#1Oct 20th, 2006
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...l=968793972154
Stronach demands apology
Tory foreign minister denies calling ex-squeeze Stronach a dog
Oct. 20, 2006. 02:19 PM
CANADIAN PRESS
OTTAWA — With a political storm swirling around allegations of sexist swagger, Belinda Stronach rose in the House of Commons today to defend her honour against a slur that some say was heard and others say was never uttered. Stronach, showing no emotion, demanded an apology from Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay for using what she said was a “very inappropriate word to describe me.”
It wasn’t actually a word, but rather a reference allegedly made Thursday in the Commons.
The barely audible exchange was caught on an audio tape, with one MP asking “what about your dog?” and someone responding: “You have her.”
(Other reports have the exchange as, “Don’t you care about your dog?” and the reply as being, “You have her.”
(Speaker Peter Milliken says the words can barely be heard and there is no way of deciding what was actually said. (This didn't deter the Liberals from posting the tape on their party website, --. )
The Liberals insist MacKay made the sexist response while pointing to Stronach’s empty seat.
MacKay posed with a dog at his side, on his family’s Nova Scotia farm, when he and Stronach broke up after her defection to the Liberal party in 2005.
The Liberals have taken every opportunity since to remind him of the breakup.
Outside the House, Stronach said that while she’s upset by the alleged slur, she says she’s more upset by what it says about the Conservative party.
“What I find more disappointing today is that it goes beyond this,” Stronach said.
“It is really a reflection of the character and of the attitude of this government toward women. The fact that no one would take responsibility for this kind of a comment today, I think, shows that.”
Conservative MP Jason Kenney, speaking for the government, said merely that the matter was in the hands of the Speaker and that all parties could show better decorum in the House.
He also claimed that a Liberal MP once called Environment Minister Rona Ambrose “a pretty plant.”
MacKay denied calling Stronach a dog, but he didn’t elaborate on precisely what he did say – if anything. He noted that there is no record of the alleged slur in the official transcript of House proceedings, known as Hansard.
“The Speaker will rule on that,” he said today after touring a sewage treatment plant on the Halifax waterfront. “They can check the record of Hansard. It’s not there. It’s not there. I said nothing about a dog.”
He accused the Liberals of trying to distract people with ``silly and scurrilous” allegations.
Speaker Milliken told the Commons that he can’t rule on the matter because there is no official record of the alleged slur and the audio tape is not clear.
That prompted the Liberals to request that the tape be sent to an audio expert for analysis.
All parties, smelling political blood, used the incident to hammer the Tories, with the Bloc Quebecois calling on MacKay to be booted from cabinet.
New Democrat MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis called the alleged remark ``sexist and demeaning.”
“I thought we were at a place in this House where women were no longer demeaned,” she said.
“Will no one in the Conservative party condemn this?”
Liberal House Leader Ralph Goodale said the incident “reveals a demeaning attitude toward members of this House and women in particular.
“This is not trivial. Sadly, it seems all too typical,” he said. “Typical of bullies — intolerant and vindictive. The instincts that give rise to this insult are fundamentally inconsistent with the values that make us a respectful and decent people.
“After depicting a woman as `his dog,’ how can the minister of foreign affairs pretend to promote women’s rights in Afghanistan or anywhere else?”
MacKay got himself into hot water during the last election campaign when he suggested former NDP Leader Alexa McDonough “stick to your knitting” – a familiar Maritime expression.
He later apologized.
