Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles is blaming the party’s collective agreement with its unionized workforce after an employee who filed a sexual harassment complaint against a sitting MPP was terminated by the New Democrats even after the party verified the claim.
Shortly after Stiles took over as NDP leader in early 2023, the party launched an independent workplace harassment investigation into MPP Michael Mantha and eventually ejected Mantha from caucus after the allegations were deemed to be true.
The complaint stemmed back to August 2022, when an unnamed assistant in Mantha’s Algoma-Manatoulin Island constituency office complained to the party that she was working in an unsafe environment.
The complainant alleged that she was asked for sexually explicit photos, received unwanted physical contact and was subjected to comments about her appearance, which an arbitrator later said was substantiated by the independent investigator.
“It’s shocking,” Stiles said. “These are very serious allegations (and) the independent investigator has concluded that the allegations stand.”
Mantha did not respond to a request for comment from Global News.
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While Mantha was removed from the NDP caucus in August 2023, the NDP appeared to be in a bind with the constituency assistant who faced the alleged sexual harassment.
Stiles said once Mantha became an Independent MPP, the NDP no longer maintained an office in the northern Ontario riding that would be able to “employ that person.”
The party decided to continue paying the employee until January 2024, when she was terminated as a New Democrat – making her the only individual who has lost their job as a result of the sexual harassment allegations.
“The problem is that with our collective agreement, the parameters of it for our staff … when you leave the NDP caucus, the position doesn’t just automatically continue,” Stiles said during an unrelated news conference.
The union disagreed and filed a grievance claiming she had been unjustly terminated as a result of the NDP’s decision to fire Mantha from caucus and asked for her position to be reinstated.
An arbitrator agreed with the union’s position and determined that the complainant “was not terminated for just cause.”
“As with the other Constituency Assistants in the office, the Grievor’s employment with the ONDP Caucus was frustrated, through no fault of her own, following the removal of MPP Mantha from the ONDP Caucus based on the substantiated findings that he had engaged in sexual harassment, workplace harassment, discrimination on the basis of sex, abuse of authority and the creation of a toxic workplace in relation to the Grievor during the period of her employment,” the decision read.
Stiles said that while she takes the allegations seriously, the union contract bound the party’s hands.
“This staff person didn’t deserve any of this,” Stiles said. “We’ve never taken the position that this staff person did anything wrong.”
While the complainant’s position has not been reinstated, Stiles said the party took other measures to address the situation.
“We went through this process to make sure that this staffer gets properly compensated for what she went through and that we would take the actions necessary to live up to our code of conduct,” Stiles said.
The complainant and NDP are now working on additional resolutions as ordered by the arbitration.