Categories for Feature

My latest: when zero tolerance doesn’t mean zero

— 06.24.2020 08:56 AM

Zero tolerance. 

That’s what he said.  Those are the words he used. 

Justin Trudeau has said, many times, that he and his party have “zero tolerance” for sexual harassment and sexual misconduct. 

As recently as 2018, he gave inspiring interviews to Canadian Press and CBC about the subject.  Here’s what he said. 

“We have no tolerance for this — we will not brush things under the rug, but we will take action on it immediately,” he declared to The Canadian Press, describing how his political party and government regard sexual harassment. 

He said the same sort of thing to CBC Radio in an interview around the same time.  There, the self-proclaimed Feminist Prime Minister proclaimed: “I’ve been very, very careful all my life to be thoughtful, to be respectful of people’s space and people’s headspace as well.”

He respects your headspace, our Prime Minister does.  So, as if to emphasize the point, he noted he had earlier banished a pair of Liberal MPs for alleged sexual impropriety. 

In 2014, he expelled two MPs from the Liberal caucus — Scott Andrews and Massimo Pacetti — before he told them why.  An investigation came later, and it determined that Andrews had indeed engaged in harassing behaviour (groping and grinding), while Pacetti was found to have had having sex with someone (without explicit consent). 

So far so good.  We don’t need sexual creeps and crawlies in our lives.  We particularly don’t need them in Canadian public life.  Well done, Trudeau. 

And then, two years ago this week, this writer received a message from a female Member of Parliament.  One who really was a feminist, and one who had female friends in all of the political parties in the Hill. 

“Have you seen the story about Trudeau groping a reporter in BC?” she said.  “It happened years ago, but still.”

I had not, I told her.  The Liberal Party’s “zero tolerance” policy was a hot topic, that June, because of a controversy swirling around Liberal cabinet member Kent Hehr.  An Alberta woman, Kristin Raworth, had tweeted to me vague allegations of sexual impropriety by Hehr, who was and is a quadriplegic. 

Hehr properly removed himself from cabinet while an investigation was underway.  He later lost his Calgary seat in the 2019 election.  (Tellingly, perhaps, Raworth was later obliged to apologize, retract, and pay substantial damages for false allegations – “he hit his wife” – she made against this writer in March.)

But two years ago, the Kent Hehr story had made sexual harassment stories big news.  Me Too, too. 

And a Member of Parliament had just told me Justin Trudeau had groped a reporter in BC.  She had the article, she said.  She sent it to me. 

It was an editorial, unsigned, from the Creston Valley Advance.  It was easy to determine who the author was, but I would not name her (and have never named her).  I posted a screenshot of the editorial, the reporter’s name on the Advance’s masthead removed.  Apart from asking “what?” in the title of the post, I said nothing else. 

The editorial was titled “Open Eyes.”  The author stated that Trudeau had groped her, quote unquote, at a beer festival in 2000.  Trudeau had “inappropriately handled the reporter,” the editorial read, while she was in assignment for the Advance as well as the National Post. 

When confronted about his actions – which, in many other cases, would be regarded as a sexual assault – Trudeau offered an explanation, not a real apology.  “I’m sorry,“ he said.  “If I had known you were reporting for a national paper, I would have never been so forward.”

Meaning: you’re fair game, woman, if you’re reporting for a small paper. 

When I posted the screenshot of the editorial, it went viral, as they say.  It became international news.  When Trudeau – now a Prime Minister – finally deigned to respond, he offered up an explanation that has since become an object of ridicule.  There hadn’t been a “negative interaction,” he said, although the editorial certainly suggested that was not the case. 

Said Trudeau about his victim: “Who knows where her mind was, and I fully respect her ability to experience something differently.”

Implying the victim had some unnamed mental instability, and declaring that she experienced sexual assault “differently” doesn’t sound terribly feminist, does it?  But Justin Trudeau survived the scandal.  He was re-elected. 

Two years later, the issue is back.  This time, a Liberal backbencher is facing assault, break and enter, and criminal harassment charges from 2015.  A woman is among the victims.

And Trudeau knew all about it.  The allegations were substantiated by an internal Liberal Party probe, the CBC revealed this week. 

But Trudeau let the backbencher run under his party’s banner anyway.  Trudeau signed the MP’s nomination papers.  

We could go on, but – by now – you get the point.  And the point is this. 

When Justin Trudeau said he had a “zero tolerance” policy, he didn’t actually mean there was “zero tolerance” for sexual misconduct. 

