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the proposed class action. The lawsuit was filed in 2023 against police boards and municipalities, as well as the Police Complaint Commissioner and the province.

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The officers’ lawyer, Kyle Bienvenu, argued the lower court ruling to send the issue to a labour arbitrator was in error on a number of points.

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But Jill Yates, a lawyer for the Surrey Police Service, cited several similar cases that were settled through a labour arbitrator, including those that involved police departments and Charter challenges.

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She agreed that a union may not decide to grieve a case or provide protection to all members, but “that doesn’t mean the issue belongs in the courts.”

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Outside court, Lauren Phillips, one of the plaintiffs, said she experienced abuse when she worked for New Westminster Police but didn’t want to discuss details. She said she showed up with about a dozen other officers on Monday to show her support for the appeal.

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She agreed with Bienvenu, who told the court that female officers who file union grievances or complaints against their abusers put a “giant red flag” over them.

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The argument that systemic discrimination and harassment can be dealt with through the union or even oversight agencies isn’t a solution, she said.

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“That is leaving a number of women in policing exposed” to more abuse or retribution, especially when male officers head the union, said Phillips. “It’s just more deferral of blame.”

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She said she put her name forward as one of the six representative plaintiffs for the proposed class action, which would compensate officers who suffered abuse, so officers wouldn’t have to file individual complaints.

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It’s “one hundred per cent” difficult for women, especially in smaller forces but even in larger ones, because of attitudes that demeaned them as women and in some cases limited their careers.

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The original lawsuit included reports of unwanted sexual touching and comments, posting of graphic and misogynistic photographs and drawings of penises in the workplace, routine “jokes” about oral sex, and even being called “hot mama” or being told they had “child-bearing” hips.

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One officer said she was asked to wait on other officers and stock the cooler with beers, according to the claim.

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As recently as three years ago, Vancouver police Const. Anja Bergler, one of the plaintiffs, said in the lawsuit her photo was included along with those of six other women and other officers in a parody of an official poster that hung in a VPD forensic identification unit for 12 days. The poster, referring to officers having to obtain penile swabs from sexual assault suspects, was tagged with the line “swabbing penises for over 100 years,” even though women are never assigned that duty.