FOR THE FOUR MEN WHO WERE SWEPT OVERBOARD LAST WEEK IN THE #METOO TSUNAMI, THERE IS NO RECOVERY. THEIR REPUTATIONS WILL NOT BE CLEARED BY INVESTIGATIONS THAT WILL NEVER SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY.
More leaders overtaken by #MeToo tsunami
Of the four prominent men who fell from grace at warp speed over the last few days, all are finished.
They are former Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown, who lost his job last Wednesday night; federal Sports and Disabilities Minister Kent Hehr, who resigned from cabinet Thursday afternoon; CTV anchor Paul Bliss, who was suspended Friday; and Ontario PC party president Rick Dykstra, who resigned Sunday night.
It isn’t just that for all but Hehr and Bliss, there simply is no process — not even a hint of one — they can turn to that would allow them to give their side of things and potentially undo the damage done.
Hehr and Bliss have a glimmer of hope, but it is a faint and probably cruel one.
The complaints against Hehr are being investigated by a lawyer hired by the Justin Trudeau government.
That report is likely to remain private, as indeed did the report, also done by a lawyer, for the Liberal party when it was in Opposition and two of its MPs (Scott Andrews and Massimo Pacetti) were accused of inappropriate conduct and then given the boot.
Now, as then, whatever the lawyer determines in Hehr’s case, details will almost certainly be kept secret.
Bliss’ fate is in the hands of CTV human resources, which acted within hours of the blog post that accused him of sexual assault. The robustness and fairness of CTV’s internal investigation is unknowable to anyone outside the organization and unlikely to ever become public.
Brown and Dykstra haven’t even that ghost of a chance, and it doesn’t matter anyway — there simply is no reputational recovery from allegations of sexual assault or harassment.
And that’s the key — there’s no recovery from allegations.
In this lethality, and the lack of some recognizable and fair process available to the accused men, the #MeToo tsunami has about it a real whiff of McCarthyism.
In two instances, the accusers were anonymous, and so, largely, do they remain, though one of Brown’s (she alleges Brown plied her with drinks, then kissed and groped her against her will before driving her home when she asked) has been identified online.
CTV spokespeople and others have said “but they’re not anonymous” to CTV, and they’re not anonymous to Patrick Brown. That is cold comfort to anyone concerned with transparency and fairness, and the truth of things is unknowable by the casual reader and viewer.
Dykstra’s accuser told her story anonymously. Presumably the former MP knows who she is, since she went to Ottawa Police in 2014 with the same allegations.
She told Maclean’s magazine that on Feb. 11, 2014, after the traditional postbudget party, she went with a group including Dykstra to another bar. Later, the woman, who says both were drunk, decided to go home. She says Dykstra jumped into her cab and insisted she go to his apartment, ignoring her protestations. There, she says, he kissed her against her will and forced her to perform oral sex.
Police investigated, the National Post has learned, and interviewed several witnesses, including the taxi driver. Dykstra himself cooperated with police.
The Maclean’s story said she “ultimately decided not to lay charges” (complainants actually don’t get to make such decisions) and Dykstra was told by police the alleged victim was no longer co-operating and that they had decided not to proceed.
Fast forward to last weekend.
Dykstra was first told about the Maclean’s story at 6:12 p.m. Sunday.
As he scrambled to find lawyers, who in turn were unsuccessfully scrambling to find specialists in defamation law, the magazine published the story at 10:45 p.m., or about four-and-ahalf hours later.
His lawyers, Chris Murphy and John Phillips, released a short statement Monday in which they said Dykstra “categorically denies” the allegations and noted that the writer said he was “anxious to give (Dykstra) every opportunity to provide information” about the allegation.
But in the end, that consisted of a few hours.
“As a fair and just society, we must insist that a person be given more than four hours on a Sunday evening to respond to ruinous accusations.”
Maclean’s didn’t respond to Post emails asking why Dykstra wasn’t given more time, sent Monday first at 1:58 p.m. and again at 4 p.m. By 6 p.m., Maclean’s had failed to respond in about the same length of time the magazine gave Dykstra to answer the questions that would ruin his life.
The accusers of Hehr and Bliss made their allegations first on social media, in the MP’s case by a former staffer named Kristin Raworth who worked at the Alberta legislature a decade ago when Hehr was an MLA, in Bliss’ case by a former journalist named Bridget Brown who wrote a blog.
Brown didn’t name Bliss in the blog, but she did when CTV human resources came calling.
For all that more people now are increasingly dismissive of the criminal courts — albeit no one with more contempt than NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, a lawyer for God’s sakes, who last week said the presumption of innocence is “strictly about the procedures in court” — they offer protections and fairness for the accused person.
The same can’t be said for blog posts, for secret investigations of any sort (whether by mainstream media or hired-gun lawyers), for corporate HR procedures.
And none of it matters anymore: J’accuse; you’re done.