Yesterday, NDP Leader Tom Mulcair fired a rocket at Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau. He claimed that by suspending two Liberal members of his caucus — and publicizing the complaints of two unnamed NDP caucus members about those MPs’ alleged ‘inappropriate behaviour’ — Mr. Trudeau re-victimized the NDP MPs by making their concerns public.

We all get it: We’re in the pre-election period, when no opportunity to kneecap a rival can be passed up. In this case, however, Mr. Mulcair is wrong — dead wrong.

Let’s start with the predicament Mr. Trudeau faced. He was approached personally and directly by one of the NDP MP complainants. At that point the die was cast for Trudeau — because he had only two options.

First, he could have done what he did — ask his chief whip, Judy Foote, to investigate the complaints, receive her recommendations, then suspend the MPs involved.

As far as further actions were concerned, here Mr. Trudeau and Ms. Foote made the right call as well. They sent the issue to the all-party Board of Internal Economy — the most senior decision-making body in the House of Commons, the body that traditionally deals with this kind of issue.

Mr. Trudeau had a second option. He could have kept it all quiet while investigations were conducted. Doing that would have made Mr. Trudeau an instant hostage to any future allegations of a cover-up — and to the following entirely plausible questions from the media and other political parties:

When did you know and what were you told? How serious did you think it was? How did you investigate it? Is the person you asked to investigate this case qualified to do so? Was the investigation arms-length, independent and free of political interference?

Why did you keep this secret? Didn’t you think it might have been prudent to make it public to prevent further potential abuse from taking place?

You get the picture.

And while we’re looking at these questions, we actually might ask them of Mr. Mulcair as well. Why didn’t he approach Mr. Trudeau directly? Didn’t he think the situation was serious enough? Why did one of his MPs feel she had to personally approach Mr. Trudeau to get action?

And finally, Mr. Mulcair, do you not find it just a little ironic that your inaction put Mr. Trudeau in the position of having to defend the interests of your MPs?

If they had wanted the situation to remain confidential, why did one of them raise it directly with Mr. Trudeau? After she voiced the allegations and then asked him to keep it all quiet, what the hell was he supposed to do with that?

Now, let’s turn to the questions of victimization and re-victimization.

As Mr. Mulcair told the Canadian Press, the wishes of his two MPs included “a very strong desire to keep this confidential,” and that “anyone who went against that, of course, would be running the risk of making them become victims a second time.”

The problem with this line of argument is that neither of the two MPs has chosen to identify herself, so it’s hard to consider them victims in the public sense of the word. It’s even harder to think of them as being re-victimized by Mr. Trudeau’s careful statements — any more than it would be to assume they were re-re-victimized by Mr. Mulcair’s public statements.

And if they had wanted the situation to remain confidential, why did one of them raise it directly with Mr. Trudeau? After she voiced the allegations and then asked him to keep it all quiet, what the hell was he supposed to do with that?

Finally, it’s important that we begin a serious discussion of privacy and secrecy in sensitive cases such as these. Mr. Mulcair says he did not pursue the complaints because the women involved wanted to keep the matter confidential, and I take him at his word.

But in the eyes of some, could this not open him up to the accusation that he was complicit in a cover-up of possible abuse and exploitation in what should be the safest workplace in the country? I fully appreciate the acute and real desire of many victims to keep the details quiet — but if people are not prepared to come forward, how are we ever going to address this abuse and root it out?

In ugly situations like this, there are serious and complicated issues at stake, for all sides:

Whether they are publicly identified or not, victims are still victims, with all of the potential personal and public dimensions and consequences that may be involved. Fully understood.

On the side of the accused, livelihoods, reputations and perhaps families are on the line as well. We’ve heard very little about the presumption of innocence this week — and that’s a concern too.

And yes, the privacy rights of victims can run headlong into society’s need to see justice done. Whose needs are primary?

The situation grows more fraught and uncertain by the hour. According to one report late last night, Speaker Sheer is saying there can be no investigation if there’s no formal complaint. So if no one comes forward and there is no investigation, what happens to the suspended MPs waiting for a process that can’t get started?

Geoff Norquay, a former senior policy adviser to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, is a principal of the Earnscliffe Strategy Group in Ottawa. [email protected]

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