Accuser hopes MP Hehr’s resignation triggers broader talk about harassment
#METOO HITS OTTAWA AS HEHR STEPS AWAY FROM SPORT, DISABILITIES PORTFOLIOS
Kristin Raworth didn’t expect — or want — to topple a federal cabinet minister when she took to Twitter late Wednesday to talk about sexual harassment at the Alberta legislature a decade ago.
But within 24 hours, Kent Hehr, minister of sport and persons with disabilities, had resigned from cabinet, but will remain as Liberal MP for Calgary Centre.
When the news broke, Raworth, an Alberta civil servant, was speaking with Postmedia over the phone.
After a brief and startled silence, she said Hehr’s departure “cannot be the end of this conversation.”
For her, there’s a bigger issue at play — political staffers working in an environment where they don’t feel they can speak up against powerful MLAs. And that, she said, needs to change.
On Wednesday night, Raworth was watching news of Ontario PC Leader Patrick Brown’s fall from grace following sexual misconduct allegations.
As she talked with female friends who worked alongside her in Alberta politics, the subject of Hehr’s conduct when MLA for CalgaryBuffalo a decade ago repeatedly came up.
Raworth decided to go public on Twitter.
On her first day of work as a PC legislative assistant in 2008, “I was told to avoid being in an elevator with Kent Hehr.
“He would make comments. He would make you feel unsafe,” she tweeted.
Her Twitter thread went on to allege he once called her “yummy.”
“And at the time I was 25 years old. I was very naive about that and I didn’t know how to react, I didn’t know how to respond when someone is saying this to you.”
Stories like hers don’t always end with assault, she tweeted, “but they end up in fear.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau characterized Hehr’s resignation as a “leave of absence.”
“Harassment of any kind is unacceptable and Canadians have a right to live and work in environments free from harassment,” Trudeau said in a statement.
“We believe that it is important to support women who come forward with allegations and that is exactly what our government will do.”
Lawyer Christine Thomlinson will conduct an independent investigation for the government.
In a statement Thursday, Hehr did not directly address the allegations, but said he believes harassment is never acceptable and everyone deserves to have their voice heard.
“I have always tried to conduct myself with respect towards others and I understand the most important thing is how each individual feels,” he said. “I have been informed that an investigation into these allegations has begun and I welcome and respect this process.”
That’s all well and good, Raworth said Thursday, but she would like to see a broad conversation about harassment in politics.
“There’s a reason why, in our province, Premier (Rachel) Notley has had more death threats and threats of God knows what than (former premiers Ralph) Klein and (Ed) Stelmach and (Jim) Prentice,” she said.
“We need to make politics a more inclusive place for women.”
Kent Hehr resigned Thursday as federal minister of sport and disabilities after an allegation of sexual misconduct, but there was a palpable fear in Ottawa that a flood of accusations against other politicians could follow.
The resignation dropped less than 24 hours after Patrick Brown resigned as leader of Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party following separate allegations of misconduct.
Current and former political staffers say the allegations against the two men could release a flood of others, and in tweets, Facebook posts and quiet conversations, more stories are already being told. Journalists’ inboxes soon started to fill with new rumours and accusations following the resignations.
In a statement Thursday, Hehr did not directly address the allegation but said he believes harassment is never acceptable and everyone deserves to have their voice heard.
“Throughout my career I have always tried to conduct myself with respect towards others and I understand the most important thing is how each individual feels,” he said. “I have been informed that an investigation into these allegations has begun and I welcome and respect this process.
"While this is ongoing, I have resigned from Cabinet pending the outcome of the investigation. I do not want to be a distraction to all the good work being done by our government.”
Lawyer Christine Thomlinson has been engaged to conduct an independent investigation for the government.
In a separate statement, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, “Harassment of any kind is unacceptable and Canadians have a right to live and work in environments free from harassment.
“As a government we take any allegations of misconduct extremely seriously, and we believe that it is important to support women who come forward with allegations and that is exactly what our government will do.”
Science Minister Kirsty Duncan will take on Hehr’s ministerial duties during the investigation.
The allegation against Hehr came to light Wednesday night, in the midst of the uproar over allegations against Brown, when one woman took to Twitter.
Kristin Raworth, a public servant in Alberta, seemed to be motivated by what she saw as the start of the “Canadian political #metoo movement.” She wrote about inappropriate comments made by Hehr, who was an Alberta MLA from 2006 to 2015.
“My first day working at the Alberta legislature I was told to avoid being in an elevator with Kent Hehr,” Raworth wrote. “He would make comments. He would make you feel unsafe.” She went on to say that Hehr once told her “you’re yummy” when she was alone with him in an elevator, and that other women had experienced similar behaviour.
In the hours since then, other stories have begun to surface, not always with names attached. One former political staffer on Parliament Hill wrote a long Facebook post on Thursday detailing an encounter with a former MP that took place 16 years ago, during which she says he kissed her forcefully while driving her home from an event.
When she reacted badly, he told her she was “misinterpreting what happened,” she told the Post, speaking on condition of anonymity to protect her privacy. “He basically belittled the situation, if you will.”
Political staffers, she said, can’t easily speak up against sexual harassment, particularly when it comes from the politicians who employ them. “They become kings of their little constituencies and they’ve got a big ego and they think they’re above it all, if you will,” she said.
Beyond that, she added, staffers are generally loyal to their political party and don’t want to inflict damage. “You don’t want to bring anything negative toward the party,” she said.
“We work in a culture where people have been expecting it to hit the Hill,” one Parliament Hill staffer told the Post. “If it happens one politician at a time … I think it’s something that needs to happen. And it’s not going to change unless people continue to come forward.”
Another former Parliament Hill political staffer told the Post she’s torn about whether or not to go public with her own experiences, saying she’d need to “muster up … courage.”
The scale of the problem is the real story here, she said. “I think that if sexual harassment were sufficient enough to warrant resignations from politics, our legislatures would be dwindling coast to coast.”
Meanwhile, when Raworth took to Twitter on Wednesday night, she referred to lawyer, author and political strategist Warren Kinsella, who wrote a column last month asking why the #MeToo movement hadn’t yet hit Ottawa.
“In Ottawa nowadays, the silence is deafening,” he wrote in December. “It is impossible — impossible — that #MeToo stories can’t be found on Parliament Hill. So why isn’t anyone telling them?”
On Wednesday night, as the news about Brown was unfolding, he posted an update. “My weeks-ago prediction that the #MeToo movement would hit political Canada?” he wrote.
“It did.”