Senator resigns in disgrace
Resignation over sex with teenager may let Meredith keep his pension
OTTAWA— In the end, disgraced Senator Don Meredith jumped ship so he couldn’t be forced to walk the plank.
Meredith, who has been under fire since 2015 for his sexual affair with a teenage girl, finally declared his intention to resign from the Senate on Tuesday — just one day before his colleagues were poised to kick him out in an unprecedented vote.
He deliberated up to the 11th hour, according to his lawyer, and ultimately decided to step down in the midst of the Senate’s Tuesday session, which was his last chance to show up and speak for himself before his expulsion could go to a vote Wednesday.
“I am acutely aware that the upper chamber is more important than my moral failings,” Meredith said in his written statement. “This is a constitutional fight in which I will not engage.” Meredith’s lawyer, Bill Trudell, confirmed to the Star that the statement — which did not include an explicit intention to step down — was indeed a resignation announcement. That ambiguity angered at least one senator.
“He didn’t behave honourably; he didn’t resign honourably,” said Sen. Denise Batters, who added that his departure was long overdue. “Good riddance.”
Later Tuesday, a spokesperson from the Governor General’s office said they had received an email from Meredith about his intention to step down, though they were still waiting for an official letter from him that would indicate when the resignation will take effect.
Meredith was appointed by former prime minister Stephen Harper in 2010, and arrived at the Senate as a landscaper and Pentecostal pastor who espoused an interest in helping youth.
In 2015, the Star reported on a sexual affair that the married senator had over the previous two years with a teenage girl, who was between16 and 18 during her relationship with Meredith. The report prompted an investigation by the Senate ethics officer Lyse Ricard, as well as a police probe that concluded without laying any charges (the age of consent in Canada is 16, but goes up to 18 where there is a relationship of authority, trust or dependency).
Ricard published the results of the investigation March 9, concluding that Meredith used his job in the Senate to “lure” the girl into a sexual relationship. That prompted calls from parliamentarians of all stripes for Meredith to resign.
Last week, the Senate’s five-member ethics committee unanimously ruled that Meredith should be expelled from the red chamber, setting up an unprecedented vote that could have taken place as early as Wednesday.
Among the Senate colleagues Mer- edith left behind, few voiced regret at his departure, and there was a palpable sense of relief that they had been spared taking a precedent-setting decision.
Asked whether he was happy to hear of Meredith’s resignation, Sen. Don Plett replied, “absolutely.
“I’ve said from the get-go that I would like to see him resign so that we didn’t need to deal with it,” Plett told reporters.
It was apparent that Meredith’s departure from the upper chamber was inevitable as a majority of senators seemed likely to back the motion to remove him from the senate.
“As a woman, I could not support him,” Sen. Josée Verner said.
Sen. Anne Cools was poised to give a speech protesting the process to remove Meredith but held off after getting hints that the embattled senator might step aside.
“He sounded very resigned to me. . . . He has come to his own peaceful decision,” said Cools, who had a brief conversation with Meredith.
Once his resignation was announced, Cools suggested it was the best option.
“That was a far better response than what was before the Senate,” she said.
“That was a positive sign because it reflects at least an opportunity for the senator, who I suspect is very downtrodden by all of this, to assume some degree of control for his life.”
One of the only concerns that was raised about Meredith’s resignation was whether it would hamper an ongoing investigation into complaints of workplace harassment against him — separate allegations from the sexual affair for which the senator resigned.
Conservative Sen. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu said Meredith’s absence shouldn’t stop the investigation from being completed. According to the Senate ethics code, an ongoing inquiry in this case is suspended unless the ethics committee decides it should go on.
“People want to know. We want to know did they make complaints, who received those complaints, and why it takes so long?” Boisvenu said. “That, for myself, is very preoccupying.”
Another question was whether Meredith, who is 52, will begin collecting a Senate pension in the coming years. The Star has reported that, based on his $145,000 salary and roughly six years in the Senate, Meredith will get a pension worth $25,000 annually for the rest of his life.
A Senate official said Tuesday that the Treasury Board has the final say
SENATOR DENISE BATTERS
whether Meredith will actually receive this pension.
Treasury Board President Scott Brison would not comment when asked by reporters Tuesday.
“We will wait until there is a decision from the Senate on this, so I’m not going to comment on this prior to any decision on Sen. Meredith,” he said.
NDP Leader Tom Mulcair accused the Senate of failing to act quicker to punish Meredith and urged the Lib- eral government to prevent him from receiving his full pension.
“They dawdled. The guy was able to retire with his full pension. Now the Senate should have acted; they didn’t, and that’s to their greatest shame,” he said.
“The average Canadian taxpayer’s going to be pretty shocked to find out that this person’s going to be receiving a pension for the rest of their life.” With files from Tonda MacCharles and Kevin Donovan