Erin Weir accused of "harassment"

If Weir's scruples don't allow him to take the money from donations he can sue for a penny or donate the money back to a candidate he believes in.

To the commenter who said Weir doesn't have access to the solution he wants, being reinstated, that is so. He behaved in a way that made that impossible. When he said the harassment charge was politically motivated he sealed his fate.

Unionist, I don't mind spelling and grammar tips because they benefit me even when they are intended maliciously.

Pondering wrote:

Unionist, I don't mind spelling and grammar tips because they benefit me even when they are intended maliciously.

I didn't mean it maliciously. Several other babblers also misspell "publicly". I'm sorry you took it maliciously. Attributing motives never leads to productive discussion.

You can charge anyone with a violation of your civil rights. It does not have to be just the government. Our civil rights are inviolable. That does not just mean the government. 

Mr. Magoo]</p> <p>[quote wrote:

In the interest of accuracy:  we cannot "charge" someone with such a violation.  But we can make a claim to a HRT, who will assess that claim and may or may not initiate an investigation.

If your main point was that it need not be our own government who is the defendant, that's true.

Human Rights tribunals do not generally enforce the Charter, though. Their main role is to enforce human rights codes that do cover private actors, typically over issues of discrimination in housing, employment and the like.

There was an article that went around a couple of weeks ago that suggested the NDP may have discriminated against Weir on the basis of disability.

https://www.straight.com/news/1070761/it-conceivable-jagmeet-singh-has-legal-duty-accommodate-erin-weir-ndp-caucus

To be clear though, while I may have some personal thoughts on this I have no information that Weir has a disability nor do think that an HRT, even if it took jurisdiction of a case like this, would actually have the authority to order him reinstated to caucus. At best this could offer another path to damages.

Mr. Magoo wrote:

Quote:

You can charge anyone with a violation of your civil rights. It does not have to be just the government.

In the interest of accuracy:  we cannot "charge" someone with such a violation.  But we can make a claim to a HRT, who will assess that claim and may or may not initiate an investigation.

If your main point was that it need not be our own government who is the defendant, that's true.

Robbie_dee got it right in a follow-up post. I don't want to go on and on, but the Charter and human rights codes are totally different things, embodying different rights and prohibitions. But most importantly, the Charter only says that governments (and governmental institutions) have to respect freedom of expression, of association, etc. You can't go to any court or tribunal and say, "my employer denied my freedom of speech" - unless the employer is a governmental body etc. You can, of course, depending on the jurisdiction (which province, or federal), charge your employer under human rights legislation for discriminating against you on the basis of whatever the list is in that jurisdiction (disability, family status, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, etc.).

When any parliamentary body (provincial, federal, territory) passes legislation, that legislation has to be consistent with the Charter (though for some portions, the "notwithstanding" clause could be invoked).

Is that clear? The Charter doesn't govern the actions of individuals or non-governmental institutions.

From Pondering:

The staffer was working for Mulcair but surely he isn't suggesting that Mulcair put her up to it. 

​But surely you're not suggesting the staffer went to Saskatchewan on her own hook to prevent Weir from speaking? Or are you?

Pondering (in response to me) wrote:

It would absolutely matter but I see no evidence of it and I think it is farfetched. Women are typically reluctant to accuse men of misconduct of any sort. Women know they will be put on trial. For a staffer to make such an accusation towards an MP for political reasons is not credible to me.

Pondering (in response to Rev Pesky) wrote:

I don't believe the accusation of harassment was politically motivated. I don't believe the staffer said she felt intimidated at the instruction of Mulcair or Angus nor that the staffer herself had any reason to want to harm Weir politically.

In my opinion Weir probably reacted angrily when he was prevented from speaking by a staffer.

Pondering, to be clear, I don't think that the Former Mulcair Senior Staffer (FMSS) had a genuine policy disagreement with Weir over his carbon tariff plan and figured rather than trying to win the argument through persuasion she would take him out with a bogus harassment complaint. I also don't think Mulcair had anything to do with the harassment complaint. It just so happened that FMSS was working for Mulcair and implementing his instructions at the time the initial incident at issue occurred.

