NDP addresses harassment policy at convention
Three-day event will include policy debates and a speech from party leader Singh
OTTAWA— New Democrats kicked off their national convention Friday by diving directly into two of the party’s most pressing challenges: money and misconduct allegations.
The NDP’s treasurer, Tania Jarzebiak, delivered a blunt overview of the party’s finances at the outset of the three-day conference, urging hundreds of delegates in the cavernous convention hall to help fundraise ahead of the 2019 federal election. Blaming the previous Conservative government’s elimination of federal funding of political parties, Jarzebiak noted that the NDP’s annual budget has dropped by more than half since 2015 — from $18 million to $6 million last year.
On top of that, the party still has $3 million in debt left over from the last federal election, when Justin Trudeau’s Liberals leapfrogged the NDP to win government, while the social democratic party was reduced to 44 seats and relegated to third place in the House of Commons.
“Not everything is rosy,” Jarzebiak said. “We continue to be in a precarious financial state.”
Moments earlier, the NDP’s national president, Marit Stiles, was equally direct in addressing concerns over alleged harassment and sexual misconduct. In recent weeks, Quebec MP Christine Moore emailed the entire NDP caucus with unspecified allegations that Saskatchewan MP Erin Weir harassed female staff. Days later, the National Post published allegations of sexual misconduct from numerous women against former Nova Scotia MP Peter Stoffer that included incidents of unwanted kissing and inappropriate comments. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has called an external investigator to probe the allegations involving Weir, as well as an internal review into how the party failed to address claims against Stoffer when they were brought forward when Jack Layton was federal leader.
Stiles, meanwhile, presented the convention with the draft of an updated policy on harassment and discrimination, which she said should be read at the start of “every party activity.”
“Let me say on behalf of all of us in our party: We are sorry. You were failed. And we apologize,” Stiles said, stating that those in power have too often ignored or excused inappropriate conduct.
“We’ve all been shaken by incidents of harassment and inappropriate behaviour,” she said. “As New Democrats, we are committed to ending the scourge of patriarchy and misogyny.”
Party officials said that1,200 people had checked in to the convention in downtown Ottawa by mid-afternoon Friday, as New Democrats gathered to hear a series of speakers and debate a range of policy resolutions.
Voting started late in the afternoon with motions calling on the Liberal government to extend the timeline for the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls inquiry and comply with the numerous Human Rights Tribunal rulings to provide more funding to services for First Nations children.
Members also passed a resolution affirming the party’s support for a mixed-member proportional voting system.
Singh also stood to speak in support of a resolution — which was approved moments later — to recognize the repatriation of the1982 Constitution as a “historic mistake,” while calling for the inclusion of a nation-to-nation relationship between Indigenous peoples and the Canadian government in any new round of constitutional reform.