Oh, I’m sorry — did you forget how Wynne revealed that at least two Liberal MPPs were accused of sexual harassment, long before #MeToo started trending? Because she totally did. I’ll wait a minute while you get back up to speed.
All done? Great.
Isn’t it strange how people keep needing to be reminded of Liberals who’ve behaved in this way towards women? I’ll bet you already forgot about Scott Andrews and Massimo Pacetti, two Liberal MPs who Trudeau dealt with summarily. Then there’s Darshan Kang and Hunter Tootoo (his technically not harassment, but disgraceful nonetheless), who received a bit more attention before and after they resigned. Then there’s the case of Liberal MP Nicola Di lorio joking that Conservative MP Dianne Watts was a stripper in front of other colleagues after hearing her ringtone, which Liberal-friendly online publication iPolitics thought was funny enough to include in its end-of-the-year top ten list of funniest stories in Canadian politics.
Liberal MP Sherry Romanado tried to even the score a bit by leveling accusations of harassment against Conservative James Bezan that one time, but seeing as how he had been open and transparent about what he’d said and his attempts to apologize and make the situation right, it didn’t have the desired effect.
The media seem pretty content to let the Liberals deal with these cases internally. No articles about whether the Liberals as a party have a sexual harassment problem, like the endless ones they do positing if conservatives have a racism or extremism problem on even weaker evidence. Not many real follow-ups to determine the nature of the allegations. No questions about how the investigations are proceeding or how they work or what the victims want or would like.
But at least we know the names of the men accused in the case of the five MPs I mentioned. As for the two, and possibly more, that exist for the provincial Liberals? Not even the names of the accused have been given.
We know that ex-Liberal MPP Kim Craitor (and his son) were accused of sexual harassment. Was he one of the two? Quite possibly, though there isn’t a definitive answer as of now.
Did Craitor become an ex-Liberal MPP for this reason? Christina Blizzard seemed to think so. Martin Regg Cohn, as is his wont, praised the Premier for “sacrificing” a riding to show how seriously she takes the issue despite acknowledging in the same column that she only acted after the complainant took her concerns to the media.
Is the other MPP(s) still in caucus? No one can say. All we get is the most wild speculation. Could it have been Bas Balkisoon, the Scarborough MPP who resigned suddenly in 2016? Shrugs all around.
Does the Opposition have their own cases they’re dealing with? Is that why they don’t try to resurrect this story? Are they satisfied with the process enacted by the Premier? Some things the public are just not meant to know, I suppose.
What we do know is that media in this province do a shoddy job of following these stories that it’s hard to tell whether this trail went cold out of negligence or lack of resources or a desire to shield the Premier — and by extension the province and alleged perpetrators — from scandal.
Raving Canuck 