Senator harassment case to go to fed rights panel

News Talk Radio

Wed, 2009-05-06 19:02.

By: Sue Bailey, THE CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA - Ontario's human rights tribunal has ruled that a sexual harassment complaint involving Senator Patrick Brazeau must be heard at the federal level.

At issue was whether the matter involving the federally incorporated Congress of Aboriginal Peoples - which Brazeau led until being named to the Senate five months ago - should be handled by the provincial panel.

A four-paragraph ruling issued April 23 with little notice says the congress argued it must be dealt with under the Canadian Human Rights Act - not Ontario legislation.

"The parties are agreed, although for different reasons, that this tribunal has no jurisdiction over the application and the applicant has taken steps to have her complaint dealt with under the federal act."

It can now proceed before the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

Lawyer Michael Swinwood, who represents the woman behind the complaint, says she will decide "imminently" on next steps. She is considering suing Brazeau and the congress, he said.

"We're quite concerned about the way the matter has been dealt with all the way through from the perspective of the organization - which would include our friend Senator Brazeau.

"I'm really talking about issues surrounding the complaint itself, and how they were handled internally at the time the complaints were made."

Brazeau declined to comment Wednesday.

He has confirmed the dispute involves inappropriate text messages and phone calls. But he has repeatedly tried to distance himself from the case, stressing that the human rights complaint formally named the congress - not him specifically.

Brazeau and his lawyer have also said an investigative report by mediation firm ADR Chambers cleared him of any wrongdoing. The report has not been publicly released, Brazeau says, to protect the identity of the complainant.

At 34, Brazeau - an Algonquin member of the Kitigan Zibi band in northwestern Quebec - is one of the youngest appointees ever to the upper house. He made waves as leader of the congress by openly endorsing the Harper Conservatives and repeatedly attacking the accountability of native chiefs across Canada.

Brazeau blamed enemies in "the native establishment" for a wave of bad PR in the weeks after his Senate appointment.

In addition to the official human-rights complaint, another young woman who worked for the congress went public with allegations that Brazeau condoned heavy drinking during business hours - a charge he denied.

There were also uncomfortable questions about a Health Canada draft audit that forced the congress to better account for how it spent about $200,000.

He was also criticized for attempting to hang on to his job as head of the congress while also serving as a senator. He ultimately conceded that, along with the optics of collecting two publicly funded six-figure salaries, keeping both jobs could pose a conflict of interest.

He chose the Senate.

Brazeau, a father of four, also had ready explanations for missing $100-a-month child-support payments to his estranged eldest son from a previous relationship.

And he dismissed suggestions that his crafted image as a poverty-fighting aboriginal leader was tainted by his arrival on Parliament Hill in a 2006 Porsche SUV. The vehicle was bought used before he got the Senate nod from Prime Minister Stephen Harper, he said at the time.