Monday, June 6, 2005 Updated at 7:41 PM EDT
Canadian Press
Senator claims abuse
Ottawa — Colleagues of Conservative Senator Anne Cools say they're shocked at her assertion that senators have struck her in the past and that she has seen one senator hit a child.
“She needs to immediately report this to the RCMP, or at the very least raise it as a point of privilege in the Senate if her rights have been breached,” Senator Terry Mercer said Monday.
Senate Speaker Dan Hays was travelling in China on government business with his spokesman and neither was available for comment.
Ms. Cools shocked the Senate committee on legal and constitutional affairs Thursday as members discussed a ban on corporal punishment.
“I work in the Senate, which is supposedly a very enlightened place, and I have been hit by senators,” Ms. Cools said.
“I have stood around here and watched senators hit children,” she added.
Mr. Mercer said Ms. Cools must produce evidence of her startling accusations.
“She also needs to come clean on whether she witnessed a child being tapped on the rear end by a senator or a real beating — we need the context to this,” Mr. Mercer said.
The comment from Ms. Cools, a Toronto area senator since 1984, left little open to interpretation after she was asked by colleagues to clarify exactly what she meant.
“That is what I said. I have been hit by senators,” she replied.
Ms. Cools stood by her claims Monday, saying she had been hit by two senators, but she wouldn't name them.
“I was grabbed, more than once, by one of them in question,” Ms. Cools said.
“I have been grabbed and handled by more than one senator, all right? Leave it there,” she said in an interview.
“It was painful,” Ms. Cools said, making it clear she was not talking about only partisan attacks.
“I'm not even going to start on how they attack me verbally and without mercy,” Ms. Cools said of Liberals.
An aide to a Liberal senator, who did not want to be identified, said the story is “very, very weird.”
“Either she's been hit by a senator or it's not true — not good scenarios either way,” said the aide.
Ms. Cools, 61, switched allegiances to the Conservatives last year after nearly 20 years sitting as a Liberal, citing the high cost of the federal gun registry and other issues.
Liberal Senator Lorna Milne has asked that the matter be resolved, describing it as an extremely serious accusation and possible slur against all senators.
Ms. Cools said the incident of a senator hitting a child was a few years ago at a Speaker's reception and involved a senator's grandchild, but she could not remember the exact date.
“The child had been doing something and I was sitting talking to someone and all of a sudden there was this exchange,” she said.
“She came in and was not very happy at all; I would say she was quite upset and angry, and she just grabbed the child and slapped it,” Ms. Cools said, again refusing to name the senator in question.