Absence of due process
The expulsion of Erin Weir wa s nothing short of an NDP travesty
The expulsion of Regina-lewvan MP Erin Weir from the NDP caucus in May of 2018 was welcomed by those seeking the end of workplace sexual harassment and by those who heard party leader Jagmeet Singh say survivors needed to be believed and workplaces needed to be safer. It should not have been. The entire affair was a travesty, one that still haunts the NDP as the next election approaches.
Weir had engaged in conduct described by an investigator as “on the low-end of the scale,” and which would not normally be understood as “sexual harassment.” Even if they thought it was, hardly anyone would imagine it was cause for public shaming, expulsion and banishment. In fact, now that the facts are known, most people should find Singh’s conduct more troubling than Weir’s.
I first met Erin Weir many years ago, when I was a cabinet minister in an NDP government in Saskatchewan. He was an activist hired to work for me in my office over a summer. We did not always see eye-to-eye and did not stay in touch after our professional lives diverged. But I never had any doubt that Weir is intelligent, hard- working and sincere. He annoyed NDP leaders and operatives by not blindly accepting party positions and not always doing as he was told to do or say. He had been barred from asking questions in question period for months.
When he announced his candidacy to be chair of the NDP caucus on Jan. 30, 2018, Christine Moore, NDP MP for the Quebec riding of Abitibi-témiscamingue, stated in an email to her caucus colleagues and leader that Weir had harassed many female employees of the NDP and that she would be afraid to be alone with him.
This was not the first such claim Moore had made. In 2014, Moore had told Justin Trudeau that two of his Liberal members had sexually harassed two female NDP MPS. Trudeau expelled them and banned them from running in 2015, without due process. Both men denied sexual harassment. It was later known that one of them had a consensual relationship with a colleague of Moore’s who had no complaint. The other MP had spent the night with Moore. She said she gave him a condom and went to the bathroom. While there, she said she had a flashback to a time she was assaulted and from then on, although she did not tell the Liberal member, she was not consenting “in her mind,” to the sexual activity that followed her return from the bathroom. Later, she said this encounter amounted to sexual harassment.
These prior incidents and Moore’s involvement were known to members of the NDP caucus. When condemning Weir, Moore said she had received many complaints of serious harassment against him, but there is no suggestion she acted on them by telling the leader, whip, administrator or, insofar as is known, anyone. She said she feared being alone with Weir, yet took no steps to protect female staff who worked for the NDP caucus, contrary to the duty of
employers to provide a safe workplace.
None of the “many” employees emerged, even though Moore presumably would have known who they were and how to find them. But neither that, nor Moore’s earlier shaky condemnation of the two Liberal MPS, deterred Singh from announcing to the nation two days after Moore sent her email that Weir was suspended from caucus and under investigation. He cited “concern expressed by one of our members” and mentioned his commitment to “safer workplaces.” Anyone who saw or heard Singh’s statement to the media would assume Weir did something making the workplace unsafe, especially after Singh added “we all need to be prepared to reflect on how we can create safer places. The first step is always to believe survivors.”
In 2014, Trudeau, still trying to establish his credentials as a strong leader, took Moore at her word and two careers immediately ended without anything resembling due process. Years later, a similarly untested leader would end the career of a third.
Trudeau said, in 2014, that survivors had to be given the “benefit of the doubt” and Singh built on that, saying they had to be “believed.” Curiously, in May of 2018, when a complaint of inappropriate behaviour by Moore was made by Corp. Glen Kirkland, a Canadian Armed Forces veteran injured in Afghanistan, Singh did not believe Kirkland’s version. The veteran was medicated, according to reports at the time, suffering from post- traumatic stress disorder, and in an emotional state after testifying before the House of Commons Defence Committee, which Moore sat on. The party’s response made clear that Singh did not accept that Kirkland’s sexual relationship with Moore, which both sides agreed commenced the day of his testimony, was inappropriate because Moore was a person in authority as an MP and a committee member and he was in a vulnerable state. Moore was suspended from caucus, but quickly cleared of any wrongdoing and restored while the “serious” investigation into Weir’s sins continued.
