It Should Be Easy to Fix

By: Bonnie Robichaud

Narrated by: Janaya Stephens

Length: 5 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

In 1977, Bonnie Robichaud accepted a job at the Department of Defence military base in North Bay, Ontario. After a string of dead-end jobs, with five young children at home, Robichaud was ecstatic to have found a unionized job with steady pay, benefits, and vacation time.

After her supervisor began to sexually harass and intimidate her, her story could have followed the same course as countless women before her: endure, stay silent, and eventually quit. Instead, Robichaud filed a complaint after her probation period was up. When a high-ranking officer said she was the only one who had ever complained, Robichaud said, “Good. Then it should be easy to fix.”

This timely and revelatory memoir follows her gruelling eleven-year fight for justice, which was won in the Supreme Court of Canada. The unanimous decision set a historic legal precedent that employers are responsible for maintaining a respectful and harassment-free workplace. Robichaud’s story is a landmark piece of Canadian labour history—one that is more relevant today than ever.

©2022 Bonnie Robichaud (P)2023 Between the Lines

Critic reviews

“It Should Be Easy to Fix is an important look beyond the headlines of Bonnie Robichaud’s groundbreaking court victory. A working-class mother from Northern Ontario, she is the unlikely hero of this story. Yet in these pages, she powerfully details how she remained steadfast in her belief that a safe workplace was her right. Canadian women are safer as a result of her sacrifice.”—Julie S. Lalonde, author of Resilience Is Futile: The Life and Death and Life of Julie S. Lalonde

“The straight-goods inside story about what sexual harassment really feels like. An eleven-year struggle toward an unprecedented legal victory in the Supreme Court. Bonnie Robichaud survived to tell the tale, as the living embodiment of the solution, not the problem. To echo Justice L’Heureux-Dubé, she is my hero.”—Constance Backhouse, co-author of The Secret Oppression: Sexual Harassment of Working Women

“I had tears of joy in my eyes when I finished the book. Why? Because Robichaud had the courage to revisit the humiliation and is proud she secured rights for all women. Because union sisters who supported her activism changed labour movement culture and now our brothers stand with us. And because, with women like her as inspiration, we still fight.”—Nancy Janovicek, Alberta Views