Dykstra investigation flawed, report finds
Tories lacked protocol to properly examine sexual assault allegations
OTTAWA— Stephen Harper’s campaign team failed to sufficiently investigate sexual assault allegations against former St. Catharines MP Rick Dykstra before the 2015 election, an independent review has found.
The report confirmed that Harper knew Dykstra faced allegations of either sexual assault or sexual harassment, but that senior members of the Conservative party failed to sufficiently investigate the allegations.
Harper said in February last year that he still approved Dykstra’s candidacy.
“This decision was made without the benefit of a procedure or protocol for addressing these types of allegations and was made with limited information,” wrote lawyer Carol Nielsen, who led the review.
“Essentially, all that was known at the time of the decision was that there were allegations related to sexual assault or sexual misconduct (although the precise details of the allegations were unknown), a criminal investigation had been initiated and discontinued, and the complainant wanted to maintain privacy.”
But the review found that senior members of Harper’s inner circle failed to make sufficient inquiries into the allegations. They did not approach the complainant, the report found, and party lawyer Arthur Hamilton approached Dykstra to ask about the status, rather than the nature, of the allegations.
“Mr. Dykstra denied the allegations. He further advised that he was interviewed by the police and the matter was closed and the records sealed. There is no evidence that Mr. Dykstra was ever required to respond to the merits of the allegations against him in any detail,” the report reads.
“Indeed, Mr. Hamilton specifically stated that his inquiry was to determine the status of the issue rather than to fully investigate the allegations.”
Dykstra lost his re-election bid before the allegations were first made public in a Maclean’s report last year. He stepped down as the president of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party on Jan. 28, 2018, the same day the Maclean’s story was published. Dykstra, who has denied wrongdoing, did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.
Maclean’s reported last year that a young Conservative staffer went to Ottawa police in 2014, alleging Dykstra had sexually assaulted her. The alleged assault took place in February 2014, after a night of partying after the release of the Conservatives’ budget.
The magazine reported that the woman, who at that time was in her early 20s, told her boss — another Conservative MP who was a friend of Dykstra’s — and an official in the party whip’s office, but that the party took no action. She hired a lawyer, but eventually withdrew her police complaint.
The report avoided weighing in on the actual allegations against Dykstra, and limited its scope to how the party handled the matter.
It also did not delve into allegations, first reported by BuzzFeed News in 2015, that Dykstra bought drinks for underage girls at the Mansion House bar in St. Catharines.
Nielsen said part of the problem was top operatives within the Conservative campaign — including Jenni Byrne, Ray Novak and Guy Giorno — did not have defined roles and responsibilities. No one person was responsible for assessing and following up on the allegations against Dykstra. There was also no formalized policy for dealing with complaints against existing candidates.
The report recommends putting a “candidate complaint procedure” in place, and making a single staff person responsible for its management.
Nielsen also recommends creating a code of conduct and harassment policy for Conservative candidates, training candidates on these issues, and keeping those measures in place outside the campaign period.
In a statement, the Conservative party said it accepts the findings and will implement all the recommendations.
“The report and its recommendations will provide our party with much greater clarity and a clearly defined process to be able to properly assist in decision making,” wrote Cory Hann, the Conservative party’s director of communications.