Once Weir was publicly shamed, despite a lack of any particular allegations, complainants were sought. An email was sent to 220 women associated with the NDP caucus and who might have had contact with Weir. The email asked if his behaviour had ever made them uncomfortable. Fifteen complaints were received and investigated by Singh’s appointed investigator, University of Ottawa law professor Michelle Flaherty. Eleven were dismissed. They were presumably trivial, given that four complaints found to be valid, one of “harassment” and three of “sexual harassment” were described in the investigator’s report, as noted above, to be “on the lower end of the scale.” The conduct detailed in the report, which eventually led to Weir’s expulsion from caucus and banishment as an NDP candidate, consisted of “harassment” because he was belligerent during a brief elevator ride with an NDP staffer who had tried to prevent him from speaking at a convention (his tall stature made her feel physically intimidated, although there was no threatened or actual physical touching); and sexual harassment because he sat or stood too close to three women while talking, and talked to them longer than their non-verbal cues should have told him was appropriate, and this made them uncomfortable.
Concerning the finding of harassment, there wasn’t much he could do about being tall. Let’s accept he lost his temper and was belligerent. Even call it harassment. If it justified ending his political career, almost all politicians, not to mention everybody else, would be guilty. Including the current prime minister, who was videotaped walking across the House and knocking an opposition member when he became angry about procedural delays. That was wrong, but we got over it.
Concerning the three findings of sexual harassment, if close talking and running on at the mouth amounts to that, does this justify removing someone elected by citizens?
Like the investigator, a “trainer” hired on behalf of Singh to coach Weir also believed that the misconduct was relatively minor, and wrote in a report that Weir “gets it.” ( These reports were not publicly released, but copies circulated among NDP insiders and the contents became well known; I personally obtained one of them and was briefed on the contents of the other.) There was no suggestion anyone would be further offended, let alone endangered, but Singh would not reveal to the public what Weir had done, saying it would be unfair to the complainants.
That would be true if there were embarrassing personal details, but there weren’t. Weir reportedly had been rude on one occasion, and he may have needed some training in social etiquette.
But Singh told the nation in a press conference in May of 2018, several months after Weir’s suspension, that the MP could not be readmitted because he did not accept he had been guilty of serious harassment, and could not be rehabilitated. He needed to ensure a safe workplace and he could not be sure Weir’s behaviour would not be repeated.
Canadians can decide for themselves what shocks them more: Weir’s behaviour, or the sense of judgment and balance evident from the decisions, statements and actions of Singh, presumably supported by his NDP caucus members, since not one of them publicly questioned anything.
Paul Manly, too, was found to be unacceptable as an NDP candidate, reportedly due to comments made that were viewed by some in the party’s senior leadership as too pro-palestinian. So in the recent Nanaimo- Ladysmith byelection, he represented the Green Party, and handily defeated the NDP candidate in a “safe” NDP seat. Successive opinion polls show the Green Party is breathing down the NDP’S neck, and many dedicated people who have tried to reason with Singh and his MPS will no longer support the party. Singh needs to ask himself whether the party really is in a position to eat its own and be dismissive of so many dedicated people.
Perhaps while Singh is reflecting on safe workplaces, he can reflect upon the safety of anyone in a workplace subjected to uncorroborated and false allegations, potential animus on the part of decision- makers, and the appropriateness of fishing expeditions and witch hunts.
The treatment of Erin Weir has been unspeakably cruel. Our democracy is weaker through our collective indifference.
most people should find Singh’s conduct more troubling than Weir’s.
Eric Cline served 16 years as a member of the Saskatchewan legislature including 12 years as a cabinet minister in the portfolios of health, finance, industry and resources, and justice.