Sklavounos should be a warning to male politicians
Gerry Sklavounos’s political career was already hanging by a thread. After his disastrous news conference Thursday, the thread is probably broken.
Sklavounos was expelled from the caucus of Liberal members of the National Assembly last October, after Alice Paquet accused him of sexual assault.
Last week, the provincial prosecution directorate issued a strongly worded statement concluding after investigation of the accusation that “no criminal act has been committed.”
But the accusation prompted several women who worked or had worked at the Assembly, including some Liberal staff members, to go to newspapers with allegations that Sklavounos sexually harassed them.
After Sklavounos was cleared in the Paquet case, Premier Philippe Couillard said the MNA would still have to negotiate his readmission to the Liberal caucus, by making a “strong” statement addressing the harassment allegations.
And to allow time to assess not only the statement but the public response to it, Couillard also said Sklavounos’s readmission would be “neither automatic nor immediate.”
In this negotiation, Sklavounos would get only one bid.
He gambled on a lowball one, consisting of every cliché of the non-apology by a public figure caught, so to speak, with his pants down.
He dragged his wife onto the public stage to stand beside him, literally as well as figuratively, as a prop, the Good Wife silently saying if she could forgive him, then everybody else should.
The only victims he acknowledged were his family and especially himself.
Anybody else was entitled only to a conditional apology, “if ” anybody “may” have been offended by his “jokes” and “compliments” — meaning “I’m sorry you’re so sensitive.”
It was his “little charmer” side, he explained, sounding like a Saturday Night Fever-era disco hustler, reeking of Brut.
He ignored allegations that his talk sometimes led to actions.
Young women at the Assembly told Le Devoir that Sklavounos invited them to the nearby Louis-Hébert restaurant, got them drunk, and took them to his room upstairs; Paquet alleged a similar scenario.
Not surprisingly, his obtuseness Thursday backfired. His performance was unanimously panned, not only by opposition politicians, but also by women’s groups and commentators.
It also risked prompting still more women to come forward, life imitating an episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.
The next day, La Presse reported that already last week, after Sklavounos was cleared of Paquet’s accusation, the premier’s office received new allegations against him.
Quebec solidaire MNA Manon Massé called his excuses “dirty old men’s talk.”
But Sklavounos’s reputation reached peak creep level when Le Devoir quoted one former page saying after Sklavounos’s news conference that “his comments (to her) weren’t even like compliments. They were requests, descriptions of sexual acts he wanted to perform.”
Sklavounos’s readmission to the Liberal caucus might prompt a new wave of allegations in the media. By now, even a non-politician like Couillard must realize Sklavounos is a political liability.
In the court of public opinion, there are no rules of natural justice, no presumption of innocence, no burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, no right to confront one’s accuser. Last year, Jian Ghomeshi was acquitted of criminal charges of sexual assault, but since then, his accusers have had their revenge.
It is still difficult for a victim of sexual assault to obtain justice in a court of law. But since Ghomeshi, an allegation of sexual harassment, even unproven, is enough to destroy the career of a male public figure.
It happened to two Liberal members of Parliament, who resigned without their constituents knowing exactly why they had to.
In Quebec, longtime MNA Pierre Paradis was expelled late last month from the Liberal cabinet and caucus after police began investigating a complaint by an aide against him.
And there is Sklavounos, who on Thursday promised to be an example from now on.
For male politicians, he already is.