(Quebec) Caquiste MNA Marie-Eve Proulx emptied her heart at The Canadian Press on Friday following her decision taken at the beginning of the week to give up her candidacy on October 3.
Posted at 6:11 p.m.
Updated at 10:22 p.m.
The former Minister of Regional Economic Development and outgoing MP for Côte-du-Sud has been targeted for more than a year by allegations of psychological harassment.
Today, Marie-Eve Proulx poses as a victim of these ex-employees who are determined, according to her, to want to harm her, when she has nothing to reproach herself for. She also claims to be a victim of a system that ensures that, even when cleared, managers find themselves empty-handed, their reputation in tatters, unemployed, without protection, without recourse, or compensation. Finally, cabinet employees would be much more demanding of their superior, if it is a woman. And quicker to let nothing pass.
Her decision to give up politics, she took it “out of respect” for her. “It’s the first time that I have really chosen myself,” said the MP, who defines herself as a “good person”, resilient and strong, who does not want “to hurt anyone”.
Lately, she felt that her morale was starting to be undermined. “I didn’t see how I was going to be able to get out of it” with this sword of Damocles above my head during the entire electoral campaign, says the mother of three boys. She was too afraid that the situation would “degenerate”. She preferred to evade the “people’s court”.
Marie-Eve Proulx wanted a long political career in the service of Quebec. But in May 2021, she lost her post as minister. In a month, at the end of this mandate, she will be unemployed. She insists: her file is blank, the two complaints made against her by two former employees and filed with the National Assembly were deemed unfounded, “after a long and difficult investigation”.
“There was relentlessness. There was defamation on my case. There was a settling of accounts” on the part of these ex-employees, a man and a woman, who, according to her, did not respect the confidentiality agreements concluded by attacking their ex-boss in the media, under on condition of anonymity, helping to fuel the perception that the name of Marie-Eve Proulx was synonymous with workplace harassment.
Why such relentlessness? She explains that these are people who, at the start, in 2018, should not have been hired, not having the profile to work in politics, nor the required skills. His version of the facts: they were fired, did not accept it and set out to get revenge.
Complaints have been filed with the National Assembly and the Administrative Labor Tribunal (TAT). A first case was settled out of court. In the other case, the plaintiff returned to the charge, and the file is under study at the TAT.
She says she’s “considering” whether to retaliate by filing a reputational lawsuit.
Politicians on their own
The former minister also resents the protocols put in place, in the National Assembly or elsewhere, to examine complaints of harassment, and which do not provide anything to repair the harm suffered by an elected official who would be cleared at the end of the process. .
“I lost my job as a minister, I will not represent myself, I choose myself for my mental health. We are not compensated, there is nothing that will compensate for that, even if I have two investigations to my credit which [révèlent que les allégations] are unfounded,” she laments.
“We leave to themselves lacking managers, and lacking politicians, in situations where we are falsely accused,” pleads the MP, worried about the legal vacuum in this area.
Women are more vulnerable
Women politicians are, in his opinion, more likely to be the subject of such complaints. Traditionally, authority is embodied by men, who will be able to afford discrepancies in language or reprehensible behavior without this being challenged by those around them.
Even today, office workers are more “afraid of men”, according to her. Their anger is admitted, their decisions respected. But a woman minister, “we can afford to challenge her”, argues Mme Proulx, who says he has a lot of empathy and compassion for MP Marie Montpetit, who was expelled from the Liberal caucus, also following allegations of psychological harassment. In his case, there was never a formal complaint.
Despite setbacks, M.me Proulx assures that she will “bounce back” before long, even if she says she has no idea what the future will hold for her.
“I want to keep contributing. »