Erin Weir saga #3

I respect Weir for making the choice he had to make here.

These veiled allusions by Jagmeet to "safety" (much like his previous references to "survivors" ) are wildly exaggerated and completely inappropriate given what we actually know about the investigator's findings. I think it's borderline defamatory. Very disappointed in Jagmeet's "leadership" . I look forward to his departure from his position after the coming debacle this fall.

Erin Weir used the term defamatory to respond to Singh's comment about safety:

@theJagmeetSingh’s comment is completely baseless and defamatory. Even after his office solicited anonymous complaints from 250 #NDP staff, no one claimed I threatened their safety.

https://twitter.com/Erin_Weir/status/1131699044554891265

You realize he has the support of Guy Caron and Charlie Angus and Nikki Ashton in his explusion of Weir? Apparently he still has a lot of support in Saskatchewan so he should run provincially. 

Good column.  And Singh will probably have a lot of time to rue it after the upcoming election debacle.

Ken Burch wrote:

I respect Weir for making the choice he had to make here.

 

I don't. His letter is self-serving. 

Sixty-eight former federal MPs and provincial MLAs have written asking the federal NDP leader to reconsider arbitrarily expelling me from caucus. Thousands of Saskatchewan people have signed a petition calling for an appeal of his unusual investigation of me. The Regina–Lewvan NDP’s 2019 annual meeting passed a motion to allow me to run in a democratic nomination. Rather than taking a second look at a deeply flawed process or letting party members decide, the federal NDP leader seems willing to hand our constituency to the Conservatives.  

The entire NDP federal caucus agrees with Singh that Weir had to go. Weir should go ahead and run as an independent or join another party instead of backstabbing the NDP with his continuous whining. 

Sad to see people rally around the Sask NDP establishment and reject the words of young activists alienated by that establishment. 

Pondering wrote:

You realize he has the support of Guy Caron and Charlie Angus and Nikki Ashton in his explusion of Weir? Apparently he still has a lot of support in Saskatchewan so he should run provincially.

As far as Niki Ashton is concerned, you made this up. I just did a quick Google search with her name and Weir, and not one of the articles I came across mentioned her as supporting Weir's explusion for the party. Even if she was in agreement with the decision, she seems to at least have the intelligence and the professionalism to not say anything and to just let the issue move on.

Aristotleded24 wrote:

Pondering wrote:

You realize he has the support of Guy Caron and Charlie Angus and Nikki Ashton in his explusion of Weir? Apparently he still has a lot of support in Saskatchewan so he should run provincially.

As far as Niki Ashton is concerned, you made this up. I just did a quick Google search with her name and Weir, and not one of the articles I came across mentioned her as supporting Weir's explusion for the party. Even if she was in agreement with the decision, she seems to at least have the intelligence and the professionalism to not say anything and to just let the issue move on.

Caucus has broken with Singh over another MP. They have stood with Singh on Weir. Weir was accepted back into caucus. It is his subsequent comments that caused his expulsion. 

wage zombie wrote:

Aristotleded24 wrote:

Who's rallying around the establishment? The only thing we are aware of is that maybe Weir stood too closely to people and raised his voice with someone.

Then maybe you should try to become more aware of more.

What more is there for me to be aware of? All we've heard are complaints that maybe Weir stood too close to people while talking to them, raised his voice during an argument with someone, and that there is a generalized culture of sexism in politics. On that last point, I don't think anybody here would challenge that point. But more specifically, how does this relate to Weir, and what was going on? Vague generalizations like "toxic culture of sexism" doesn't really tell anybody what happened. We also haven't seen the report so we don't know what happened beyond that.

To give a few specific examples, how did this manifest itself? Were there pornographic pictures posted in people's offices? Were people repeatedly pressured into going on dates or performing sexual acts? Were young female staffers hit on and propositioned repeatedly by men old enough to be their fathers? Were there initiation rituals that involved playing humiliating sexual games? I have just given more examples of problematic behaviours than what the anti-Weir crowd has. Even getting more specific, Stan Struthers in Manitoba was found to repeatedly tickle women over the years, to the point that he actually earned the nickname "Minister Tickles." Of course anybody accused of harassment will publicy deny or downplay any wrong doing on their part. But in this case, we know what he did, and all he could do was offer an apology and then drop back out of sight. And aside from expressing shock, Struthers doesn't really have anyone in his corner defending him.

So yeah, I'd like to be more aware. If there are specific things that I've missed, I'd love to know.

The specifics are confidential but did not result in his expulsion. Based on the reports it was decided he could remain in caucus and would take some anti-harassment training which he did and apparently passed with flying colours. 

Ignoring what he was actually expelled for is pointless. 

Perhaps Erin can run provincially

swallow wrote:

He could but it will not help Ryan Meili.

Notice that current Sask MLAs are not rallying around Weir. It’s former MPs and MLAs. This is a party split to the seams, much of it younger generation against an old guard. Weir is not old guard, but that is the base of his defenders.

