CALGARY—A Calgary Police Service officer has filed a lawsuit against the service alleging she was the victim of systematic sexism, sexual harassment and workplace bullying for years.

Kim Prodaniuk’s statement of claim, filed Wednesday, said she has been the victim of “outrageous” conduct by several officers and members of the Calgary Police Association, the service’s union. The situation led to multiple mental health illnesses including depression and anxiety, the filing said.

The claim depicts numerous examples of alleged harassment, many of them in graphic detail, over several years. None of the allegations have been proven in court. Statements of defence have not been filed by the police service or the union.

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In a statement, the police service said it was aware of the lawsuit but declined to comment.

Calgary Police Association president Les Kaminski, who is specifically named in the claim, told Star Calgary he couldn’t comment on the case and that the association will soon respond to the lawsuit.

“All I have to say is this: We’re taking this matter very, very seriously and that we’ll be filling a statement of defence in short order,” he said.

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Harassment within the Calgary Police Service hasn’t ended, officers say — it’s escalated

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Prodaniuk has been with the service for more than 10 years but has been on stress leave since 2017 — the same year one of her colleagues, Jen Magnus, quit the force with similar complaints of gender discrimination. In a previous interview, Prodaniuk said she experienced harassment as far back as 2012.

“I have been on the record saying that officers who have been enduring the harassment at the CPS have been enduring it for so long that they’re desperate and that it has gotten worse over the years,” Prodaniuk said in a statement to the Star on Thursday. “I stand by that statement.”

Prodaniuk and Magnus first brought their concerns to then-chief Rick Hanson in 2013. Hanson launched a human-resources audit in response, which found evidence of gender-based bullying, favouritism and fear of speaking out among officers.

Hanson retired in 2015, but his successor — Roger Chaffin, who retired last fall — later said the service quietly acted on recommendations from the report.

“To say we did nothing about it is not accurate,” Chaffin previously told the Star.

Still, more allegations emerged in 2017 after the audit was leaked to local media and Magnus publicly resigned. More than a dozen current and former officers filed formal complaints about harassment, prompting a flurry of human-resources reforms that are still in progress.

In the claim filed Wednesday, Prodaniuk alleges:

Male coworkers made inappropriate comments, including unwelcome flirting and asking her to describe sex acts she’s performed.

During training for street-level sex-trade investigations, she was “coerced” into pretending to perform oral sex and faking orgasms in various public spaces — including a mall merry-go-round and a northeast Calgary Boston Pizza.

During the same training, she was asked to convince a “random male” at a grocery store to have a threesome with her and another officer.

A superior asked her to leave a suggestive voicemail for a phone number she later found out belonged to a co-worker.

A co-worker told her he’d had “visions” of violence and threatened to spread sexual rumours about her if she told anyone.

Prodaniuk maintains her superiors at CPS often downplayed or dismissed her concerns when she raised them, according to the statement of claim.

Sometimes, she alleges, she was branded a “rat” or forced to work without a partner, putting her safety at risk. In one instance, she said a male officer who allegedly harassed her was promoted.

When Prodaniuk approached Kaminski, the union president, for help, he allegedly told her she “seemed like a sensitive girl” and that the union didn’t handle “blue on blue” grievances. Kaminski declined to comment on this allegation.

After the meeting with Kaminski, Prodaniuk said went to the leadership of a then-new program aimed at reforming workplace culture in the force. She was referred to an officer with the service’s human-resources unit, who allegedly told Prodaniuk she has a “reputation for being a b—-h.”

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When Prodaniuk returned to the reform group , she was told the service was “not serious about reform,” the statement of claim reads. The head of that organization quit the force soon after that meeting.

The statement of claim — which also alleged the harassment against Prodaniuk was condoned and ignored by her superiors because she is a female police officer — doesn’t ask for a specific monetary amount in damages.

Prodaniuk said she won’t be commenting on her case while it’s before the courts. In a previous interview, however, she told the Star she believed that the “old boys’ club” needed to be “busted up.”

“That’s the only way things are going to change.”