Complaints of misconduct in the House

Shortly after the Jian Ghomeshi allegations first surfaced, two Liberal MP’s were suspended amid sexual harassment allegations. It lead to a call for better protocols and procedures when it comes to looking into sexual harassment complaints involving politicians.

It was MPP Laurie Scott who raised the idea of forming this committee involving all three parties to look at sexual harassment in the workplace.

Earlier this week Premier Kathleen Wynne agreed to the request, and offered a Liberal-dominated committee, but the opposition accused her of playing politics.

Today, Wynne reiterated that she’s still open to the idea of a standing committee, which tends to reflect the makeup of the legislature. But she did emphasize that it needs to be made up of a variety of different voices. Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath also spoke earlier, saying today’s charges against Ghomeshi further emphasize the need for action to be taken against sexual violence.

Premier Wynne: “We need to form a committee, let’s form a committee. Let’s make sure that all the voices that need to be heard are heard. Let’s form the committee in the tradition of this place. There’s been good work done by committee’s under an NDP government, under a Conservative government, under a Liberal government. Let’s set up a committee in that tradition and let’s get the work done. That’s exactly what I’m saying. I think there are other things we need to do and in the coming days, I’m going to be talking about other things that we need to do beyond setting up a committee. But let’s get the committee struck, stemming from this whole discussion around sexual harassment.”

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath: “I have to say that what’s happened with the CBC, I think only serves to highlight the fact that there are very few processes in place that employers utilize to deal with these kinds of problems.”

The accusations in Ottawa against the two Liberal MP’s, both of whom deny any wrongdoing, were made by two New Democrat MP’s and one of them has come forward with more details about what happened.

The woman says she was invited back to Liberal MP Massimo Pacetti’s hotel room for drinks after a sports event in March, and says he engaged her in sex without her explicit consent.

She says while she didn’t say ‘no’ to what happened at the time, she didn’t say ‘yes’. The woman doesn’t want her name revealed, because of the impact to her family, but says she’d be interested in participating in an independent probe. This has the NDP embracing the idea of a neutral third-party investigation of complaints against Pacetti and MP Scott Andrews.

NDP Leader Tom Mulcair says his party is willing to participate in a process to resolve sexual harassment allegations on Parliament Hill. And that it’s repeating its call for all parties to determine how to fairly investigate such claims.

The speaker of the House of Commons offered the use of house administration resources as well as external experts. The NDP originally dismissed the offer as neither complainant wanted to pursue the matter.

Now that one is willing to participate, the NDP has asked for more details about the process that the speaker offered. Justin Trudeau, the leader of the Liberal party, says he’s also on board with this third-party investigative committee: “We have said from the very beginning exactly what’s going to happen party process.”

NDP Leader Tom Mulcair: “The real question is going to be, you’re going to have to tell me what that process is. That’s why Nycole Turmel wrote a very detailed letter yesterday to Speaker Scheer, saying ‘what are you talking about here? Because we’re not sure whether it’s prospective, retrospective, what it would apply to? I think that the most effective way to accomplish something would be for the parties to work together.”

Mulcair is urging other parties to adopt his proposal to develop a formal code of conduct for MP’s and appoint a non-partisan officer of parliament to investigate complaints.