Nothing to see here — not even the report
Do we all feel better now? Why, the federal NDP leader, Jagmeet Singh, assured Canadians Thursday that his MP Christine Moore has been cleared of any wrongdoing in that unpleasantness with the former soldier Glen Kirkland a while back, yes sir.
Singh then warmly welcomed her return to caucus, where she will resume her duties as critic for rural affairs and economic development for Quebec and oh yes, as Singh put it, “a powerful advocate for women in politics”.
He expressed “heartfelt” respect for her and regret for the anguish this whole business caused her.
Alas, the report — as is the fashion now — is secret and will remain so.
After a press conference in Montreal, where reporters directed all of two (2) questions at Singh before moving on to happier turf, Singh wasn’t taking further questions on the matter, his press secretary James Smith told National Post in a phone interview.
Smith wasn’t even able to answer the most rudimentary questions about the investigation, such as, how long is the report (that is, how many pages), how many witnesses were interviewed (both Smith and Singh said, separately, “several”) and how much did the NDP pay Deborah Jelly, the human rights pro with the “fair workplace” background, to do it?
These details, Smith said, had to remain confidential so that others who might wish to come forward will not feel deterred, and all parties have agreed to this process.
That is hugely amusing, given that both Moore and Kirkland already have spoken out publicly with what the prime minister might call their “truths,” and that Moore has threatened to sue Kirkland and three media organizations (the Post, CBC and the Toronto Star) which dared report what Kirkland said about their affair.
Who else and whose confidentiality is there left to protect?
Moore was in her constituency office in RouynNoranda Thursday, and among her statements explaining her reaction to the investigation’s conclusion, she said she was unsurprised by the results but nonetheless relieved that she won’t have to answer any more questions about it.
Indeed, she didn’t answer questions the Post asked her in emails Thursday.
As for Kirkland, the 34-year-old soldier and Afghanistan vet at the centre of the brouhaha, he too was unsurprised by the investigator’s findings.
“This is an NDP-funded investigation, with terms established by the NDP, which just cleared an NDP MP,” he said in a phone interview from his home in Brandon, Man., where he works as a realtor.
Kirkland, for the record, says he initially declined to participate in the investigation on the advice of his lawyer. (Six days after Singh announced the investigation and suspended Moore, Kirkland, like the news agencies involved, received a purported libel notice, only his described his claims as “a tissue of lies.”)
But, he told the Post, less than a week later, perhaps as soon as three days after, he called the investigator back “to participate in an interview” but was told his version of events had been “pieced together” from news accounts and no one needed to speak to him.
He told the Post he spoke to Jelly for “about three minutes” and she was “so rude to me I asked would you be speaking to me like that” if he was a woman.
He was told, he said, the investigator had what she needed from press accounts.
“I was a witness (before a legislative committee) and we slept together,” Kirkland told the Post. “You’re allowed to sleep with witnesses? That’s going to make a lot of lawyers happy.”
Jelly did not respond by press time to a late-in-theday request, by voice message and email, for comment.
Moore was an MP and a member of the House of Commons standing committee on national defence in June of 2013, when a number of wounded veterans testified about the lack of support they had allegedly received after returning to Canada.
Kirkland was among them.
As a member of the 2nd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, he was seriously injured in 2008 when the Taliban ambushed his platoon in Afghanistan.
Three of the five crew in his LAV (Light Armoured Vehicle) were killed instantly; Kirkland had significant hearing loss, some vision loss and a brain injury so severe his pancreas stopped producing insulin. He also suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. His testimony that day at the committee was emotional and raw.
Kirkland is not a complainant, in the normal sense of the word, and never alleged he was a victim of any sort of assault.
He spoke about his relationship with Moore — they agree the affair was consensual, but he says Moore was the aggressor and that she was in the position of power — only after a CBC journalist asked him about it. Moore claims Kirkland initiated the relationship.
This was at the time NDP MP Erin Weir was expelled from the party’s caucus after Moore made a third-party complaint about him; Kirkland was offended at what he said was the double standard.
In any case, as is abundantly clear now, there is nothing to see here, people — including, of course, the report itself.
It is another scary step away from what justice is supposed to be — open, public, embarrassment to all parties be damned.