Front Burner - MP Tony Clement's sexting and extortion scandal

Episode Date: November 8, 2018

Longtime MP Tony Clement has resigned as justice critic for the official opposition and is leaving the Conservative caucus after admitting that sharing sexually explicit images and video led to an extortion attempt. Power and Politics host Vassy Kapelos delves into how a seasoned politician known for being an early social media adopter ended up at the centre of a sexting scandal.

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about hidden disabilities. Short Sighted, from CBC's Personally, available now. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. Not even 48 hours ago, as we were all waiting on the results of the U.S. midterm election, a different kind of political story was breaking here in Canada. Tony Clement is apologizing and asking for an RCMP investigation. A high-ranking, long-serving Conservative member of Parliament announced his resignation as justice critic for the official opposition. Now Clement says the RCMP is investigating as he's now facing an extortion attempt.

Today I'm asking how a seasoned politician known for his use of social media ended up at the center of a sexting scandal. That's today on FrontBurner. I'm Vashi Kapelos. I'm host of CBC's Power and Politics, and I'm in Ottawa. Hi, Vashi. Thanks so much for being here. What do we know about why Tony Clement has resigned from his post as a Conservative Party's justice critic, and also from several government committees?

Well, what's so interesting, at least I think, is that basically what we know at this point is all from Tony Clement himself. He released this statement essentially saying, admitting that over a period, he says, of three weeks, he sent sexually explicit photos and video to someone he thought was a consenting woman. And then he says that that person, whomever it is, tried to extort him for a senior source in the Conservative Party tells me 50,000 euros. So he admitted all that he laid it out. And then he said, I'm taking time away from my duties on the Hill, like you mentioned committee duties and duties as like a critic, kind of a justice critic. And I'm going to go, you know, spend some time

with my family. He's married, he has kids, and I'm going to seek some kind of treatment. So it kind of starts and ends there. We don't know like what kind of treatment, how long it'll take, or if he'll come back in the fold and when. Do we know anything about who's trying to extort him? The Euros is very interesting. Yeah, it's super interesting. We don't know a whole lot at this point, but again, it's kind of a developing story. So that could change. I do know that he referred it to the RCMP and then told the party. The party says that they're not aware of who the source could be, but that's the amount of money he told the Conservatives. So he said the number named kind of was 50,000 euros.

And so the RCMP is investigating. was 50,000 euros. And so the RCMP is investigating. The RCMP will confirm that they're investigating, but they also won't confirm who might be suspected or any details about sort of the nature of the investigation. And do you have any sense of why he released this statement with so much information in it? Like, why not just step aside and say he had family issues?

Why all these details? Sure. Well, I think it was basically a decision made with the party, in concert with the party, from what I understand. He told them last week, after he had referred it to the RCMP, and they discussed sort of a number of options. And I guess the central question that they looked at in figuring out how they were going to approach it was, can he survive this? And the feeling was from my conversations with sources in the party that if he did come clean, you know, quote unquote, and admit the details of it, that that is something

that he could rebound from. Whereas if the details were held back, there would be a lot of questions because he is pretty well known. And it could, you know, it would get a lot worse before it ever got better. And that would make it something worse before it ever got better. And that would make it something that he probably couldn't survive politically. Tony Clement, he's also known for his prolific use of social media. I actually hadn't looked at his Instagram account until this morning, but it's sort of goofy. It's full of what you might call dad selfies. He's standing beside a lot of things, a giant pumpkin, a giant apple. There are lots of pictures of him playing guitar.

It's silly and self-deprecating. What do we know about how Tony Clement uses social media? All good points. I would argue he's probably the most prolific social media user in the party, at least the most well-known. He has a pretty big following on Instagram and Twitter. You know, I understand and utilize the power of social media every day. In fact, my first draft of this speech was less than 140 characters long. And he sort of figured out early on, I say this obviously with a grain of salt now, but how to properly use those channels for communication in that he does it himself.

He presents a personality and he engages quite a bit. Hashtag CPC, hashtag empower, hashtag Canadian Poli. That's what he was known for. I mean, he was all over Instagram. Like you said, the sort of self-deprecating, approachable image was projected by him. And it has been for a number of years. I mean, that wouldn't be a surprise to anyone in Ottawa. So it just sort of added to the irony of what happened. You know, it's interesting you mentioned before that there's a sense that he might be able to move on from this, particularly if he is open about what has happened. But is there a sense that there might be more here? Yeah, there definitely is.

And I think that is the sort of central part of what might affect his chances of moving on beyond this. I mean, there's almost this debate happening. Is he a victim of catfishing or has he exhibited some sort of predatory behavior? And there is no evidence to back that up at this point. I mean, he admitted what happened with this one instance. There have been since then people who came out on those social media platforms he's on all the time and publicly have said, you have said one of two things. Either, yes, I was a younger-ish girl, like in my 20s, and he was contacting me quite frequently on Instagram, and I thought it was weird.

But that's where that kind of story ends. And then there's a few others who have come out and said, no, I also received those kinds of images or things along those lines. They have not – I mean, we haven't corroborated that. They have not produced those images as of yet. So there's a big question mark. But the discussion here is certainly, you know, is there another shoe to drop? I know, for example, even within the party, there are conversations about whether he was, you know, totally fulsome in describing everything that happened.

