By Brenda Quenneville, North Bay.
To the Board of Governors and decision makers at Canadore College;
I feel for you. I’ve been there. I too had someone I respected and cared about, identified as a threat to another’s safety. It was horrible. At first, I didn’t want to believe it. It was simply too upsetting – my stomach was in knots, I cried a lot. It was like my world as I knew it was being turned upside down. The allegations just didn’t align with what my personal subjective experience had been with him.
As a professional, I knew I couldn’t solely rely on my personal subjective experience. So, I drew upon all my education, professional development training and violence against women field experience to look at the situation objectively. I started to see the situation from a very different lens.
In my situation, sadly, I saw caring, wonderful people – just like you – trying to deal with workplace sexual harassment as best they could while lacking that specialized knowledge. I don’t think it was easy for them either. The thing is, without that knowledge, there is a high risk of continued traumatization of those who are already suffering. And that is the situation you have at Canadore.
Complainants who are forced to continue working in an environment in which they feel unsafe, are continuing to be traumatized. You must ensure their safety. You can do this by immediately removing the person who is compromising the safety of others, from active employment at Canadore.
By keeping him there, you, as decision-makers are now knowingly, contributing actors in the continued traumatization of the complainants at Canadore.
By keeping him there, you are clearly demonstrating, that you lack specialized knowledge of sexual harassment and violence and are ill-equipped for managing this situation.
But please, have hope. There are things you can do to turn this around.
First, make the safety of Canadore your top priority and walk him out. He cannot have an active presence at the workplace until this is fully resolved.
Second, recognize that you lack the specialized knowledge of sexual harassment and violence. Ask for help. Your violence against women community partners hold this critical knowledge. Pull them close and ask for their help in how to make Canadore safe again.
Third, please remember, you have a legislated responsibility to ensure Canadore College is a safe workplace. Just because he hasn’t hurt you, doesn’t mean he hasn’t hurt others.
If you want to talk with me about this, you can find me at the rally, Friday, April 5, 4 p.m. corner of College drive and Monastery road.
Respectfully,
Brenda Quenneville
