OTTAWA — There is no shortage of blame to go around in the sexual harassment drama that have overtaken Parliament Hill these past weeks and side-swiped what had passed, until this story broke, for the routine business of the House of Commons. There are also decent people, on all sides, trying to do the right thing.
What is very clear, amid the halting, chaotic and imperfect sequence of moves by the political parties and the office of the Speaker to deal with these allegations, is that no one was prepared. Not only are House of Commons systems for dealing with workplace-related sexual harassment and assault inadequate; there are no systems. That has to change.
Should Liberal leader Justin Trudeau have handled things differently, after a female New Democrat MP told him in confidence that she and another female MP in her caucus had been sexually harassed or assaulted by two Liberal MPs?
Should Justin Trudeau have handled recent sexual harassment allegations differently? (JASON FRANSON/The Canadian Press)
Setting aside that the MPs Scott Andrews and Massimo Pacetti have been removed from the Liberal caucus without a formal hearing (both have denied any wrongdoing); Trudeau need not have revealed, in his initial news conference three week ago, that the victims were MPs “from another party.” That did not identify the alleged victims, but it fuelled the media fracas that followed.
Should New Democrat leader Tom Mulcair and his deputy leader, Megan Leslie, have handled things differently, after Trudeau made the matter public? In accusing the Liberal leader of “re-victimizing” the alleged victims, Mulcair and Leslie immediately transformed this into a political brush war, which it need not have become. It was the NDP’s own MPs, moreover, who leaked to the media that the alleged victims were New Democrats. Rather than blaze away at Trudeau, the NDP might have asked themselves why a woman in their caucus, obviously in distress, felt compelled to speak to the leader of an opposing party rather than her own boss. Mulcair has known about at least one of the alleged cases for a year, Le Soleil’s Gilbert Lavoie reported last week. Why didn’t he deal with it? Why didn’t he convene the party whips himself, as Trudeau later did?
Federal NDP Leader Tom Mulcair is said to have known of allegations of sexual harassment for quite sometime but likely kept them quiet to protect one of his MPs who is the alleged victim. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young)
The reality is that this looks like a textbook case of how institutions and individuals deal, invariably badly, with allegations of sexual harassment and assault. It is common for victims to feel very confused and reluctant to come forward, while at the same time urgently wanting and needing help. It is also common for victims to ask their confidantes to tell no one. That creates mixed messages. In not going public, Mulcair was likely motivated by a desire to protect his MPs’ privacy, and accede to their wishes about how this should be dealt with. There’s no reason to believe he wasn’t sincere in this.
But Trudeau, for his part, was placed in an impossible situation once he heard the story. Had he kept this in-house, there’s every reason to believe it would eventually have leaked, leading to legitimate accusations of a coverup. He was also shocked and upset by what he’d heard, and worried about his NDP colleague, a view informed by his work with a sexual assault treatment centre while studying at McGill University. The allegations are serious. He felt he had no choice but to take action. He too was sincere.
Even the federal Conservatives, despite Wednesday’s appallingly asinine contribution from backbencher Peter Goldring (he suggested MPs wear body cameras, to protect themselves from trumped-up accusations of harassment, but later retracted the statement) have made an effort to not make this bad situation worse. Uncharacteristically, they’ve sought to make no political hay at all. They’re keeping well clear. That may be simple self-preservation, or it may be out of deference to the women in the Tory caucus, several of whom are very engaged with this issue, and who simply would not tolerate its being crassly exploited.
Edmonton member of Parliament Peter Goldring. (Larry Wong/Edmonton Journal)
The upshot, setting aside the particulars of these two cases, is simply this: The House of Commons is not equipped. It should be. Speaker Andrew Scheer is engaged in a process now to help the parties establish a system for dealing with these and future complaints, ranging from harassment to sexual assault. But this is outside the Speaker’s area of expertise, and arguably outside his area of responsibility, too. The House of Commons requires a set of practices, a process, that ensures complaints are dealt with thoroughly, and in a way that is fair to both the complainant and accused. That should be managed by an outside party with expertise in the field.
Where the Speaker’s office and the parties themselves could help, perhaps, is pressing for better training for MPs, both novices and veterans, about how they can better manage the hothouse personal environment in which they work. A detailed seminar for every MP on what constitutes sexual harassment, and what constitutes sexual consent, would be a reasonable place to start.
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