Tag Archive: PMO

“I find you so pretty” – senior PMO director to young woman looking for a job

This is wild.  Wild.

Look at the message Myriam Denis, an experienced and bilingual communicator with a Liberal pedigree, got from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Deputy Director of Operations:

“I find you very pretty,” he says.  One of the most senior unelected officials in the federal government, sending messages like that, not even bothering to hide his identity.

That’s not all: Ms. Denis – who I have never met – was being hit on by a guy who worked for Bardash Chagger, presently the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons.  That guy, an advisor to Chagger, allegedly put his hand on Ms. Denis’ thigh when they met to discuss a job opening.  She says he told her she had “a nice bikini body.”

After all this outrageous behaviour by two senior men in the Trudeau government – two men who, coincidentally, had both worked for Melanie Joly – Myriam Denis did not get the job.  She did, however, complain to Chagger’s Chief of Staff, a woman (thankfully).  The chief of Staff took her complaint seriously, it seems.

But get this: right after Ms. Denis wrote briefly on Facebook briefly about getting hit on by a senior Trudeau operative, she heard from another Trudeau guy.  He told her that he “handles [human relations] in the Prime Minister’s office.”  That’s a quote.

Except he didn’t.  The Claude-Eric Gagné investigation was being handled by an outside, arms-length law firm.  Not someone who worked within PMO.  (Oh, and the guy’s title was “Director of Administration and Special Projects.”  Not HR.)  So: one of Gagné’s fellow directors at PMO seemed to be falsely claiming to be “handling” sexual harassment cases like Ms. Denis’.

Was he truly contacting her to help? Or was it just to cover it all up?

She is the victim, here, and should have the final word, and you should read every word:

This is wrong on so many levels. Even if he was truly the HR person in the PMO, it would be extremely inappropriate for him to be contacting potential victims when there was an ongoing examination by a third-party investigator.

Until the moment I received the Facebook message from Brett Thalmann, I was willing to believe that Vidah and Gagné were just two cases of “bad apples” within a big organization. I am not so sure anymore. This third strange experience makes me think that it might be more than a few isolated incidents of reprehensible behaviours.

I feel a lot of sadness and empathy for the women who are currently working [in Justin Trudeau’s PMO].


#MeToo, #cdnpoli and #questions – UPDATED TWICE

Timing is everything, in comedy and in politics.

Late on a Friday – just as Maclean’s was breaking a huge story about the Harper Conservatives knowing that they had a candidate accused of sexual assault, and let him run for them anyway – the government let slip that the Deputy Director of Operations in the Prime Minister’s Office was no longer employed there.

Rule of thumb: when (a) a government, any government, quietly releases something (b) on a Friday (c) in the evening, it is usually meaningful.

This Gagné fellow was pretty senior.  In any PMO, only the Chief of Staff, the Principal Secretary, the Director of Comms and the Director of Operations are more senior.  An Ops director will generally have more power than any ministerial Chief of Staff, or most members of cabinet.

Some of what there is to know about Monsieur Gagné, and his alleged behaviour, is starting to trickle out – as one brave woman is suggesting, here.

Many questions remain.  There’s no question, however, that #MeToo isn’t winding up on Parliament Hill.

As Friday’s late-breaking stories suggest, it’s just getting started.

UPDATE: Right after the above post went up, some anonymous person(s) started to email the pleadings in my divorce to Ottawa reporters.  Now, why do you think that is happening?  And which political team do you think might be doing it, eh?

Ottawa sure is a nice town.

UPDATE TWO: Oh look: now they have updated my Wikipedia page to say I abused and neglected my children. A Teksavvy customer in Ottawa did it. From a friend: “To reiterate, the edit came from a computer on a DSL network associated with TekSavvy customer assigned address 23-233-60-119.cpe.pppoe.ca at 7:01pm EST Saturday February 3 2018 in the World Exchange Plaza, likely at one of the lobby firms there.”