Ontario Tory leader felled by unsubstantiated sexual misconduct allegations
By
Roger Jordan and Keith Jones
27 January 2018
The leader of Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives, Patrick Brown, was forced to resign shortly after midnight Wednesday, less than four hours after unproven, anonymous accusations of sexual assault were levelled against him—accusations he has vehemently denied.
Brown is the first high-profile political scalp in Canada of the #MeToo witch hunt over sexual misconduct.
Brown, who according to opinion polls was poised to become the Premier of Ontario after June’s provincial election, was the target of a CTV News report alleging that he had behaved in a sexually inappropriate manner with two young women. Brown allegedly plied the teenage women with alcohol and then groped or asked them to perform sexual acts on him.
The World Socialist Web Site has no political sympathy for Brown, a right-wing, anti-working class Tory politician. But the felling of politicians, like the firing and public pillorying of people active in the arts and entertainment world, on the basis of unproven, often anonymous allegations of sexual misconduct sets a chilling precedent. Due process, the presumption of innocence and other democratic legal principles are being eviscerated.
The speed with which Wednesday’s evening events occurred was breathtaking. The first the public had any notion there were accusations against Brown was when he convened a press conference shortly before 10 PM to announce that CTV was about to air its report. At the press conference, which lasted less than two minutes, Brown said, “A couple of hours ago I learned about troubling allegations about my conduct and my character. These allegations are false, categorically untrue—every one of them….