Normally I would side with a younger generation against an old guard, however in this case the younger generation has only given vague generalizations that are really hard to go on.

The other thing about the idea of attacking an "old guard" that bothers me is that Pat Atkinson is part of this old guard. Do you really think she, of all people, has a vested interest in covering up sexual harassment?

Aristotleded24 wrote:

The other thing about the idea of attacking an "old guard" that bothers me is that Pat Atkinson is part of this old guard. Do you really think she, of all people, has a vested interest in covering up sexual harassment?

I think Pat is speaking from her heart. I fondly remember the party at her house in Nutuana on October 21, 1991 after having worked on Janice's campaign. It went til people had to go to whatever morning responsibility they had. I must admit that many of us showed a certain disdain for Canada's drug and alcohol laws in our partying.

The generational divide about priorities and attitudes. Bernie Sanders is on the young side of the divide even if he is old. People can straddle the two. 

If Weir had just kept his mouth shut he would be sitting in caucus. I understand why he felt compelled to defend himself but the manner in which he did so identified one of the women and suggested the whole thing was a witch hunt and that any man would have complaints against him. That isn't true. Not all men would have complaints against them. Not even most men. I've worked with a lot of men and the grand majority have treated me normally and never made me feel awkward. Sure, some got out of line, but it is not every man who would have complaints against him. 

https://globalnews.ca/news/4184251/erin-weir-expelled-from-ndp-caucus-after-investigation-into-harassment-complaints/

On May 1, Weir spoke with CBC News in a report detailing the findings of the investigation and the new complaints levelled against him since he was initially suspended.

He countered the findings and suggested the complaints against him were political payback for trying to raise discussion about carbon pricing within the party.

“It’s certainly the case that if you solicit complaints from hundreds of staff people, you will get some complaints. Particularly in a political context where there are disagreements, there are rivalries, there are axes to grind,” Weir said.

I should think men would be insulted by his suggestion that under the same circumstances any man would have complaints against him. He suggested the woman had ulterior motives as though the complaints had no merit at all. 

That is why he was ejected from caucus, not the original complaints. 

swallow wrote:

Aristotleded24 wrote:

swallow wrote:

He could but it will not help Ryan Meili.

Notice that current Sask MLAs are not rallying around Weir. It’s former MPs and MLAs. This is a party split to the seams, much of it younger generation against an old guard. Weir is not old guard, but that is the base of his defenders.

Normally I would side with a younger generation against an old guard, however in this case the younger generation has only given vague generalizations that are really hard to go on.

The other thing about the idea of attacking an "old guard" that bothers me is that Pat Atkinson is part of this old guard. Do you really think she, of all people, has a vested interest in covering up sexual harassment?

No, not at all. I like her and wish she had run against the awful Darwin Lingenfelter, a right-winger who pretty much destroyed the provincial party.

I just think she is on one side of a (partly generational) divide in the provincial party. She backed Trent Wotherspoon over Ryan Meili for leader, for instance, in a context in which the old guard has been trying to keep Meili out for years, preferring careerism to activism. Meili’s backers include a lot of young lefties including some around Briarpatch - which ran Jacq Brasseur’s piece about the generational divide and linked it to the Weir case (article linked at least twice already).

So now we know what the dispute is really about. It's about a clash of opinions within the NDP and which direction we should take. It seems that Weir was drawn into it, and that issues around him or his conduct are only secondary.

swallow wrote:

Pat Atkinson’s letter has no support from current MLAs. 2 out of 3 Sask NDP MPs accept Singh’s stance (that’s Sheri Benson and Georgina Jolibois).

They are certainly entitled to their opinions. Having obviously been closer to Weir than anyone of us, they would certainly know more about what happened than anyone else would. That does not obligate anyone else to agree with them, and someone else with the exact same insider knowledge of what happened as they have may come to a different conclusion.

Even so, they seem to have been far more professional in the expression of their opinions than Singh. He's made wild allegations of "survivors" and "safety" over something that many people are guilty of in social interactions, and there has been no further information provided. Does anybody wonder what drives the MRA phenomenon? It's the idea that sexual harassment is really a witch-hunt against men, and the case of Erin Weir is one such story they can use to make their point. It gave them ammunition when it was completely unnecessary.

By the way, I've read the Briarpatch piece, and my view is that this piece also makes vague generalizations without providing enough specifics to come to an accurate conclusion.

Pondering wrote:

How about being safe from this sort of accusation:

He countered the findings and suggested the complaints against him were political payback for trying to raise discussion about carbon pricing within the party.

“It’s certainly the case that if you solicit complaints from hundreds of staff people, you will get some complaints. Particularly in a political context where there are disagreements, there are rivalries, there are axes to grind,” Weir said.

Weir is absolutely correct. You dig far enough into anyone's history and you will find complaints about (s)he interacted with others in the past. This is especially true in politics, where people have all sorts of agendas and axes to grind.

