MPPs FEUD, MAKE VICTIMS WAIT
NDP and PC play politics, stall work on harassment complaint process
A provincial look at how we deal with sexual harassment and assault is being held up because our politicians can’t agree on who should be on the committee to look at the problem.
Legislators from all three parties have spent several days this week firing barbed open letters and press statements at each other about it, all proving that they’re horrible people.
Tory MPP Laurie Scott, to her genuine credit, got all this started at the beginning of the month when she called on Premier Kathleen Wynne to form a committee of members of provincial parliament to study workplace harassment. She was prompted by the allegations against the CBC’s Jian Ghomeshi, but also pointed out the case of a Crown attorney in Peel Region, who resigned ( but took a payment of $180,000 on his way out the door) amid allegations of sexual misconduct at work.
At the time, Wynne hedged. The challenges are serious, she said, but she wasn’t sure how to approach them. “I’m open to doing whatever it is we need to do going forward. I’m not going to commit to a specific process at this moment,” she told the legislature.
A couple of days after that, federal Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau suspended two MPs from his caucus over sexual-misconduct allegations.
The national conversation has expanded. Why do some men behave as they do? Why do women who’ve been victimized sometimes not report it to anyone? Why do some authorities not take complaints seriously when they get them?
This week, Wynne said yes. Let’s even study more than the issue of workplace harassment; let’s get into how things are different (and often worse) for
Politicians: If you ever wonder why so many citizens think you’re awful, this is why.
minority and aboriginal women, for gays and lesbians and transgender people. Let’s really take this on. And let’s do it with a committee made up like other Queen’s Park committees, with a majority of Liberals and a strong minority of Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats.
That’s where everything went bad.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath replied to Wynne’s open letter with one of her own. Let us put politics aside, she wrote, refusing to put politics aside.
Oh, she began, I had such high hopes for this. But they’ve been dashed. Dashed!
“Unfortunately, by insisting on Liberal majority control of the committee charged to investigate the scourge of sexual harassment and assault you are putting the focus on politics rather than on people,” Horwath wrote. “Drawing partisan lines around this committee does not serve the victims of these terrible crimes.”
Ditto the Tories. Scott put her general idea for a special committee into a motion in the legislature, which passed, then followed up with a motion to form one specifically with equal representation from each party, which failed. As she knew it would.
“It is incredibly unfortunate that the Liberal government played politics today and will not commit to equal representation,” Scott said in a prompt written statement, playing politics. “Due to recent high-profile media stories, it is clear that we need to move quickly to help past victims and protect future victims of sexual harassment.”
The Liberals fired off emails listing special committees dating back to the Harris years, all made up of MPPs in proportion to parties’ standings in the legislature. They do have precedent on their side.
It wouldn’t matter so much if everyone had a genuine interest in truth and justice and honest differences about how to achieve them. But they’re all playing politics, each digging in on positions they know the others won’t accept, because whoever wins will be better placed to play politics once the committee gets to work.
The committee looking into the gas-plants affair is an object lesson. When the Liberals were in a minority, it blathered away endlessly. Finding useful (and Liberal-damaging) things, for sure, but above all trying to find out how many times one group of people could say “gas plants” in one legislative session. Now that it’s controlled by the Liberals, bam!, it’s done. No more witnesses, useful or not, let’s get a report written and get it over with.
Yes, by all means let’s repeat this with the problem of men who think it’s OK to harass and assault people and victims who don’t trust the authorities to help them.
Politicians: If you ever wonder why so many citizens think you’re awful, this is why.