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“Our health and work survey showed incivility is on the rise and engagement has dropped too, so we have to look at these issues and see what can be done and how to reverse the trend,” Lacroix said.

APEX urged former Privy Council Clerk Wayne Wouters to make mandatory the Mental Health Commission of Canada’s national psychological standard for a healthy workplace for all departments.

His successor, Janice Charette, has since made mental health one of her top priorities.

The task force is using the national standard to review the public service’s workplace practices and policies. Civility and respect are among the 13 factors that define what the Mental Health Commission calls a “psychologically healthy workplace.”

APEX also runs a confidential counselling service for executives, and last year’s report showed harassment and bad relationships with superiors were among the leading reasons executives sought help. It urged Treasury Board then to consider a civility policy — along with a guide on how to deal with uncivil behaviour — as a companion to its harassment prevention policy.

At the same time, APEX commissioned its own “white paper” on the science and research into civility to help give executives some ideas on how to make the workplace “more respectful.”

The paper, written by leadership consultant Craig Dowden, concludes the public service is not alone. He says studies indicate incivility has doubled in North America over the past decade, with half of all employees saying they were treated rudely at least once a week at work.