Internal VicPD survey results show both white and racialized participants feel discriminated against based on their race and gender

The results of an internal VicPD workplace survey reveal a stark contrast between the views and experiences of the department’s white male members and those of its white female and racialized members. Among the findings: 76% of white survey participants agreed with the statement that VicPD values diverse racial or ethnic identities and experiences, while only 16% of racialized participants did.

Commissioned by the Victoria and Esquimalt Police Board and conducted by the Victoria-based nonprofit The Inclusion Project (TIP), the survey aimed to determine the “existence or pervasiveness” of discrimination based on race and gender within VicPD. Its findings were quietly released in a report to the police board in December 2021.

“Racialized participants do not seem to believe that their experiences are valued at VicPD; the comments from white participants suggest that this might be true,” the report says.

The survey was conducted over the course of ten days in late September 2021. Participants completed a series of questions online, providing the researchers with both statistical and descriptive data.

A stated limitation of the findings is the “inherent lack of diversity” within the department. Of the 115 VicPD members who participated, only 11% identified as a visible minority; most of them Indigenous. TIP did not provide responses to the questions Capital Daily sent about the survey.

“Interestingly, both white and racialized participants felt that they were being discriminated against based on their race,” the report says, “while participants who identified as men and those who identified as women felt that they were being discriminated against based on their gender. This indicates that there is an overall feeling that needs are not being met, in correlation to identity.”

Racialized respondents pessimistic on workplace treatment

Despite grievances coming from every direction, significantly more racialized participants (60%) than white participants (20%) reported having observed or experienced a “negative, degrading, hostile or abusive comment or occurrence” related to race or ethnicity. Many of the white participants “seemingly do not recognize” racist behaviour, the report notes.

The survey results expose a wide gap between racialized and white participants concerning inappropriate jokes on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and disabilities—with 73% of the white participants and only 25% of racialized participants indicating the department makes it clear that such jokes are not tolerated. White men, at 79%, were the most likely of all groups to believe VicPD demonstrates a clear lack of tolerance for identity-based inappropriate jokes.

Responses to the question "Have you ever experienced or observed a negative, degrading, hostile or abusive comment or occurrence within VicPD that was connected

to you or someone else’s race or ethnicity?" [Note: In the third segment, reflecting the handful of respondents who did not disclose their gender, there appears to be a graphing error for the Racialized responses]

BIPOC officers have told Capital Daily they’ve endured racist slights and microaggressions at VicPD for decades, ranging from recent comments about Indigenous people “bitching about” residential schools to a jokey remark a few years after 9/11 implying that two South Asian officers talking quietly together were plotting to blow up a plane. Two discrimination complaints against VicPD, by an Indigenous constable and a former civilian employee of colour, are currently in front of the Human Rights Commission.

General discontent around mentorship, development, and advancement

On the survey’s questions related to professional development, all identity groups expressed what the report describes as a “general feeling of discontent,” though visible minorities reported feeling less supported by management than their white counterparts.

None of the white women or racialized participants said they believe that  VicPD offers equal opportunities for mentorship and professional development. Instead, TIP found, they perceive “policies, scheduling, and professional advancement opportunities” as favouring white men, “who also serve as gatekeepers to similar opportunities.” White men expressed concern over minority quotas factoring into decisions regarding hiring and promotions.

The report notes that some of the responses from white male participants “suggest a belief that women and minorities are less qualified than white men, and that lived experience should not be considered when assessing qualification.”

While responses from women and racialized participants repeatedly made reference to an “old boys’ club” that advantages white males, white male participants repeatedly denied the existence of systemic racism, both inside and outside the department.

Some of the white men did, however, perceive discrimination at VicPD—as targeting themselves.

“Being a straight Caucasian male is a guaranteed ticket to the bottom in this place,” one noted.

“I am a white male so therefore I will never be promoted,” offered another.

Despite the white male participants’ perceptions of unfair treatment, the report says the survey findings “suggest that they continue to be the demographic group that experiences the highest advantages.”

The makeup of VicPD’s leadership suggests that too. Zero visible minorities currently sit on the current ten-member senior leadership team at VicPD, and only three of those positions are filled by women. The three-member executive leadership team is all male; only one—the chief constable—is a visible minority.

PD’s demographics can affect policing and public experience

Diversity in police departments matters when it comes to interactions with the public. The report notes that a lack of diversity has had a “harmful and dangerous impact on policing outcomes” and points to a longstanding mistrust of police agencies among Indigenous, Black, and other racialized groups as a result of historical colonial violence.

In 2017, Michael Regis, then a UVic graduate student, prepared a report for the Greater Victoria Police Diversity Advisory Committee on communities’ perceptions of local police. African-Caribbean participants revealed that their community felt profiled, oversurveilled, mistreated, and unjustly ticketed by police officers. Indigenous participants also reported being mistreated and targeted by police.

In Canada, law enforcement is known to disproportionately interact with visible minorities. Data obtained through an FOI request by Victoria resident Stephen Harrison shows that to be the case in Victoria too: for example, while Indigenous people make up only 5% of the population, 10% of the people in VicPD’s street check reports from 2007 to 2017 were Indigenous. Black people were also overrepresented in those reports, comprising 2.4% of those checked while making up only 1.4% of the population. And between 2016 and 2021, Indigenous people made up 13% of those labeled as suspects in VicPD’s general occurrence reports.

All Indigenous participants in Regis’s study expressed a desire for the police in Greater Victoria to recruit Indigenous officers. In 2021, only six of the 160 VicPD sworn officers who participated in an internal demographic study identified as Indigenous; 14, or 8.75%, identified as visible minorities (who comprise 16% of the population served by the department).

TIP’s report highlights a 2018 study suggesting that increasing the proportion of visible minorities on a police force can lead to “a significant decrease” in substantiated misconduct complaints. A VicPD spokesperson told Capital Daily that she believes two of the department’s five new recruits are visible minorities.

Unclear whether changes have been made following survey

The report concludes that systemic changes are needed “to bring a meaningful shift toward a safe, inclusive, and fair workplace” and offers a number of recommendations—among them, providing greater transparency for hiring and promotion decisions and adopting a “holistic, systems change approach” to support VicPD’s staff and leadership in implementing inclusive practices.

VicPD referred Capital Daily’s questions about the workplace survey to the police board; the lead co-chair of the police board, Esquimalt Mayor Barb Desjardins, said that TIP’s findings helped inform VicPD’s Roadmap for a Healthy and Inclusive Workplace. The roadmap’s action plan includes hiring an external facilitator to assist with the creation of an equity, diversity, and inclusion strategy, which would include anti-racism education and training.

A separate internal survey on mental health and well-being, which Capital Daily has previously reported on, also played a role in the creation of the roadmap.

Desjardins would not say whether, in the 15 months since the board received  TIP’s findings, VicPD has implemented any of its recommendations or made any of the changes outlined in the roadmap.