What's more relevant to my view is the current political situation in the NDP. Anyone who has been watching even moderately closely would see there are significant divides. I believe there is a cabal within the caucus and the Party, centered around Charlie Angus, which would like to undo the results of the last leadership convention. I think this is the most immediate and pressing threat that Singh needs to deal with if he wants to keep his job. I do not think that Erin Weir was part of the anti-Singh cabal, but I have reason to believe that FMSS may be. I'm sure that the interaction between Weir and FMSS at SK NDP convention was not a pleasant one, but I also believe that FMSS brought it up now, retrospectively characterized it in the worst possible light to the investigator, and then leaked it to the media following the conclusion of the investigation and negotiation of an agreed-upon resolution, in order to further her or her co-conspirators current political end of undermining Singh by discrediting his handling of this whole matter.

I really don't think this is a farfetched hypothesis. Given the way the process was set up, FMSS was practically invited to do what she did here, since rather than being "put on trial" as you rightly note sometimes happens unfairly to sexual harassment complainants - in this case she was given the cloak of anonymity to say what she liked with no apparent accountability for her own conduct. Notwithstanding your valid critique of the way some harassment complaint processes have been conducted in the past, particularly in the case of sexual harassment, the approach that was taken here dramatically overcorrected in the other direction and opened itself up to other problems. The interaction that occurred between Weir and FMSS would appear to have little to do with sex other than that one of the participants was a man and the other was a woman. It was apparently simply an interpersonal conflict, and if anything, the power imbalance betweeen the two disputants would have appeared to skew towards FMSS rather than Weir since (1) FMSS worked for the Leader while Weir was a lowly backbencher, (2) FMSS apparently prevailed in the original interaction (Weir apparently did not get to speak), and (3) Weir got disciplined for his role in the interaction already by Angus. Under these circumstances, even if we accept that Weir acted in an "angry and belligerent" manner towards FMSS at the time, it looks to me like FMSS was not acting in good faith by bringing forward a complaint now, a year and a half after the incident, but rather was abusing a poorly designed process for her ulterior purpose.

You and I don't have to agree on this. I've been around long enough to know I can't always convince everyone I meet on the internet of the rightness of my views. And in any case it's not like I have smoking gun proof, although I do think I have based my conclusions on some informed and reasonable suspicion. Since you have expressed before that you are a Singh supporter, though, I hope you at least consider what I am suggesting here. I think that, given Weir and his supporters were not really enemies before, the way Singh's team has handled this situation has made Singh some new enemies unnecessarily. I also hope Singh thinks very carefully before throwing his lot in all together with Christine Moore. She's trouble.

Bumping this here with Saturday's exchange between unionist and wage zombie on the other thread (Saturday 5/19 12:32 pm, post #181):

wage zombie wrote:

Unionist wrote:

Yeah, I admire him and his restraint. And I'm coming to a rather speculative conclusion, because I haven't seen all the witness accounts. Here it is: Erin Weir did nothing wrong. Moore issued her wild attack; Singh fished for complainants, and they reeled some in; they did a Star Chamber process in direct violation of the NDP's own harassment policy (as I have proven repeatedly - no one has contradicted me on that); and they couldn't come up with a single allegation against Weir that would shock a resident of Canada in the 21st century.

Erin Weir is the victim here, and an innocent victim at that.

Unionist wrote:

I know. I'm trying to stick to the facts.

Bullshit.  You don't know the facts, since they haven't been released publicly.  You're really just guessing.

I don't mean to stalk you WZ. Indeed I hope you were out enjoying the long weekend rather than engaging in flame wars on the internet. But I still think there is an incongruity between your response above and your response to unionist five days ago (post #549) here:

wage zombie wrote:

Unionist wrote:

Well said. And all this "if he doesn't like it, he should sue" is very offensive. It's not how allies and supporters of the same cause deal with each other.

Neither is harrassment, and I believe the allegations.

"I believe the allegations" - without more elaboration, is frankly just an empty slogan. IMO,  what has been made public about the "allegations" supports unionist's and my position as well or better than it supports the other side. It would seem the investigator's own findings concluded there wasn't much "there" there, or else Singh would never have attempted to negotiate Weir's reinstatement in the first place. Singh's own public statement made clear that he was not turfing Weir over the "allegations", at least not anything that was sexual in nature. Rather,  Weir lost his place in caucus because of his public response to FMSS's public comments to the CBC, which as I have argued upthread, I strongly believe must be considered as a separate issue.

If you're prepared to explain "the allegations" from your perspective, I would still be interested to hear it. If you're not, I won't bring this up again although I would suggest your silence speaks for itself.

