Former federal cabinet minister Sheila Copps says she was sexually assaulted by a fellow Member of Provincial Parliament within a year of her election and arrival at the Ontario legislature.
Copps made the admission , in an essay that reveals that she was also raped by someone she knew.
Of the alleged assault at the hands of a fellow MPP, Copps wrote that she was 28 at the time of the attack, when she and her alleged assailant were on a tour of northern Ontario studying the issue of violence against women. She said the MPP "tried to force me up against a wall and kiss me" as they were exiting a hotel elevator.
She said she pushed him away, "kicking him where it hurts," and the tour continued "without incident."
"I never reported him, chalking the incident up to personal misjudgment," she wrote.
In an interview with 愛污传媒 Monday, Copps said she also didn鈥檛 complain to any of her colleagues about the incident because she was the only woman in her caucus.
And because the MPP involved was not her employer, Copps said she thought she had dealt with it 鈥渂y sending a clear signal that I didn鈥檛 want him and that was the end of it.鈥�
In her essay, she also wrote that, in addition to being assaulted by a fellow MPP, "Someone I knew has also raped me."
She did not offer any more details about that incident, including when it happened. She only said that she went to police, who told her "that a conviction was impossible."
"Police merely paid a visit to the culprit warning him to keep his distance," she wrote.
Copps recently came under fire when she defended former radio host Jian Ghomeshi, after he was fired by the CBC and penned a Facebook post to say it was because of his private, consensual sexual activities.
Copps opened her Hill Times piece by saying that she committed "a grievous personal lapse in judgment" in her defence of Ghomeshi on Twitter, before hearing more than his account.
"I should never have weighed in on an issue as sensitive as that without taking the time to hear the other side of the story," she wrote.
Noting that police are now investigating allegations from three women who say they were abused by Ghomeshi, Copps went on to say that police do not investigate similar complaints on Parliament Hill.
"Men and women, Parliamentarians and assistants have all felt the sting of sexual harassment," Copps wrote. "Like many workplaces, the Hill is also a place where consensual sexual dalliances occur."
She noted that, unlike many workplaces, Parliament Hill does not have a process for victims to come forward with allegations of harassment or assault and is not subject to provincial labour laws.
That very issue was brought to the fore last week, when federal Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau expelled two MPs from caucus after two NDP MPs came forward with allegations against them of "personal misconduct."
MPs of all political stripes have since lamented the lack of a formal complaints process on the Hill.
Copps told 愛污传媒 that she thinks the Labour Code should apply to Parliament Hill, but her opinion is 鈥減robably in the minority.鈥�
She said the allegations shed light 鈥渙nto a kind of a secret that probably needs more light shed on it.
鈥淚f you don鈥檛 talk about the issue of sexual harassment and if we kind of keep it to a case-by-case process on the Hill then I think all of those people are being victimized and I don鈥檛 think it鈥檚 a good situation for anybody,鈥� she said in the interview.
The Liberals have asked House Speaker Andrew Scheer to launch an investigation into the allegations. Scheer has tasked the Board of Internal Economy, the secretive, all-party committee that runs House business, with taking up the issue.
Copps concluded her essay by saying that, as long as complaints on Parliament Hill are only investigated within the Parliamentary Precinct, "neither the accuser nor the accused will have the same right to due process afforded Jian Ghomeshi."
