Liberals accused of turning back on ex-staffer
Promoted to top communications job ahead of N.S. provincial election
Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil is staying mum after a former staffer says the Liberals turned their back on her when she was assaulted by another party staffer - her partner.
In an interview with The Coast newspaper, Michelle Coffin spoke in detail about a 2014 assault at the hands of the premier’s former communications director, Kyley Harris, her then-boyfriend.
Once a Liberal insider who had herself held the top communications job, Coffin says the party turned its back on her when the domestic violence case came to light.
Coffin confirmed her account in The Coast to The Canadian Press on Thursday but declined to comment further.
Harris pleaded guilty to assault and was fired from his post, but the premier said at the time he lost his job because he failed to disclose the assault, not because of the criminal charges stemming from the violent act.
Coffin says when Harris was quietly rehired by the party, she was at first relieved he found a job.
But that relief turned to shock when she discovered he had been promoted from a behind-the-scenes Liberal caucus office researcher position to the party’s top communications job ahead of last month’s provincial election campaign.
Harris eventually stepped down, citing the controversy surrounding his presence but Coffin said the situation displayed an arrogance on the part of the Liberal party.
Then in the midst of the election campaign the Liberal candidate in her riding showed up at her door, but Coffin told The Coast the Liberal on her doorstep must not have recognized the name at the address.
She asked about his view on domestic assault and he immediately said the “individual” was no longer with the campaign and that Harris struggled to find work after his sentencing, and the premier had wanted to help.
Coffin also told The Coast that the candidate told her the premier called women’s organizations for their thoughts before rehiring Harris.
She said the incident prompted her to come forward and tell her side of the story.
Coffin says she was never once contacted by anyone from the party. Instead, she says she’s been ignored, with former colleagues pretending she doesn’t exist.
Former federal Conservative leader Rona Ambrose took to social media last month to say Harris’s re-hiring sent a “terrible message,” and that Liberal leaders “need to walk the talk on violence against women.”
Harris was eligible for a severance in the range of $45,000 when he was fired in 2014. He was rehired in the fall of 2015.