Misfit wrote:

---

Rev Pesky wrote, 

"And by the way, where is Singh these days?"

I found him!

Looks like he's trying to soak up some of Horwath's popularity.

The investigation started February 1st.  The party official quoted above was from an article published May 3rd.     3 weeks later, we still don't know, definitely, what Weir was alleged to have done.   This is a big problem.  It's not fair to the complaintants or to Weir for this to have gone on this long with no solid information.   Perhaps the allegations were more serious than he is letting on, perhaps the NDP or the investigator over-reacted to minor harrassment, or perhaps he is right that the allegations and investigation are politically motivated.   We have little information to judge and I am not willing to take Weir's or anyone from the NDP's word on it any longer.   The public needs to see the report and the NDP needs to be clear about the process they followed and if it is their model going forward.   

Christine Moore's threat to sue the press may have caused them to go quiet on this and her situation for a bit, but if a bit of time goes by and she still hasn't served anyone papers, they will reopen this issue.  It's too juicy, invites too much speculation, for them not to.

robbie_dee wrote:

Every direct quote I have read from Weir (1) acknowledges the sexual harassment complaints for what they purport to be (notwithstanding that he has not been provided with the identities of the accusers or the details of the incidents in question) and (2) states that he has resolved to try to change his behavior. The only complaint that he has disputed is the complaint raised by FMSS and he has stated with specificity why it is that he disputes it.

He's touring around the media telling everyone who will listen that the allegations are not "real" sexual harrassment.  I have watched these videos with my own eyes.  It's gross.  I can link one if needed but they are not hard to find.

I think it's important to understand two things.

Any investigation that promises anonymity cannot be an investigation, it can only be a recording of complaints. As soon as one would begin to investigate those complaints, anonymity would go out the window. It makes me wonder what sort of an investigator would take on such an investigation.

Anonymity provides a great advantage to the dishonest. Truth tellers will always be limited by the truth, anonymity or no anonymity. But anonymity gives the dishonest a wonderful opportunity for their creative impulses. The normal constraint of having to defend what you say is gone. Nobody can check your story because to do so would identify you.

I think people have to understand the relatively extreme consequence of losing one's job based on anonymous accusations is unfair. And in that sense, Erin Weir was treated unfairly, regardless of what he did.

I thought it was internal party gossip made public that started this whole thing.   I've heard all sorts of different takes and theories.  But no one I know in the party thinks that this situation, and how it was handled by the NDP leadership, looks good.  Or competant, or on brand at all as the party best able to bring about positive change for women.  

With regards to the "significant negative impacts on the complainants", these could be revealed without identifying the complaintant.   Did they miss work?   Have to pay for therapy?   But to reveal the negative impacts invites us, the public, to then debate their significance.   And of course, whether or not they were reasonable, on par with the reaction an average person would have to the accused actions.

I'm sick of sifting through breadcrumbs on this.    Somebody used the word "gross" earlier.   I feel gross speculating on this stuff.   We shouldn't have to.  If the NDP have actually said they've "moved on" from this, they are doing themselves, Weir, the complaintants and the larger cause of equality in the workplace a disservice.  

Quote:

I can't imagine how a supposedly progressive organization has managed to retreat several hundred years to star chamber proceedings.

I think they'd be facing just as much criticism or more if they'd promptly outed Weir's accusers and proclaimed that in their opinion, whatever he didn't wasn't bad enough to get excited about.

We live in such times now.  If you believe that Moore made her initial, third-party complaint about Weir to settle a score or grind an axe, or for political gain then it's not surprising that she would choose something like this to complain about.  If she'd said that Weir broke into her car then there'd be forensics and fingerprints and alibis and an actual trial to worry about and it probably wouldn't have resulted in any harm to Weir or his reputation.

But the NDP is probably -- understandably -- reluctant to go on record as basically saying "we don't always believe survivors... only if we feel like they're making sense and not exaggerating and stuff".  How could the NDP have said "Weir didn't do anything"?

Me thinks that if they had anything serious on Erin Weir that they would've publicized the details. I think Erin is telling the truth.

Mr. Magoo wrote:

I think they'd be facing just as much criticism or more if they'd promptly outed Weir's accusers and proclaimed that in their opinion, whatever he didn't wasn't bad enough to get excited about.

