Do the right thing: Quit
Memo to Kevin Vuong: Do the right thing. Step aside as MP for Spadina-Fort York. Your election is tainted and the people of that riding deserve better.
Vuong was on the ballot as a Liberal, but two days before Monday’s federal election his party dropped him. It says he won’t be allowed to join the Liberal caucus in Ottawa because he never told the party that he had been charged with sexual assault in 2019.
That charge was withdrawn, and Vuong maintains he’s innocent of any wrongdoing. We don’t know the truth of all that, but in the end it’s not the key issue.
The fact is that Vuong didn’t disclose the charge to the Liberals when he sought the party’s nomination. He didn’t tell voters about it. It came to light only four days before election day in a report by the Star.
Then on the Saturday before election day, a scant 48 hours before the vote, the Liberals announced he wouldn’t be part of their team if he won.
By then, many voters had made their choice in advance polls or via mail-in ballots. They had no idea about the controversy surrounding Vuong. And it’s reasonable to think that many who voted on election day were making their choice based on the “Liberal” label beside Vuong’s name on the ballot even though by then the party had cut him loose.
The bottom line is that the people of Spadina-Fort York, or at least a very large number of them, weren’t able to make a fully informed choice. Vuong says he intends to sit as an Independent, but he didn’t run as an Independent. He ran as a Liberal, and many voters were kept in the dark or misled about what they were supporting.
Vuong certainly has a legal right to take up his seat in the Commons when Parliament goes back to work. But there’s the law, and there’s what’s right. And in this case they aren’t the same.
There are just over 115,000 people living in Spadina-Fort York, a densely populated downtown Toronto riding. That’s more than two-thirds of the population of an entire province (Prince Edward Island). They deserve effective representation in Ottawa, and an Independent MP with a cloud over his head isn’t going to be able to provide that.
In our system, MPs work through their parties. Independents can’t get much done. And in Vuong’s case that will go double. Who’s going to want to work with an MP who got to Ottawa in such dubious circumstances?
The outcome also deprives voters who actually support one of the parties from having the MP they want. Liberal supporters presumably want someone in the Liberal caucus. New Democrats, whose candidate Norm Di Pasquale came a close second, will feel cheated because all the facts weren’t known until the very end of the campaign.
Vuong should step aside and a byelection should be held in Spadina-Fort York. If he feels he deserves to go to Ottawa, Vuong should run openly as an Independent and make his case. The odds would be heavily against him, but at least voters would get a chance to make a decision in full knowledge of what they’re getting.
There’s a bigger question here about how thoroughly parties vet their candidates. At least one Conservative candidate and two New Democrats had to withdraw during the campaign because things came to light that embarrassed their parties. All parties are doing a pretty bad job of making sure there aren’t skeletons in their candidates’ closets.
For now, though, the pressing issue is Spadina-Fort York. Mr. Vuong, do the right thing.