He meant there was literally zero that he wouldn’t tolerate.


Comments (14)

My latest: 2020 sucks

— 06.19.2020 09:03 PM

It’s more like an ordeal, than a year. That has been 2020. 

In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens famously declared that “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” 

But you can’t really say that about these times. They are the worst in living memory. There is no glorious revolution to celebrate, as Dickens did. 

The three horsemen of the current apocalypse are well-known: the coronavirus, the collapse of the world economy, and the lethal racism that seemingly permeates too many institutions. It is not an exaggeration to say that these three things have reordered our present view of the world. 

Indeed, against those three things – Covid-19, global recession and widespread systemic racism – many have been measured. Many have been judged. 

Many have been found lacking. 

So, Donald Trump will lose in November because he has failed the test of all three. He called the coronavirus “a hoax.” He repeatedly promised an economic rebirth that never came. And – because, he is in his essence a white supremacist – he badly miscalculated how to respond to the historic rebellion against police racism and brutality. His response: threaten to send in American troops to confront the American people.

But others are in the process of being judged, too.  And not just in the United States. 

In the middle of an unprecedented global uprising against racism, Conservative leadership candidate Erin O’Toole issued an unambiguous dog-whistle, proclaiming he wanted to “take Canada back.” From whom, he didn’t say. He didn’t have to: his is, and was, the party of the barbaric practices hotline. 

Justin Trudeau was caught wearing racist blackface, and was so completely lacking in self-awareness – so incapable of shame – he later turned a Black Lives Matter protest into the backdrop for a photo op. Plunging into a crowd on Parliament Hill when, just the days before, he had exhorted us all to keep away from crowds. 

The RCMP, once our proud national police force – once even a symbol of the country itself – is being judged, too. As the Mounties’ leadership plays semantic games about what “systemic racism” means, its membership shoot an Indigenous woman to death during “a wellness check.” They gun down an Indigenous man in a New Brunswick street – why, we do not know. And they brutalize and beat another Indigenous man – a respected chief in Alberta – in a parking lot. All this, from a police force whose Commissioner told the Globe and Mail “we don’t have systemic racism,” before reversing herself.

Many media have done a commendable job documenting all of these serial failures by those who are supposed to know better. In the grinding, grueling Spring of 2020, our media have mostly served us well. 

Not CBC, however.

CBC recently decided to destroy the career of Wendy Mesley, a Gemini-winning journalist who has worked at the national broadcaster for 40 years.  Her offence? To express concern about a possible panelist who might use the N-word. 

Mesley did not say the word on air.  She was in a private meeting with CBC staff, discussing the suitability of the guest who might say it.  She expressed disapproval.

That didn’t matter to the craven, dissembling cowards who run the CBC.  They summarily cancelled the remaining episodes of Mesley’s show, and suspended the award-winning journalist.  Mesley had apologized, quickly and unambiguously.  Veteran CBC journalists like Neil MacDonald and Bruce Dowbiggin had come to her defence. But the CBC’s “leadership” was undeterred.  Mesley was gone, and few expect her to come back.

This would be the same CBC, of course, who once gave a platform to the founder of the American Nazi Party to spew white supremacy and anti-Semitic bile on-air.  The same CBC who brought robed Klansmen onto a show to advocate separation of the races.  The same CBC who hosted Anne Coulter, who calls non-white immigration “genocide.”

The same CBC which, not long ago, gave an uncritical platform to Gavin McInnes, the founder of the white supremacist Proud Boys.  While the clueless CBC host did precisely nothing, McInnes advocated “issuing a bounty” on Indigenous people.  McInnes – who had previously written “Ten Things I Hate About Jews” for Rebel Media, and called Muslims “sandbox savages” – was permitted by CBC to spew racist invective without opposition, without context.

The CBC, in its scramble to look tolerant, now looks like something else entirely: a farce.

We live in profoundly troubled times.  We are at risk of losing much to a troika of grim threats – coronavirus, recession, systemic racism. We need leadership.

Too often, this year, we’re not getting it.

 

 


Comments (6)

Because it’s 2020

— 06.19.2020 06:54 AM

On sexual assault, and sexual harassment, Justin Trudeau is not to be believed. He just isn’t.

But will some self-described Liberal “feminists” go on TV and defend it? You know they will.

Member of Parliament Marwan Tabbara — who is expected to appear in court today to face assault and criminal harassment charges — was approved to run for the Liberals in the 2019 federal election despite a party investigation into allegations of sexual harassment made against him during his last mandate, CBC News has learned.

