A former Senate staffer is speaking out about how the Red Chamber handles sexual harassment complaints.
“The Senate HR is really there, not for the Senate employees, they’re there for the Senators,” Pascale Brisson told CTV News on Friday. “Usually, you’ll just lose your job if you come forward with an allegation.”
Five years ago, Brisson made a formal complaint against a senator.
Because senators can decide who is on their staff, Brisson says she had no choice but to resign from her position before filing a formal complaint.
“If I would have filed the formal complaint before resigning, then I would have been fired,” Brisson explained. “All these things penalize the victim, they don’t penalize the abuser.”
Although an investigation was launched, the senator was eventually cleared of all wrongdoing.
Brisson said the experience “basically ruined my life at the time” and shattered her dreams of working in politics.
“It left me pretty bitter,” she added. “I think it made me feel that there was no space for women in politics, and if you wanted to have a space in politics you just had to not speak up and be pretty and just sit there and do your job without really speaking your mind. “
Brisson is now pursuing a career in teaching.
“I think I can have a bigger impact on kids telling my story and motivating them to speak up if something happens to them as well,” she said.
Still, Brisson says that she does not regret her decision to come forward.
“I knew in my head it was the right thing to do,” she declared. “Now, with this whole wave of #MeToo, a lot of women are coming out and speaking out and I think I can have a bigger impact today than I had five years ago because of that. The timing is just better and that’s really what convinced me to do it today, is if I can change things even more, why not?”
Former NDP staffer Amy Kishek says a culture of harassment, however, remains on Parliament Hill.
Kishek spoke to CTV’s Power Play on Friday in a separate interview, alongside Brisson.
“It manifests itself in many ways, whether it’s inappropriate touching, comments, speaking in crude and lewd manners,” she said.
“I think what really exacerbates that climate is also the hyper-partisan nature of the Hill. Folks are encouraged to toe the party line, to not speak out, and discouraged certainly from airing the dirty laundry of the political party. And loyalty is ultimately the thing that political parties are looking for their staff to most exemplify.”
