NDP deputy leader says Liberals could have been more discreet
‘People don’t have to know everything,’ Megan Leslie says
OTTAWA— The Liberals could have found a quieter way to handle allegations of personal misconduct against two of their MPs, even if that meant creating greater mystery around what happened, NDP deputy leader Megan Leslie said Friday.
“That’s not a coverup. That’s listening to these women and making sure they have a safe work environment,” Leslie, the MP for Halifax, said in a telephone interview.
New Democrats, including Leslie, have expressed anger over how Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau announced Wednesday that he was suspending two MPs — Scott Andrews and Massimo Pacetti — from caucus after he was informed of allegations of “personal misconduct” against two NDP MPs.
Both Andrews and Pacetti deny the allegations and have expressed con- fidence they will be exonerated.
The NDP had been dealing with the separate situations internally, until one of the women shared her allegations — and those of her fellow NDP MP — with Trudeau Oct. 28 while they were travelling together following the funeral for Cpl. Nathan Cirillo in Hamilton, according to sources.
Sources said the NDP had no foreknowledge of her plan to tell Trudeau and that it was also done without the knowledge of the second woman, who had explicitly told NDP whip Nycole Turmel and others that she did not want to file a complaint.
Trudeau and other Liberals argue he had no choice but to suspend Andrews and Pacetti from caucus, with Liberal whip Judy Foote asking Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer to intervene.
A spokesperson for Trudeau was not available Friday, but the Liberal leader said Thursday he had “a duty to act.”
But Leslie argued there is a middle ground between doing nothing and announcing publicly that com- plaints had come from two MPs, even though Trudeau and Foote did not reveal their names, gender or party affiliation. “Maybe these women needed time off from Parliament. Maybe they needed counselling. Maybe they needed safe space within the parliamentary precinct. Those are the kinds of discussions they would have had with our leadership team,” Leslie said. “So what the Liberals could have done was worked with us to create (safe) spaces . . . If the Liberals wanted to respect these women, they could have said, ‘Yeah, sure, tell us what we can do. You don’t want to be on a committee with these guys? No problem . . . We support you,’ ” Leslie said. Leslie acknowledged it was Trudeau’s prerogative to suspend his own members of caucus, but disagreed with the idea that he had to say why. “People can speculate. Let people speculate. People don’t have to know everything,” Leslie said.