​I understand what you're saying, but it didn't have to be the party 'outing' the complainants. One of the features of the star chamber was that the accused could not face his or her accusers. The party didn't necessarily have to publicise the names of the complainants, but as noted by Unionist above, Weir himself should have known.

And as far as the 'broke into her car' scenario, it really should have been 'broke into someone else's car'. Moore at no time suggested that Weir had harassed her, or had given her any cause for complaint. Her accusation against Weir was 100% hearsay.

Mr. Magoo wrote:

I guess I'm just starting to feel that vague accusations like "harassment" have become a bit weaponized...

​I should say I did get your point, and I'm not arguing with it. You can take my post as a bit of an addition to yours, rather than a rebuttal.

One of the things that has interested me is the reaction of Moore to Weir's request to be considered for the position of caucus chair. Did she already have this 'hearsay' stuff, or did it come to her after his request? If she already had the hearsay, what was stopping her from coming forward with it before his request? 

I wondered - and this is pure speculation - whether Moore had considered asking for the caucus chair position herself. I don't know at all whether that's true, but I do know that something about his request prompted her action. It would be interesting to know what it was.

Its my understanding that Moore sent an email to her caucus colleagues stating her opinion of Weir's candidacy for chair.

Somehow that email among caucus colleagues became pubic. I have no knowledge how, but it seems a crucial point, as I am sure there are many caucus level emails that would be considered sensitive if brought to the public in the form of a leak.

What is the policy on the handling of internal caucus email? How did her e-mail comments reach the media?

Where is the evidence that Weir had no access, as the policy package dictates, to the information in question by posters like Unionist?

And if such a thing did happen to Weir, was his case handled before the policy was adopted? It seems the package was only completed last month.

If in fact the policy was still being formulated then some of these details could be understood as being established parallel to the process being written and therefor any shortcomings not necessarily an infraction of the now adopted and published policy.

Notalib wrote:

Its my understanding that Moore sent an email to her caucus colleagues stating her opinion of Weir's candidacy for chair.

Somehow that email among caucus colleagues became pubic. I have no knowledge how, but it seems a crucial point, as I am sure there are many caucus level emails that would be considered sensitive if brought to the public in the form of a leak.

What is the policy on the handling of internal caucus email? How did her e-mail comments reach the media?

Even if she didn't expect it to become public, it sure was one hell of an email to send to all of Weir's professional colleagues. And while I don't know it for a fact, I can only assume the email became public because either Moore leaked it or because one of her colleagues did, the latter of which was certainly foreseeable to Moore before she sent it. I think she should have had a pretty good idea of exactly what she was unleashing before she pressed "reply all".

Notalib responds: The difficulty with discussing the issue in this forum is that it is almost entirely based on speculation. And often just spun out of reality like this latest comment of yours. There is no reason Madame Moore should have felt her email would have automatically been public. Show us precedent to support such a conclusion. Further, this is why I asked what the policy is on internal email.  My sense is something went wrong there and I highly doubt it was Moore leaking her own stuff.

Notalib wrote:

Where is the evidence that Weir had no access, as the policy package dictates, to the information in question by posters like Unionist?

I think Unionist draws this implication from the fact that Weir said repeatedly that he did not know and was never told the names of his accusers. The only one he was able to guess was the one I have abbreviated as FMSS (Former Mulcair Senior Staffer) and that was only because the details of the allegations that were either provided to him or reported by the CBC based on her leak left no doubt as to her identity.

Notalib responds: so there is no evidence besides the very early crys from Weir about not knowing about the process and who is involved. It was clear to me at the time there was little to share with him as the process was just getting underway.

Notalib wrote:

And if such a thing did happen to Weir, was his case handled before the policy was adopted? It seems the package was only completed last month.

If in fact the policy was still being formulated then some of these details could be understood as being established parallel to the process being written and therefor any shortcomings not necessarily an infraction of the now adopted and published policy.

Notalib, you've written before about Weir's "lack of respect for the unanimous will of convention" and "actions to undermine the very processes the party is grappling with installing", which you alleged amounted to insubordinance that "could only result in his expulsion". How exactly would you square this with the fact that the Party itself may not appear to have complied with the terms of the policy it adopted? Even if the policy was not formally in effect yet at the time the investigation started, surely it would be incumbent on the Party to abide by "the will of convention" and bring its own conduct into compliance as soon as possible and to the fullest extent possible, rather than to try to screw Weir over on a technicality.

