From Caribbean News Service

OTTAWA, May 09 2017 – Don Meredith has quit the Senate of Canada a week after the ethics committee recommended he be expelled from the Red Chamber for his relationship with a teen.

“After consulting with my family, community leaders and my counsel over the past several weeks, I have decided to move forward with my life with the full support of my wife and children,” the Pentecostal minister wrote in a letter to his Senate colleagues.

While Meredith does not use the word resignation in the letter, he says he hopes his “absence from the Senate will allow the senators to focus their good work on behalf of all Canadians.”

“The path of expulsion being considered by my colleagues will have major implications for the Senate of Canada. This is a constitutional fight in which I will not engage,” Meredith wrote in his letter, drafted on his Senate letterhead.

“I am acutely aware that the upper chamber is more important than my moral failings.”

In order for the resignation to officially take effect, Meredith will have to send a signed hard copy of the letter to Gov. Gen. David Johnston confirming his intention to vacate his Toronto-area seat.

Bill Trudell, Meredith’s Toronto-based lawyer, argued for a one- or two-year suspension without pay as a form of punishment for his two-year sexual relationship with a teenage girl. However, the five-member Senate ethics committee determined Meredith’s conduct demonstrated “he is unfit to serve as a senator.”

“No lesser sanction than expulsion would repair the harm he has done to the Senate,” the committee said in its report. “He has abused his privileged position of authority and trust by engaging in behaviour that is incompatible with his office.”

Meredith is currently facing two other ethics investigations, including one related to alleged workplace harassment. However, as per the Senate ethics code, an inquiry or review against a senator who ceases to be a senator is “permanently suspended unless the [ethics] committee decides otherwise.”

Any parliamentarian who has served six years, either in the House of Commons or the Senate, is eligible to collect a pension.

Meredith, 52, reached that number a few months ago, in December 2016, six years after his appointment by former prime minister Stephen Harper.

Barring any extraordinary attempt to prevent him from receiving that pension, Meredith would collect approximately $24,000 annually starting at age 60.

By resigning, Meredith is following a well-worn path taken by other senators who were facing suspension or expulsion. Former Liberal senator Andy Thompson resigned and collected his pension after the Senate voted to suspend him from the chamber. Thompson posted continually dismal attendance records and he was present in the chamber only 28 times in a 14-year period.

The Senate ethics officer, Lyse Ricard, released an explosive report in March documenting Meredith’s relationship with a woman known as “Ms. M.” Ricard found reason to believe Meredith and Ms. M had intercourse three times, including once when Ms. M was 17 years old.

Meredith has denied many of the allegations levelled against him by the woman in question, but he admitted he had sexual intercourse with her on at least one occasion when she was over 18.

Ricard’s report found Meredith violated two sections of the code of ethics, namely that he did not uphold the highest standards of dignity inherent to his position, and that his actions reflected adversely on the institution of the Senate.

The ethics committee ultimately agreed with Ricard’s conclusions. “He has brought disrepute to himself and to the institution. His presence in the chamber would in itself discredit the institution,” the report reads.

For more on this story go to: http://caribbeannewsservice.com/now/legislator-resigns-over-relationship-with-teen/