Angry in the Great White North
Communism as a shield? [updated]
Wednesday, May 10, 2006 at 11:13 PM

Read other posts by Steve Janke published by the National Post
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An interesting story posted at Free Dominion:

I'm watching the budget discussion on CTV. The NDP Director of Operations speaking with Mike Duffy - she is Anne McGrath. Shocked

In 1984, when I was elected to the University of Alberta Student's Union, Anne McGrath was selected by the SU Nominating Committee to be our Academic Affairs Commissioner. Although Anne McGrath was a new student at the University of Alberta and had done NOTHING at the U of A, she had been chosen because of her "friendship" with the left-wingers on the Nominating Committee.

The person she beat was Kerri Kamra - Kerri had a proven track record of volunteering with Student Help, and with the Student Orientation Services. When the Committee motion went to Student's Council for ratification, we amended their motion to replace "Anne Mcgrath" with "Kerri Kamra" - the amended motion passed... Razz

So, Anne McGrath filed a complaint with the Student's Union Ombudsman and with the Alberta Human Right's Commission claiming that we discriminated against her because she had been the Communist candidate in the riding of Edmonton-Strathcona. Nutz

The NDP has obviously scraped the bottom of the barrel... Laughing

Now it is important to note that I haven't been able to verify the facts of this account of the events in 1984 independently, so what follows is based on the assumption that the facts of the case are as described.

The choice of the nominating committee was rejected in favour of a choice supported by the majority of the full Student Council. Though disappointing to McGrath, it would seem to be in order.

The fact that she filed a complaint on the basis of discrimination instead of a procedural issue suggests that procedure was followed correctly.

Was McGrath the subject of discrimination because she was the candidate for the Communist Party of Canada in 1984, the same year she was seeking the commissioner post on the Student's Council?

Maybe, but if so, there's nothing wrong with that.

Membership in a political party is not an accident of birth, like gender or skin colour. Anne McGrath was a member of the Communist Party of Canada in 1984 (that much is true). To draw inferences about what sort of decisions she was likely to make as a Commissioner was reasonable on the basis of her political affiliations. In particular, the fundamentally violent nature of communism as a philosophy (the proletariat versus the bourgeousie, the collapse of capitalism, etc) and the undeniable historical fact that wherever communism has been used as a guiding principle of organizing human social order, death, misery, and poverty (both material and spiritual) has been the outcome, means that reconsidering whether to allow an avowed communist to hold a position of responsibility was in itself a responsible act.

McGrath tried to turn that around. Instead of allowing the Student Council to consider her political choices in deciding whether she was suited to a position of responsibility within a quasi-political body, she tried to make her political choices into a shield against review. One wonders if Kamra had been a man, whether McGrath would have filed the complaint on the basis of gender discrimination. Of if McGrath was not white (which she is), race would have been the reason. But Kamra was a woman, and McGrath was white, so McGrath was forced to try to make her politics an excuse for being rejected.

That's an extremely poor argument, because even if the Student Council had used her communist membership as part of judging her suitability compared to Kamra, so what? If you can't consider a person's political views when determining whether he or she is suited for a role of responsibility in a quasi-political body, then what can you consider? You can't be held responsible for your gender or skin colour, so you can't be judged on the basis of gender or skin colour. But you are solely responsible for your political views. How can another group that deals with political questions not be allowed to consider whether that choice makes you a good fit or a poor fit within that organization?

In any case, it would seem that the real basis of the Council's choice of Kamra was on the value of her work, while McGrath originally won the nomination based on the value of her connections through the Communist Party. When her political connections helped her, McGrath voiced no objection or concern. But if they hindered her (and it is not clear that this was the case), well, that could not be tolerated. Seems a bit inconsistent.

The posting does not mention the outcome of McGrath's complaint, though I suspect it was rejected. Her complaint, though, suggests a skewed view of personal responsibility, that individuals, at least those on the left, should be immune to any negative repercussions that might flow from their political decisions. That is a strange point of view. On the other hand, that someone responsibility-handicapped like McGrath would have since found a home in the NDP does not strike me as strange at all.

Update: According to someone who was present at the events (see comments), McGrath was not even known to be a communist when the recommendation to reject her nomination was passed. The move was made because she was perceived to have been given the nomination purely on the basis of connections, while a clearly more qualified person was rejected. For many people, though, qualifications are irrelevant, and if that person loses out on a position, it has to be discrimination.

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