NDP pushback against Justin Trudeau politicizes sexual harassment
There are others who are feeling sufficiently emboldened to come forward to tell their stories of sexual harassment on Parliament Hill.
Or, more accurately, there were others emboldened to come forward but as they survey the landscape of three explosive days in Ottawa, one fears the chill returning.
Here’s the damage as the House of Commons takes a much-needed week-long break after the tumult of last week.
Two Liberals MPs, their careers likely ruined.
Two men denying guilt, but already deemed guilty in the court of public opinion.
Two NDP MPs, feeling, according to their colleagues, victimized a second time.
Genuine anger from the NDP directed at Liberal leader Justin Trudeau.
Four days out of Ottawa and the questions one hears are corrosive, but understandable.
Who and what?
Who made the allegations? What did these guys do?
It’ll be the question lingering in every federal riding this week.
It’ll lead to unsubstantiated stories and flat-out misinformation, exactly what is not needed at this point.
Beside the lack of a proper mechanism to deal with this phenomenon in Ottawa, there are other elements which come into play that make this place markedly different than the workplaces most of us inhabit.
Partisanship is always a factor and it took less than 24 hours for that to take centre stage.
We are in an election run-up, which merely raises the temperature.
And there can be no more public forum for this to play out. If it happens in your office, it can damage workmates and reputations, but it does not lead websites and newscasts and there are not hundreds of reporters hounding you for details.
We know how difficult it is for a woman to come forward in the workplace, to be known forever as the one who got Bob fired, to be subject of an eternal whisper campaign.
It is infinitely more understandable that no MP wants to be immortalized in the media for all time for making the most intimate of allegations.
In hindsight, it is clear that had some things been done differently, we wouldn’t have had this situation spiral so badly out of control.
It started with the manner in which the allegations were made.
When an NDP MP brought the allegations to Trudeau’s attention in Hamilton following the funeral of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, she must have — should have — known that this harassment case had just moved to another level.
It’s not clear why that was the venue where this was to be aired, rather than in a formal meeting involving Trudeau and NDP Leader Tom Mulcair where a strategy going forward could have been addressed.
But silence was never an option for Trudeau — not in the current post-Jian Ghomeshi atmosphere, not ever.
To remain quiet invites charges of coverup.
He couldn’t agree to any request to keep the matter private unless he wanted to live with the knowledge that at any point the NDP could go to the media accusing him of ignoring serious charges against his MPs.
If that sounds harsh, that is how Ottawa operates. Politicians, particularly in the run-up to the election, have to cover their flank.
New Democrats were angry that Trudeau did not give them a heads-up before he suspended Scott Andrews and Massimo Pacetti, but Trudeau’s first obligation is to deal with discipline in his own caucus.
Suggestions that the two men could somehow be turfed from caucus by press release with no reasons given are absurd. Trudeau had to meet the media after taking such a significant decision.
He turned himself into a pretzel trying to guard information when he met the media.
He refused to use the term sexual harassment, he did not refer to the NDP, he stressed that he understood those making the allegations needed privacy and could choose themselves how to pursue the matter.
It appears the NDP were the first to identify the MPs were from their party.
But Liberals were not blameless. At least one member of the press gallery was tweeting about Liberal caucus suspensions before midnight the night before the caucus meeting.
New Democrats are genuine in their effort to protect their colleagues, but their pushback against Trudeau was an overreach, politicizing the situation.
This is not to blame victims who are entitled to their privacy. But it is to blame the NDP for taking its eye off the ball. The issue here isn’t Trudeau’s reaction. It is the harassment in Parliament Hill workspace.
http://m.thestar.com/#/article/news...politicizes_sexual_harassment_tim_harper.html
There are others who are feeling sufficiently emboldened to come forward to tell their stories of sexual harassment on Parliament Hill.
Or, more accurately, there were others emboldened to come forward but as they survey the landscape of three explosive days in Ottawa, one fears the chill returning.
Here’s the damage as the House of Commons takes a much-needed week-long break after the tumult of last week.
Two Liberals MPs, their careers likely ruined.
Two men denying guilt, but already deemed guilty in the court of public opinion.
Two NDP MPs, feeling, according to their colleagues, victimized a second time.
Genuine anger from the NDP directed at Liberal leader Justin Trudeau.
Four days out of Ottawa and the questions one hears are corrosive, but understandable.
Who and what?
Who made the allegations? What did these guys do?
It’ll be the question lingering in every federal riding this week.
It’ll lead to unsubstantiated stories and flat-out misinformation, exactly what is not needed at this point.
Beside the lack of a proper mechanism to deal with this phenomenon in Ottawa, there are other elements which come into play that make this place markedly different than the workplaces most of us inhabit.
Partisanship is always a factor and it took less than 24 hours for that to take centre stage.
We are in an election run-up, which merely raises the temperature.
And there can be no more public forum for this to play out. If it happens in your office, it can damage workmates and reputations, but it does not lead websites and newscasts and there are not hundreds of reporters hounding you for details.
We know how difficult it is for a woman to come forward in the workplace, to be known forever as the one who got Bob fired, to be subject of an eternal whisper campaign.
It is infinitely more understandable that no MP wants to be immortalized in the media for all time for making the most intimate of allegations.
In hindsight, it is clear that had some things been done differently, we wouldn’t have had this situation spiral so badly out of control.
It started with the manner in which the allegations were made.
When an NDP MP brought the allegations to Trudeau’s attention in Hamilton following the funeral of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, she must have — should have — known that this harassment case had just moved to another level.
It’s not clear why that was the venue where this was to be aired, rather than in a formal meeting involving Trudeau and NDP Leader Tom Mulcair where a strategy going forward could have been addressed.
But silence was never an option for Trudeau — not in the current post-Jian Ghomeshi atmosphere, not ever.
To remain quiet invites charges of coverup.
He couldn’t agree to any request to keep the matter private unless he wanted to live with the knowledge that at any point the NDP could go to the media accusing him of ignoring serious charges against his MPs.
If that sounds harsh, that is how Ottawa operates. Politicians, particularly in the run-up to the election, have to cover their flank.
New Democrats were angry that Trudeau did not give them a heads-up before he suspended Scott Andrews and Massimo Pacetti, but Trudeau’s first obligation is to deal with discipline in his own caucus.
Suggestions that the two men could somehow be turfed from caucus by press release with no reasons given are absurd. Trudeau had to meet the media after taking such a significant decision.
He turned himself into a pretzel trying to guard information when he met the media.
He refused to use the term sexual harassment, he did not refer to the NDP, he stressed that he understood those making the allegations needed privacy and could choose themselves how to pursue the matter.
It appears the NDP were the first to identify the MPs were from their party.
But Liberals were not blameless. At least one member of the press gallery was tweeting about Liberal caucus suspensions before midnight the night before the caucus meeting.
New Democrats are genuine in their effort to protect their colleagues, but their pushback against Trudeau was an overreach, politicizing the situation.
This is not to blame victims who are entitled to their privacy. But it is to blame the NDP for taking its eye off the ball. The issue here isn’t Trudeau’s reaction. It is the harassment in Parliament Hill workspace.
http://m.thestar.com/#/article/news...politicizes_sexual_harassment_tim_harper.html