Like if this had been going on for three weeks and to this level where you were sending a video, are you sure this has not happened before? He told them that it hasn't. But I think everybody is sort of, you know, a little bit hesitant to buy into that completely. Even Andrew Scheer said, you know, I take him at his word. And that's a pretty specific statement. You know, I take him at his word. And that's a pretty specific statement. Do we know anything more about the extortion attempt beyond the money that was asked for?

So I know that he sits on the National Security and Intelligence Committee, and there would be some obvious concerns around the information that someone on that committee would have? Well, that is, again, there are just so many questions about that. So he sits on this committee, which is a really unique committee, in that the members, which come from different parties, have a very high level of security clearance. I think they've met something like 50 times, so they meet pretty frequently. And they talk about and are supposed to offer oversight on the most sensitive intelligence issues in this country. So all of a sudden you have one of those members embroiled in some sort of, you know, catfishing extortion scheme where he's being blackmailed.

It's to the point where the Privy Council, so, you know, a very official body, had to be made aware. They had to brief the prime minister that blackmailing was involved. We don't know if it had anything to do with his duties, you know, anything to do with the country or his duties on Parliament Hill. Like, we just don't know that, to be truthful. But those questions are definitely being asked and there haven't been a lot of answers. It's interesting.

Sending nudes or videos, it's something that people obviously do. But I always have a hard time wrapping my head around why someone in this position would do this. You know, he's not the first politician to step aside after a scandal like this. No, he's not. And I feel like – I don't know if you've watched the Anthony Weiner documentary, but – I have. Yeah, I felt like I watched that whole thing thinking, why, why, why? Like, I don't – I guess everybody – you know, I feel like everybody does do things that they regret and we all make mistakes. But it's dangerous putting anything like that on the internet, no matter how private you think it is, no matter how much you trust another person.

So I can't comprehend. And especially because he's also so social media savvy. It's not like it's someone who never does anything to do with the internet. Right. He's not new to the internet. No, not at all. I also don't want to lose sight here about how serious this allegation of extortion is. Yeah, I think it's almost like a really hard thing to like pigeonhole, right? If you want to characterize this event, like is he – there's two ways – there's almost two ways to look at it.

And they're not necessarily mutually excuse exclusive like he's he could have this exhibit this predatory behavior if a pattern actually with evidence is is presented but you know he also could be a victim of a crime it could be a bit of both basically we don't know can we talk a little bit about Tony Clement, the politician? So up until this point, what is he best known for? And can you give me a sense of his place in the Conservative Party? How important is he? Yeah, he's important.

Conservative MP Tony Clement has been a staple of Tory politics for the better part of three decades. Definitely one of the more recognizable people in the party. He's run for the leadership twice unsuccessfully. Once in the last round, he ended up withdrawing because he couldn't kind of meet his fundraising targets. And then he ran back in the early days. He's held under Prime Minister Harper. He held like fairly substantial cabinet portfolios, including I think he was Minister of Health, Minister of Industry and President of the Treasury Board. He also ran for the provincial leadership,

the PC party leadership years ago, and he was in government there and he served in like a myriad of ministerial portfolios there like health and transport. And I think he served under both Mike Harris and Ernie Eve. So he has had a long political career. He is, I mean, he's not the most prominent of all conservative MPs, but he is, I would say, like a recognizable face with the Conservative Party. And I can honestly say nobody would have seen this coming. And I should correct that. Nobody in the political arena, because there are a lot of people on Twitter saying, oh, yeah, big surprise. Like he messaged me all the time.

And Twitter saying, oh, yeah, big surprise. Like he messaged me all the time. But honestly, the reaction around the newsroom and everyone who was kind of texting each other as it came out among the political parties was really Tony Clement. Like he just he didn't come across that way. Sure, he was Instagramming a lot and doing things along those veins in that vein. But I don't think people really would have seen something to this degree. in that vein, but I don't think people really would have seen something to this degree. We heard from Conservative leader Andrew Scheer on Tony Clement's decision to step back from a lot of his duties. Scheer called it a terrible lapse in judgment, but also he said he was encouraged that Tony had decided to seek help and that he wished him all the best in doing so.

Do you know any more about what this help might be? No, that's what I think is so weird about this whole story because I've reached out to Tony Clement to ask. I have not heard back, but I don't know what help you need to – I'm not really sure. Is it marriage counseling? Is it – I don't know what treatment combats the idea of sending out videos of yourself. Like, that connection has not been made by the Conservative Party or Tony Clement at this point. And I think as we move forward, that becomes a big question too. My understanding is he'll be gone for months.

So I don't know what that treatment consists of. And when he comes back, you know, what will he say about that? And what's the goal of the treatment? Not to send pictures anymore? Or is it, I mean, if you're undergoing marriage counseling or something along those lines, like that makes sense. But they have not been clear about that. Vashi, thank you so much. Okay.

Thanks so much for having me. After Vashie and I spoke, there were some updates to the story. On Wednesday, Tony Clement left the Conservative caucus at the request of opposition leader Andrew Scheer. So he's no longer part of the Conservative Party right now, but he still remains an MP. In a scrum, the Conservative leader explained why. I took him at his word that this was an isolated incident. Since then, there have been numerous reports of other incidents, allegations.

So in that respect, I've asked Tony to resign from caucus so that he can respond to these allegations. And then, in an email to the Globe and Mail, Mr. Clement acknowledged numerous interactions with individuals on social media, but he denied any harassing behavior, writing, quote, I've never sent unsolicited harassing messages, ever. That's all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts. It's 2011 and the Arab Spring is raging. A lesbian activist in Syria starts a blog. Spring is raging.

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