Notalib responds: There is nothing to square but your conspiracy theories built on speculation. It is clear that sexual harrassment claims were justified though a process and that impacted people seriously. It is also clear that anonymity is at the centre of these new policies, which makes for these circumstances you then choose to speculate about, then spin into what has so far been a fairly feeble attempt at supporting Weir. In my view you are hurting him, the new policy, the political opportunity it represented and the party overall.

The NDP made this a political priorty to appeal to a broad and important voting constituency for their party. Erin Weir has single handidly killed that political effort and cast doubt on his own team by suggesting malicious intent. His boosters here seem pretty tone deaf and without any sense that the culture needs changing, let alone how over the top this all is.

The minutia and spin about how unfair Weir has been treated is shocking to hear and hard to swallow when compared to the treatment many victims have been given.

Take for instance this case where the investigation promised to the nomination candidate never even occurred and she was barred from running - http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/ndp-hopeful-quits-cowichan-nomin...

So, now, tell us more about how "screwed" Weir is getting. Or maybe just recognize that the political opportunity here is now destroyed and women around the country will notice. Buy hey you can always join the new CCF right? You know fight the good fight and all that stuff...

Thanks Unionist. I don't have much to add to your responses, but I will take this one on:

Notalib wrote:

The NDP made this a political priorty to appeal to a broad and important voting constituency for their party. Erin Weir has single handidly killed that political effort and cast doubt on his own team by suggesting malicious intent. His boosters here seem pretty tone deaf and without any sense that the culture needs changing, let alone how over the top this all is.

You seem to think that "an important voting constituency" (women I guess? and progessive men?) are going to rally around the NDP because of its tough stance on Erin Weir (and kidglove treatment of Christine Moore). I don't know if you're doing polling on the subject but that sure as heck isn't what I'm hearing from the people I talk to, women or men.

I think what most people want to see is fairness. I don't like to use the term "witch hunt" to describe what has been going on both because the actual historical witch hunts were terrible and predominantly antiwoman events that I don't want to make light of, and also because the #MEtoo movement has accomplished some amazing and important things I don't want to discredit. I do feel, though, that we may be entering a moment of "moral panic" where people are losing all sense of perspective of what is serious misconduct, what is bad but remediable, and what is basically a whole lot of nothing. I think I have a pretty good idea of where Erin Weir sits on that spectrum. Maybe he's made some mistakes but he's hardly Harvey Weinstein. As for Christine Moore, I really don't know what happened between her and Kirkland but based on her undisputed behavior, as I've said before, I think she's a fucking toxic person. The people who I am talking to, at least the ones not totally ensconced in the 'NDP bubble', are telling me they think the NDP has gone out of its mind. I don't want to just be crassly political about it because obviously it's most important that the Party do the right thing whether its popular or not. But here I think the Party is not only doing the wrong thing but it is also at risk of losing swathes of support in so doing.

notalib wrote:

The minutia and spin about how unfair Weir has been treated is shocking to hear and hard to swallow when compared to the treatment many victims have been given. Take for instance this case where the investigation promised to the nomination candidate never even occurred and she was barred from running - http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/ndp-hopeful-quits-cowichan-nomin... So, now, tell us more about how "screwed" Weir is getting. Or maybe just recognize that the political opportunity here is now destroyed and women around the country will notice.

I'm sorry to hear about Georgia Collins but I don't really see how that relates. According to the article you linked Ms. Collins withdrew from competing for the nomination, she wasn't "barred." If she's alleging she was harassed by a party volunteer, that volunteer should be investigated. If it is found that he in engaged in such conduct, and that it was at all serious, he should be disciplined. If the B.C. NDP has failed to do this shame on them. I'm not sure how punishing a different guy for totally different conduct will help though? I'm not sure if you follow Ontario politics or not but if we're going to have a general conversation about harassment issues in the NDP at the provincial and federal levels you should look into the allegations against MPPs Monique Taylor and Paul Miller in Hamilton and how the ONDP has handled them. There the Party did not jump the gun and appoint an independent investigator but instead has allowed the normal, collectively bargained grievance procedure play out (which appears to be taking years, btw). They are candidates for reelection in less than two weeks. They might well not be if the ONDP adopted Singh's approach. What do you think is the correct approach?