Resigning board member alleges Potter forced out from McGill role
All other options ‘went for naught’, he says
MONTREAL •Amemberof the board of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada resigned Wednesday, alleging that Andrew Potter was forced out as institute director over his article critical of Quebec.
Ken Whyte, former editor of the National Post and a former visiting scholar at the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, announced his resignation on Twitter, saying he was “tired of defending McGill’s decision to demote Andrew Potter.”
Up until now, the Montreal university has said that Potter chose to resign in the face of public outrage within Quebec after writing a March 20 Maclean’s article that said a failed government response to a snowstorm was evidence of the province’s deficit of social capital. In the article, Potter called Quebec “an almost pathologically alienated and low-trust society.”
In a March 23 message to the McGill community, university principal Suzanne Fortier said the institute’s board of trustees had “regretfully accepted” Potter’s resignation. She acknowledged Potter’s “courage in making this very difficult and painful decision.”
Potter, who remains an associate professor in the faculty of arts as part of his original three-year appointment, has not spoken publicly about the process leading to his resignation.
Whyte said in an interview with the Post Thursday that he had tried to persuade the principal and other McGill officials to accept a compromise short of Potter’s resignation. “I suggested and I know others suggested ... a range of options, including a suspension, a reprimand and declaring a cooling-off period,” he said. “All of those options went for naught.”
He said it was Fortier’s office “that was, from what I could see, the obstacle to a solution other than Andrew resigning.”
In a statement Thursday, McGill’s Arseneault referred to media reports that Fortier had asked Potter to resign but did not deny them. “Subsequent to the article in Maclean’s, Dr. Potter sought advice from various members of the McGill community, including the principal,” he said. “Following these discussions, he took the decision to submit his resignation from his role as director.”
A letter Potter wrote to the institute’s board the day before he resigned, obtained through access to information, gave no indication he intended to step down. He apologized to the trustees and pointed out that he had issued a public retraction of the “unsupportable aspects” of his column.
“If anyone can suggest any further steps I can take to make this right, for MISC and for McGill, I’m all ears,” he concluded.
At 1:45 the following afternoon, Potter was in a meeting with Fortier, internal McGill emails obtained through access to information show. Less than three hours later, Fortier’s chief of staff, Susan Aberman, wrote the university’s vice-principal communications, Louis Arseneault, asking for “help in preparing a plan and communiqué” regarding Potter’s resignation.
Whyte said that he was on the phone with Potter as he headed to his afternoon meeting with Fortier.
“My impression was that resignation was the furthest thing from his mind,” Whyte said. “That was not the outcome that he was going for. He was hoping to see if he could keep his job. But I wasn’t in the meeting.”
Whyte is not alone in opposing the decision to accept Potter’s resignation. A March 25 email to Fortier and others at McGill from someone identified as a “longtime MISC board member” called it a disproportionate response to Potter’s mistake.
“When people are being attacked, particularly if it’s the first time such an error is made, understanding and support would have been a better approach,” said the writer, whose name was redacted. “We French Québécois are thin-skinned and making Andrew the scapegoat of politicians and commentators, who condemn him without reflecting on some of the points he raised, shows McGill’s willingness to kill the messenger.”
Quebec pundits and politicians had denounced Potter’s article. The Canadian Association of University Teachers said in March it had received information from within McGill alleging “that there was political pressure placed on the institution to get rid of Professor Potter.”
Whyte wrote on Twitter Wednesday that he had heard from three university officials that all three levels of government had pressured McGill on the matter. McGill has denied that, and Whyte said Thursday he accepts that denial. Whyte said he see a connection between the Potter affair and the recent resignations or reassignments of editors Hal Niedzviecki, Jonathan Kay and Steve Ladurantaye after they waded into the debate over cultural appropriation.
They “all resigned or were forced to resign after expressing or publishing controversial opinions for which they have apologized,” Whyte said. “That’s not a healthy situation for the Canadian conversation.”
THAT WAS NOT THE OUTCOME THAT HE WAS GOING FOR.