The Liberals looked into detailed allegations of misconduct made against the Kitchener South-Hespeler MP that included inappropriate touching and unwelcome sexual comments directed at a female staffer, according to sources with knowledge of the allegations. The allegations date back to the 2015 election campaign, the source said.

The sources who spoke to CBC News requested anonymity, citing the risk of being blacklisted within Liberal circles and it negatively impacting their careers.

CBC News has confirmed the party’s internal investigation determined that some of the allegations were substantiated, but has not been able to learn whether Tabbara faced any consequences.

Despite Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s zero-tolerance policy on sexual misconduct in the workplace, the party approved Tabbara as a Liberal candidate last year.


Comments (10)

Kent Hehr speaks

— 06.18.2020 10:32 AM

When you read this important essay, keep in mind that Kristin Rayworth was obliged to apologize to me, retract, pay my legal fees, and make a donation to Equal Voice on my behalf.

That says plenty. So does Mr. Hehr.

More than two years have passed since I faced the #MeToo accusations that led to me resigning from Cabinet. While it has been a whirlwind, I have taken pause every day since to reflect not just on the accusations, but how I have lived my life.

This came into sharp focus a month ago when the woman who accused me of sexual harassment in 2018 apologized for making libellous statements about Canadian public figure Warren Kinsella. She falsely claimed that he had abused women and hit his wife, and was forced to retract these statements. Kinsella wrote an article that provided some context for all of this, and you can read it in the link below. Here’s how he closed it: “… to Kent Hehr, wherever you are: I now wonder whether you deserved better. I wonder that a lot.”

http://warrenkinsella.com/2020/04/apology-by-kristin-raworth

When I read this, my mind immediately went to the classic Clint Eastwood film, Unforgiven. My favourite scene is when Eastwood’s character, an aging outlaw killer, stands above the corrupt sheriff who pleads, “I don’t deserve this, to die like this. I was building a house.” Eastwood’s character replies, “Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.”

I stand by what I wrote to Canadians in the spring of 2018. The same woman who accused Kinsella alleged, when I was an MLA twelve years ago and she worked at the legislature, that I had called her “yummy” in an elevator. I did not, and do not, recall ever meeting her. I certainly don’t recall ever saying “yummy” to her (or to anyone, for that matter).

In response to this accusation I wrote, “I have never been perfect but have always strived to do better,” and this remains true today. The important question for me is whether I could become a better person from the #MeToo movement. The answer has proven to be yes.

I used to think that I could call myself a feminist simply because I was a progressive. I thought it was enough that I believed in equal pay for equal work, a woman’s right to choose, and national daycare. I thought it was enough that I ran in elections under the Liberal banner, as a champion of women’s liberation and gender equality.

But it was not enough, not even close.

I have learned that it matters not just who you affiliate with, but how you speak and listen. Being a progressive is a choice each and every day, to fight for certain values as well as to live by them. It meant looking at my own behaviour and language. It means humility by consistently choosing to be humble. It means renouncing attitudes once taken for granted.

The truth is: I have acted inappropriately at times in my life—sometimes inadvertently, sometimes by choice. I grew up playing hockey, and if there was ever a place for toxic masculinity to fester it was in the dressing room. Everything centred around sex; it was far from healthy or respectful, and I willingly took part. I spent more than my fair share of time sitting around a pub table where improper conversations about women were commonplace.

I didn’t see, or try to see, the inherent harm in what I thought was harmless banter. This was wrong. Even as an elected politician, I could revel in a bad joke with friends, colleagues and my own staff. I realize now more than ever that this was also wrong. I take personal responsibility, and what I stated in 2018 doesn’t just stand: it takes on new meaning for me every day.

Here’s another quote I love from Unforgiven. The Schofield Kid says, “Yeah…well, I guess they had it comin’.” Eastwood’s character replies, “We all have it comin’, kid.” I agree: sometimes we do have it coming, whether we deserve it or not.

At 50, there are more days behind me than ahead. I’ve learned during my time rolling this earth that, while “deserve” may have nothing to do with it, forgiveness does. I hope to be forgiven and I want to forgive others as well.


Comments (4)

My Dad

— 06.14.2020 11:41 PM

Dr. T. Douglas KINSELLA, CM, BA, MD, FACP, FRCPC.

