Senate ethics committee to decide Meredith’s fate
Senator involved in decision says their aim is to table report by end of next week
OTTAWA— The Senate’s ethics committee is on the brink of deciding how Sen. Don Meredith should be punished for his sexual affair with a teenage girl, after weeks of deliberation on how to respond to the scandal.
Sen. Raynell Andreychuk, the committee chair, said Thursday that the aim is to table their highly anticipated report on Meredith in the upper chamber by the end of next week.
While the committee can recommend sanctions for the sex scandal, any move to punish or expel Meredith will go to a vote on the Senate floor.
“We’re coming to the final end of the process,” Andreychuk said after a three-hour meeting with the ethics committee on Parliament Hill.
“We will meet again on Tuesday morning and we hope that we can conclude next week,” she said.
The Star first reported on Meredith’s relationship with a teenage girl in 2015, prompting an investigation into his behaviour by the Senate’s ethics officer.
There was a police probe that concluded without laying charges, and Meredith is also being investigated for separate allegations of workplace harassment.
In March, the ethics officer published a report that found Meredith had used his job as a senator to lure the girl — who has been identified only as “Ms. M” — into a sexual relationship. She was between 16 to 18 years old during the affair.
The legal age of consent in Canada is 16, but goes up to 18 when there is a relationship of authority, trust or dependency, according to the Criminal Code. In the wake of the report, senators and MPs of all stripes have called for Meredith to give up his seat.
The Pentecostal pastor from Richmond Hill was appointed to the Senate by Stephen Harper in 2010.
Although he addressed the ethics committee at a closed-door meeting in early April, Meredith has been away from his Senate duties because of stress-related illness, according to his lawyer, Bill Trudell.
Trudell did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
Earlier in the day, the Senate’s ethics committee met for the fifth time since the report condemning Meredith was released.
Asked why it’s taking so long to reach a decision, Andreychuk said they want to be prompt but also must be “fair” to everyone involved.
“The ethics code is very clear with how we go through the process. We want to be fair. We want to weigh all of the interests: the institution, the senators, the public and Sen. Meredith,” she said.
Sen. Serge Joyal, the committee’s deputy chair, added that their decision could set a precedent, given that the ethics code they’re working under was adopted only in 2014.
“The report is very serious. The precedents it raises are equally serious, so by consequence the committee wants to give all possible consideration to these implications,” Joyal said in French.
According to the Senate’s ethics code, the committee can recommend a range of sanctions, including suspending Meredith or limiting his duties. Andreychuk said Thursday that the committee can recommend other sanctions that aren’t named in the code, but wouldn’t say whether they were considering trying to expel Meredith from the Senate. With files from Kevin Donovan