Resign, without delay

When they met four years ago, he was a Toronto-area senator and an ordained Pentecostal pastor who professed a commitment to religion and youth. She was a starry-eyed 16-year-old student whose parents were living overseas.

“He was cute. I was meeting a senator. I got a picture with him,” she would later tell the Star’s Kevin Donovan. She loved him and thought he loved her.

Now a Senate ethics watchdog has found that Independent Senator Don Meredith breached two sections of the Red Chamber’s ethics code by having a sexual relationship with the young woman. In her report, Lyse Ricard found Meredith did not uphold the “highest standards of dignity” of the Senate. That’s putting it mildly.

After putting the Senate through a lengthy investigation while he denied, denied, denied, Meredith should at last do the right thing and resign. Several senators, including the government leader in the chamber, Peter Harder, are calling on him to do just that.

If Meredith doesn’t step down voluntarily, the Senate ethics committee should demand his expulsion from the chamber. Based on Ricard’s findings, an apology or suspension is not enough.

“Senator Meredith drew upon his weight, prestige and notability of his office, as well as his relative position of power as a much older adult, to lure or attract Ms. M, a teenager who, by virtue of her age, was necessarily vulnerable,” Ricard wrote. “He exploited Ms. M and the power imbalance between them.”

Nor did Meredith try to make amends for his wrongdoing when he was caught. Ricard found him to be evasive, inconsistent and not credible. Indeed, he even suggested to the ethics officer that the young woman was lying.

Regardless, Ricard found that Meredith had intercourse with her three times, including once when she was just 17. Meredith denies he had sex with her before she turned 18.

It’s not the first time this senator has been investigated. An earlier investigation was launched, as CTV first reported, after four of Meredith’s former female employees and four other Senate staffers alleged “he made sexual advances, used sexual innuendo, and was often rude and vindictive.”

As well, Meredith, who has been a senator since 2010, has previously been criticized for improperly claiming he had a doctoral degree (he is no longer allowed to call himself Dr. Meredith on Senate correspondence), and for expensing a trip he and his wife took to Washington to attend the National Prayer Breakfast.

Meredith told Ricard he is taking remedial measures to address the ethics breaches, including placing himself under the “guidance of spiritual advisers.”

It’s hard to believe that Meredith, a married father and pastor, needs spiritual guidance to know that his actions were wrong. He has disgraced himself and the Senate.

He must do the decent thing and resign immediately.

If Meredith doesn’t step down voluntarily, the Senate ethics committee should demand his expulsion