Like some men, and as was the practice in some families, my brothers and I did not hug my father a lot. As we got older in places like Montreal, or Kingston, or Dallas or Calgary, we also did not tell him that we loved him as much as we did. With our artist Mom, there was always a lot of affection, to be sure; but in the case of my Dad, usually all that was exchanged with his four boys was a simple handshake, when it was time for hello or goodbye. It was just the way we did things.

There was, however, much to love about our father, and love him we did. He was, and remains, a giant in our lives – and he was a significant presence, too, for many of the patients whose lives he saved or bettered over the course a half-century of healing. We still cannot believe he is gone, with so little warning.

Thomas Douglas Kinsella was born on February, 15, 1932 in Montreal. His mother was a tiny but formidable force of nature named Mary; his father, a Northern Electric employee named Jimmy, was a stoic man whose parents came over from County Wexford, in Ireland. In their bustling homes, in and around Montreal’s Outremont, our father’s family comprised a younger sister, Juanita, and an older brother, Howard. Also there were assorted uncles – and foster siblings Bea, Ernie, Ellen and Jimmy.

When he was very young, Douglas was beset by rheumatic fever. Through his mother’s ministrations, Douglas beat back the potentially-crippling disease. But he was left with a burning desire to be a doctor.

Following a Jesuitical education at his beloved Loyola High School in Montreal, Douglas enrolled at Loyola College, and also joined the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps. It was around that time he met Lorna Emma Cleary, at a Montreal Legion dance in April 1950. She was 17 – a dark-haired, radiant beauty from the North End. He was 18 – and a handsome, aspiring medical student, destined for an officer’s rank and great things.

It was a love like you hear about, sometimes, but which you rarely see. Their love affair was to endure for 55 years – without an abatement in mutual love and respect.

On a hot, sunny day in June 1955, mid-way through his medical studies at McGill, Douglas and Lorna wed at Loyola Chapel. Then, three years after Douglas’ graduation from McGill with an MD, first son Warren was born.

In 1963, second son Kevin came along, while Douglas was a clinical fellow in rheumatism at the Royal Vic. Finally, son Lorne arrived in 1965, a few months before the young family moved to Dallas, Texas, to pursue a research fellowship. In the United States, Douglas’ belief in a liberal, publicly-funded health care system was greatly enhanced. So too his love of a tolerant, diverse Canada.

In 1968, Douglas and his family returned to Canada and an Assistant Professorship in Medicine at Queen’s University in Kingston. More than 35 years later, it was at Kingston General Hospital – in the very place where Douglas saved so many lives – that his own life would come to a painless end in the early hours of June 15, 2004, felled by a fast-moving lung cancer.

Kingston was followed in 1973 by a brief return to Montreal and a professorship at McGill. But an unstable political environment – and the promise of better research in prosperous Alberta – persuaded the family to journey West, to Calgary.

There Lorna and Douglas would happily remain for 25 years, raising three sons – and providing legal guardianship to grandson Troy, who was born in 1982. At the University of Calgary, and at Foothills Hospital, Douglas would achieve distinction for his work in rheumatology, immunology and – later – medical bioethics.

He raised his boys with one rule, which all remember, but none observed as closely as he did: “Love people, and be honest.” His commitment to ethics, and healing – and his love and honesty, perhaps – resulted in him being named a Member of the Order of Canada in 1995.

On the day that the letter arrived, bearing Governor-General Romeo LeBlanc’s vice-regal seal, Douglas came home from work early – an unprecedented occurence – to tell Lorna. It was the first time I can remember seeing him cry.

As I write this, I am in a chair beside my father’s bed in a tiny hospital room in Kingston, Ont.,where he and my mother returned in 2001 to retire. It is night, and he has finally fallen asleep.

My father will die in the next day or so, here in the very place where he saved lives. He has firmly but politely declined offers of special treatment – or even a room with a nicer view of Lake Ontario.

Before he fell asleep, tonight, I asked him if he was ready. “I am ready,” he said. “I am ready.”

When I leave him, tonight, this is what I will say to him, quietly: “We all love you, Daddy. We all love you forever.”

[Warren Kinsella is Douglas Kinsella’s eldest son. His father died two nights later.]

[From Globe’s Lives Lived, June 15, 2004.]


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My latest: do as I say, not as I do

— 06.10.2020 08:03 PM

Justin Trudeau paused. Above his black mask, the famous dark eyes flitted around the crowd.

It was Friday, and thousands had gathered for a Parliament Hill protest against racism. They stood close together, the protestors did, trying to get a glimpse of Trudeau, who was surrounded by a phalanx of security.

