A former Nanaimo Mountie who spoke out about sexual harassment within the RCMP has taken her own life.
Krista Carle, 53, died on Friday at her home in Sooke, said Janet Merlo, a former RCMP officer who graduated from RCMP training college alongside Carle in 1991. The two finished their careers together at Nanaimo RCMP in 2010, and the next year went public about their experiences with sexual harassment while members of the national police force.
Carle and Merlo would talk often about their struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder. “We thought she was doing so well,” Merlo said.
Carle recently posted a photo from her daughter’s high school graduation. She lived with her two teenage children and a partner.
“She looked so happy and healthy and looked like she was doing really well,” Merlo said.
Merlo shared a dorm with Carle during RCMP basic training. Merlo said she instantly connected with Carle, who was “calm, cool and collected.”
After Carle graduated, she spent most of her 20-year RCMP career in Alberta.
Carle was one of four female Mounties who sued the Attorney General of Canada and 19 RCMP officers for covering up sexual assault complaints against Sgt. Robert Blundell, with whom the women worked on undercover investigations in Calgary in the 1990s. The lawsuit was settled in 2004 out of court.
“She fought for a lot of years,” Merlo said. “She went to hell and back.”
Carle then transferred to Nanaimo RCMP. There, Carle and Merlo worked together until their retirement on the same day in 2010. Both were diagnosed with PTSD and left with a medical discharge.
Even though they were close, they didn’t talk about the sexual harassment, sexual assault and bullying they were experiencing on the job. “While we were working, there wasn’t a whole lot said,” Merlo said. “After we left, we realized just how similar our stories and our medical issues were.”
In media interviews, Carle said the harassment included male officers putting pornography inside her desk, telling sexual jokes and inappropriately touching her.
When Catherine Galliford, a high-profile B.C. RCMP spokeswoman, first went public with her experience in 2011, Merlo and Carle began talking and “we realized we had been going through it alone, but together at the same time,” Merlo said.
Even after 2016, when the class-action lawsuit for gender-based harassment against the RCMP was settled for $100 million, Carle continued to feel frustrated that none of the abusers had been held accountable through criminal charges, Merlo said.
“None of us had the strength or the ability to follow this through another decade in court. And no amount of money can ever buy back our careers and our marriages and our emotional health.”
Through the long legal proceedings, Merlo, the lead plaintiff, remembers days where she would call Carle and cry out of frustration and hopelessness.
“She never showed any weakness,” Merlo said. “She went through this so gracefully and well-spoken.”
Carle will be remembered as being “kind and resilient and just a total advocate for everybody,” Merlo said.
RCMP spokeswoman Staff Sgt. Tania Vaughan said in a statement: “Please be advised that we were saddened to learn of the passing of retired RCMP member Krista Carle. She will be remembered for her courage in speaking out against sexual harassment and as a force for change that helped improve our workplace. The RCMP extends its deepest sympathies to her family, friends and colleagues.”
Randall Garrison, MP for Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke, said Carle contacted him soon after he was elected in 2011. She wanted to ensure sexual harassment in the RCMP was top of mind for politicians in Ottawa.
“It’s obviously a big loss for all Canadians, but in particular for those who had been subject to harassment in the RCMP,” Garrison said. “She was such a strong figure in bringing those voices forward and making sure the issue got attention on the national stage.”
Nanaimo Coun. Sheryl Armstrong, a former Nanaimo RCMP officer, said she didn’t know Carle personally, but can relate to her struggles with PTSD.
Armstrong, who was diagnosed with PTSD as a result of some of the horrific calls she attended, spent the last years of her RCMP career dealing with officers who were on sick leave because of work-related stress.
She said the RCMP is not doing enough to support officers with PTSD.
“We have all sorts of detachments where there’s no support for these members,” Armstrong said. “I think it’s an absolute joke.”
The problem is exacerbated by chronic staffing shortages, Armstrong said, as Mounties who are unwell are reluctant to go on sick leave because they know the workload will be piled onto their fellow members.
Vaughan said work-related stress and mental illness are issues that the RCMP takes very seriously.
The RCMP is in the final stages of a five-year mental-health strategy, which includes a research study to support employees’ mental health, Vaughan said.
The force is also providing Road to Mental Readiness training, access to internal peer-to-peer co-ordinators and employee assistance services to all RCMP employees and their families, she said.
