Liberal MP vows to fight sexual-harassment claims
OTTAWA — Liberal MP Darshan Kang is vehemently denying allegations that he repeatedly sexually harassed a young female staffer in his Calgary constituency office and is vowing to defend his reputation “at all costs.”
Kang issued a statement Tuesday proclaiming his innocence, even as a damning new allegation surfaced that he tried to buy the woman’s silence.
The federal NDP demanded that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau immediately suspend the Calgary MP from the Liberal caucus until an investigation is completed.
For the second consecutive day, Trudeau refused to comment on the matter, saying only that it’s being handled through a recently created independent process for resolving such misconduct complaints and that he’ll let the process “unfold as it should.”
But Kang’s vow to exhaust all efforts to defend himself suggests that process could drag on for weeks or even months.
Under a process adopted by the House of Commons in December 2014, when there is no mediated resolution to a harassment complaint, an external investigator is hired to review the facts and interview the complainant, the respondent and any witnesses before determining whether the complaint is partially or fully substantiated, not substantiated or frivolous.
The complainant or the respondent can appeal if they’re unsatisfied with the investigator’s final report.
According to Kang’s statement, the allegations against him are currently the subject of “an open, ongoing investigation. Since the allegations of sexual harassment were levelled against me, I have been under a tremendous amount of stress and subsequently I was placed on medical leave,” Kang said.
“While I cannot comment directly on an open, ongoing investigation, I continue to proclaim my innocence and will defend my reputation at all costs.”
Sheila Malcolmson, the New Democrat critic for women’s issues, called on Trudeau to immediately suspend Kang from the Liberal caucus — as he did with former Liberal MPs Scott Andrews and Massimo Pacetti when they were accused in 2014 of sexually harassing two female New Democrat MPs.
The independent process Trudeau is now relying on to sort out the Kang case did not exist when the accusations of sexual harassment were levelled against Andrews and Pacetti.
The Toronto Star reported Tuesday that Kang allegedly offered the staffer as much as $100,000 if she didn’t tell her parents about the harassment. The Star cited the woman’s father, who was not named, alleging that Kang repeatedly harassed his daughter over a period of four or five years.
Among the father’s accusations: Kang gave his daughter unwanted hugs, stroked or held her hand, once took her to an apartment where he tried to remove her jacket, and followed her the next day to her hotel and tried to get into her room to talk.