Canadian women in policing by the numbers

[Supt. Nina Vaughan of the Calgary Police Service employee services division, talks to reporters during a news conference. CBC NEWS]

The Calgary Police Service (CPS) wants to up its game in gender equality and has released a report about how it wants to change its internal culture to make it more open to female candidates who want to be officers.

“You can’t really fix what you can’t understand,” Nina Vaughan of the CPS employee services division told the Calgary Herald earlier this week.

Vaughn spent three years studying the issue and to try to figure out what kind of challenges women face in the force.

One of the recommendations in her study involved creating a Leave Co-ordinator position to help officers who are returning from maternity leave. Other suggestions address educating officers about an institutional culture that works against women.

In the past four years, the number of women at the Calgary Police Service has gone from 14 to 18 per cent — that includes everyone from clerks to senior officers.

A 2014 Statistics Canada report said women comprised 22 per cent of the total number of police constables in the country — that’s a marked increased from 1986 (when statistics became available on women in the forces), when they made up only five per cent.

When looking at clerical workers, women are overwhelmingly represented — 87 per cent — and in what is termed “civilian positions” — 57 per cent.

What’s the state of gender equality for police officers in Canadian cities? Here’s a rundown:

Vancouver: The Vancouver Police Department (VPD) has laid claim to being the first force in Canada to have women officers when Lurancy Harris and Minnie Millar joined in 1912. The B.C. Police Commission only granted women the right to carry firearms in 1973 and to be assigned to patrol duties. Roughly 24 per cent of the officers in the VPD are female. The department says that responsibilities, opportunities for promotion and assignment are all gender-neutral.

Regina: The force puts out an annual employment equity report. In 1992, only four per cent of its workers in “under-represented” positions were taken up by women and in 2015 that is closer to 25 per cent. Its aim is to boost that to 46 per cent.

Winnipeg: The first female police constable was hired in December 1916. The city’s police commission passed a motion in 1967 for equal classes and pay. Policewomen were not issued guns until the 1970s. Currently, about 15 per cent of the force’s officers are female.

Toronto: In 1913, Mary Minty and Maria Levitt became Toronto’s first policewomen. Their jobs included handling female prisoners and supervising dance halls. The pay scale for female officers was equalized in 1945 and the policewomen adopted the proper blue uniforms. By 1974, they were allowed to carry handguns in specially-designed bags. The Toronto Police Service underwent a major diversity review in 2008, with a focus on gender equality. Both civilian staff and those in the officer/constable classes were interviewed in order to reconfigure its human resources structure. About 19 per cent of its uniformed officers are female.

Ottawa: The Ottawa Police Service (OPS) also underwent a major diversity review, with an emphasis on gender, back in 2008. About 24 per cent of its 1,300-plus officers are women. The OPS does annual women-only information sessions for possible recruits. In 2015, it pledged to take another deeper look at its treatment of women (in its policies and procedures) after a female officer launched a formal human rights complaint that she “was denied training, job placement and promotion opportunities because of her family status, sex and maternity leaves.”

Montreal: The SPVM (Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal) comes out on top with 1,429 women out of 4,613 police officers in its service — 25 per cent. Back in 1919, four women were hired but were laid off within months. Women became a “significant” number in 1947 when 20 were hired for the new Juvenile Morality Squad.

Fredericton: Police chief Leanne Fitch was Atlantic Canada’s first female police chief when she took office in 2013. It’s come a long way since hiring its first female police officer in 1973, Shirley Jollimore. The force underwent a gender audit in 2012 and found that female officers were not putting themselves up for promotion and didn’t get the mentoring they felt they needed. The force committed to assisting the officers so they could feel confident in applying for other assignments and also sent them for training whenever possible. In 1999, female officers accounted for 15.6 per cent of the officer cadre and by 2012, it rose to 21 per cent.

Halifax: The city hired its first policewoman in 1917 and a second one in 1918. Bessie Egan and May Virtue have been noted for their work among the working classes of the city and also came to epitomize policewomen’s work as being tilted towards social welfare. By the 1940s, several policewomen were assigned to deal with Juvenile Court. A diversity report in 2004 stated 14 per cent of the force’s officers were women and as of May 2016, it’s now 18.5 per cent.