Trudeau spotted cameras to his left, and pointed in his direction. Satisfied, he slowly eased to one knee and bowed his head.

His only black cabinet minister, Ahmed Hussen, had been walking a few paces behind Trudeau. He got down on one knee, too.

They remained like that for eight minutes or so, the amount of time it took a Minneapolis  police officer to murder the African-American named George Floyd.

The cameras recorded every moment.

Hypocrisy, as always, is Justin Trudeau’s fatal flaw. Every politician becomes a hypocrite, if they remain in public life too long.

But Justin Trudeau has taken hypocrisy to a different level entirely. His hypocrisies are so big, so monumental, so glaring, they practically have their own weather system. They have their own time zone.

He said he wanted more women in public life, and then he brutalized and exiled the two smartest women in his cabinet – Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott – simply because they wouldn’t do what he wanted them to. Which was break the law.

He said he wanted to emancipate Canada’s indigenous peoples – and then he defamed and demeaned the aforementioned Wilson-Raybould, a proud Indigenous leader. He sneered “thanks for your donation” to another woman, one who simply wanted him to make good on his promise to end the mercury poisoning at Grassy Narrows First Nation.

He said he objected to racism in the Conservative Party – and then tapes and photos emerged, showing Trudeau wearing racist blackface at least three times. Only when he was caught did he apologize.

He said he would return integrity and transparency to public life – and then he secretly took expensive gifts from a wealthy lobbyist. He repeatedly tried to stop the criminal prosecution of a big Quebec-based donor to his Liberal Party.

And on and on. Hypocrisy, thine name is Trudeau.

But the election result seemed to humble him. He got fewer votes than his nearest competitor. He lost his Parliamentary majority. He got quieter. He got a bit somber. The change suited him.

Then the pandemic hit, upending everyone’s life. Trudeau’s performance wasn’t flawless. He had to retreat when a plan to dramatically increase his powers became a controversy. He was criticized for traveling to be with his family, across a provincial border.

But, in the first few weeks of the pandemic, he didn’t do badly. He sounded sincere. He sounded concerned about Canadians. He came up with some good policies to help them.

And, over and over and over, he urged people to stay at home and maintain social distancing.  He said – over and over and over – that nothing was as important as that.

On April 1 – April Fool’s Day – this is what Justin Trudeau said: “The biggest variable in shaping projections is you and your behaviour. While many of you are staying home and limiting grocery trips, many are not. We must do everything we can today and tomorrow to set us on the right path for next week and the week after.”

Reporters asked him why he hadn’t released more coronavirus data, like Doug Ford had done.

Trudeau responded: “Highlighting the range isn’t as important as getting an analysis of what we’re likely to face. It’s all directly linked to how people behave today. That’s why it’s so important that people stay home and continue with social distancing and stay two metres apart and minimize movement so we can get through this in the best way possible.”

See that? “Stay home and continue with social distancing and stay two meters apart.” He said that sort of thing a lot.

And then he showed up a gathering of thousands of people. Him, Prime Minister Coronavirus Blackface.

At times like this, it is fair to wonder what Justin Trudeau is thinking. Does he think he should take a knee for black people, after having been caught repeatedly defaming them? Does he think he should use a crowd of people as a photo op, after having told them all to “stay home and continue with social distancing and stay two meters apart”?

Does he think about how profoundly, irretrievably hypocritical he looks? Does he even think at all?

On the very day that Justin Trudeau had his Black Lives Matter For Photo-Ops, I went to see my mother in Toronto.  She was behind a fence, wearing a mask. I have not been able to hug her for three months.  She has not been able to hug any of us. She is often sad and lonely.

My mother likes Justin Trudeau, but not on this day. She asked me if I had seen Trudeau at the protest. I nodded.

“I am so disappointed in him,” she said. “Why should young people listen to him now? He looks like a hypocrite.”

And that is what he will always be, too.

A hypocrite.


Comments (56)

Bobby

— 06.06.2020 06:00 PM

Fifty-two years ago today, he died. More than half a Century.

In my family, he was our uncrowned King. We were living in Dallas when they killed him, and I can still remember my Mom and Dad crying.

The bust on the right was found in an antique shop in Brighton, Ont. The photo on the left is of Bobby and his son Bobby Kennedy Jr., with whom I worked on an anti-tobacco file. On it, Bobby Jr. wrote: “Warren – see you on the barricades. Bobby Kennedy.”

Fifty-two years. So much would have been different – and so much better.




Comments (19)