Senate challenged to make any harassment deals public

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This article was published 13/02/2018 (2508 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Manitoba Sen. Marilou McPhedran is challenging the Senate to reveal whether it has paid off sexual-harassment complainants, after the upper chamber’s budget committee rebuffed her move to weed out a “whisper network” on Parliament Hill.

Last month, McPhedran set up a confidential email address for self-identified victims of harassment by senators and their staff, and commissioned a lawyer to give them guidance on pursuing justice and whether to speak publicly.

McPhedran stressed Tuesday she’s still proceeding with both, despite fellow senators saying they won’t allow her to pay the lawyer through her office budget.

“This is not going to stop anything,” she said. “The kibosh is not being put on.”

She announced the move Jan. 31, as the Hill was rocked by allegations of MPs harassing staff, months after the #MeToo movement swept through Hollywood and Washington, D.C.

McPhedran, who has led three inquiries into sexualized power imbalances, said a key goal was helping people who have signed non-disclosure agreements understand such “gag orders” actually provide them with some liberty to reveal what happened.

She says four past and present Senate staffers have already come forward, as well as multiple others who have not been employed by the Senate.

On Saturday, the clerk of the internal budget economy said its membership was unlikely to approve the $7,000 McPhedran had requested to commission the lawyer, because legal advice can only be expensed when used for legislative and work-related tasks. (She’d requested the amount for two months, with the intent to reapply in the new fiscal year, starting April 1.)

“Such an expense to the benefit of a third party would not be permitted under Senate policy,” reads the letter, which McPhedran shared with the Free Press.

On Tuesday, McPhedran responded by asking the committee to publicly explain how much money that committee has allocated since 2006 “for legal assistance of any kind in relation to complaints of harassment (including bullying and sexual harassment) against senators or officials of the Senate” — and how much of that has gone toward “any form of settlement to anyone alleging harassment.”

She further challenged the committee to justify its reasoning if it refuses to answer, and said its response should leave out any identifying information, such as names.

In an interview, McPhedran hinted she’s heard the committee has helped senators pay off settlements with their staff over misconduct — an allegation that could prove scandalous for the upper chamber, if accurate.

McPhedran was also aghast a Senate spokeswoman — whom she believes was directed by the three senators who co-chair the budget committee — summarized the details of the letter she received with a reporter, despite it being marked “confidential.”

On Tuesday, she separately served notice to the Senate Speaker she’d be asking him to investigate whether the statement breached her parliamentary privilege, which could prompt a committee investigation.

She also asked the three senators involved whether they’d considered media coverage of the Senate declining her budget request would leave sexual-harassment victims believing they no longer had free access to a lawyer.

“I’m surprised, I’m disappointed, I’m disillusioned (at) this little group,” she said. “This is an example of the poor governance that operates here on so many levels.”

McPhedran says the Senate is far too secretive, from a “whisper network” of harassment, to arcane rules around how expenses are processed.

Late last year, she continually appealed two expensed trips, which she says wasn’t about seeking compensation but rather having each claim reach the committee, so the public could see what she calls an arbitrary deliberation process.

Expenses are a loaded topic for many senators, with some still smarting from the 2012 scandal that saw a handful of them forced to pay back travel costs, and many more scrutinized for questionable billing.

When McPhedran appealed her expenses in December, one of the three senators chairing the budget committee referenced a letter from a former staffer — which the chairs refused to share publicly — claiming McPhedran had misrepresented her expenses. That prompted a heated exchange during which McPhedran accused the committee of smearing her reputation with innuendo.

Separately, the Senate has an ongoing inquiry and working group to study sexual-harassment rules, following the scandal around former senator Don Meredith, who resigned last year after the ethics officer found he’d engaged in a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca

Sen. McPhedran's exchanges with the Senate budget committee