When I think of "safety," I think of things like unwanted touching, inappropriate jokes, bullying, emotional abuse, manipulation, and all sorts of behaviours designed to exert control over people. Someone questioning your motives? That's politics. If you can't handle that you're in the wrong line of work.

That is an inappropriate and false attack on Moore. She told the truth about what happened to her. It was investigated. The Liberal MPs did not deny the allegations. It is the investigators not Moore who defined what happened as harassment and the same goes for Weir. The investigator not Moore did the interviews and report. 

In 2014, Trudeau, still trying to establish his credentials as a strong leader, took Moore at her word and two careers immediately ended without anything resembling due process. Years later, a similarly untested leader would end the career of a third.

BS. Trudeau did not take her at her word he launched an investigation. The men did not deny the accusations. 

Moore did not say there were many sexual harassment complaints against him nor did she say she would be afraid to be alone with him. At a casual search I could not find the original letter to caucus but I do recall distinctly that she did not use the word "afraid" and I believe she said some women not many women. It was a private email to caucus not a public accusation. 

If the writer wants to make accusations against Moore he should start by using quotes instead of gossiping. 

Weir also went through due process and was in the process of being reinstated to caucus.  Weir was ejected from caucus for talking about a staffer so that really had nothing to do with Moore. 

Weir dug his own grave for behaving like an entitled white man. There was certainly nothing cruel about his explusion. 

Yes, NDP MPs are muzzled just like the MPs of all major parties but that has nothing to do with Moore. Is Weir too stupid to know that? 

Nor is Moore responsible for the actions of Trudeau or Singh. 

Why is this being dredged up yet again? Isn't the NDP doing badly enough? Must we gather with shovels?

I would add that sections, imo, were particularly compelling:

Quote:

Once Weir was publicly shamed, despite a lack of any particular allegations, complainants were sought. An email was sent to 220 women associated with the NDP caucus and who might have had contact with Weir. The email asked if his behaviour had ever made them uncomfortable. Fifteen complaints were received and investigated by Singh’s appointed investigator, University of Ottawa law professor Michelle Flaherty. Eleven were dismissed. They were presumably trivial, given that four complaints found to be valid, one of “harassment” and three of “sexual harassment” were described in the investigator’s report, as noted above, to be “on the lower end of the scale.” The conduct detailed in the report, which eventually led to Weir’s expulsion from caucus and banishment as an NDP candidate, consisted of “harassment” because he was belligerent during a brief elevator ride with an NDP staffer who had tried to prevent him from speaking at a convention (his tall stature made her feel physically intimidated, although there was no threatened or actual physical touching); and sexual harassment because he sat or stood too close to three women while talking, and talked to them longer than their non-verbal cues should have told him was appropriate, and this made them uncomfortable. 

Concerning the finding of harassment, there wasn’t much he could do about being tall. Let’s accept he lost his temper and was belligerent. Even call it harassment. If it justified ending his political career, almost all politicians, not to mention everybody else, would be guilty. Including the current prime minister, who was videotaped walking across the House and knocking an opposition member when he became angry about procedural delays. That was wrong, but we got over it.

Concerning the three findings of sexual harassment, if close talking and running on at the mouth amounts to that, does this justify removing someone elected by citizens?

Like the investigator, a “trainer“ hired on behalf of Singh to coach Weir also believed that the misconduct was relatively minor, and wrote in a report that Weir “gets it.” (These reports were not publicly released, but copies circulated among NDP insiders and the contents became well known; I personally obtained one of them and was briefed on the contents of the other.) There was no suggestion anyone would be further offended, let alone endangered, but Singh would not reveal to the public what Weir had done, saying it would be unfair to the complainants.

That would be true if there were embarrassing personal details, but there weren’t. Weir reportedly had been rude on one occasion, and he may have needed some training in social etiquette.

But Singh told the nation in a press conference in May of 2018, several months after Weir’s suspension, that the MP could not be readmitted because he did not accept he had been guilty of serious harassment, and could not be rehabilitated. He needed to ensure a safe workplace and he could not be sure Weir’s behaviour would not be repeated.

Canadians can decide for themselves what shocks them more: Weir’s behaviour, or the sense of judgment and balance evident from the decisions, statements and actions of Singh, presumably supported by his NDP caucus members, since not one of them publicly questioned anything.

robbie_dee wrote:

Quote:

None of the “many” employees emerged, even though Moore presumably would have known who they were and how to find them.

They most certainly did emerge, but given their right to privacy, there was no good reason for Eric Cline or robbie dee to be informed of their identities.

I have a challenge for all NDP MP's regardless of sex. Allow me to contact 220 women you have dealt with and ask the open ended question; "has their behaviour ever made you feel uncomfortable." What is the threshold for removal from caucus. For Weir it was 15% of the women didn't like him and less than 2% had minor complaints about his being a big, loud and in your face man.

So how many MP's of any party would withstand this purity test? It would seem to me that any Type A personality MP's would be on thin ice, good thing there are so few of those.