Scandals of Parliament

Cold War, Hot Sex

It’s often said that there haven’t been many sex scandals on Parliament Hill simply because the exploits that have probably gone on haven’t been revealed to the public. (One wonders about Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s days and nights in office.) A scandal that did surface was the tale of Gerda Munsinger. An East German prostitute and Soviet spy, Munsinger got herself involved with a number of high-ranking Canadian government officials in the late 1950s, including cabinet ministers George Hees and Pierre Sévigny, much to the embarrassment of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker. While her affair with Hees was brief, she carried on a three-year relationship with Sévigny. Dubbed the “Munsinger Affair,” the scandal only became public in 1966 when Minister of Justice Lucien Cardin spoke out of turn during debate in Parliament. He not only got her name wrong, but revealed the scandal a good five years after she had been deported to East Germany, and three years after Sévigny had quietly resigned from Diefenbaker’s cabinet. Despite the fact that the government claimed she had since died of leukemia, Toronto Star reporter Robert Reguly found her alive and well in Munich, West Germany, where she confirmed the story. Not only that, according to an interview Reguly did years later with CTV.ca, Munsinger revealed that he was inadequate in the sack, and told him, “As a lover, you make a great politician.” Dubbed a security risk and “ruined by the Munsinger affair,” Sévigny was eventually cleared of charges of disloyalty, but he spent the rest of his life in isolation. The scandal was the basis of the 1992 feature film Gerda.

The Parliamentary Bathroom Bomber

On the afternoon of May 18, 1966, after moving from failed jobs to failed businesses and blaming everyone but himself, Toronto resident Paul Chartier focused his unhappiness on the Canadian government, and planned to throw an explosive in the House of Commons during question period. Working his way through the Parliament Buildings, Chartier discovered that the Public Gallery was full, forcing him to move to the (then) Ladies’ Gallery on the third floor. Here he entered a washroom to light the explosive, and planned to return quickly to toss it to the floor of the House. Misjudging the length of the fuse, he managed only to blow up himself and the washroom; he was killed instantly. For the first time in history, the sittings of the House were temporarily suspended, resuming an hour after the incident.

Stopwatch Gang

The Stopwatch Gang, led by Ottawa’s own Paddy Mitchell (who grew up in Little Italy), Stephen Reid (of Massey, Ontario), and Lionel Wright, are perhaps Canada’s most infamous bank robbers. The trio, whose orchestrated meticulous heists never took longer than 90 seconds, robbed more than 100 banks and armoured cars during the 1970s and 80s in the United States and Canada. Their most notorious job was a 1974 gold heist (worth $750,000) at the Ottawa airport, earning themselves a place on the FBI’s most-wanted list. The gang’s exploits were detailed in several movies, including Point Break (1991) and The Heist (2001), as well as in the book The Stopwatch Gang (1992) by Toronto Sun reporter Greg Weston, and in Mitchell’s own memoir, This Bank Robber’s Life, which he wrote in prison and sold over the Internet. While still in jail, Reid wrote his own book, a semi-autobiographical novel titled Jackrabbit Parole. Through this book he met his editor, West Coast poet and writer Susan Musgrave, and in 1986 they married while he was still imprisoned. Upon his release a year later, he and Musgrave attempted to live a quiet life on Vancouver Island, and had a child as well. He appeared as a rifle-toting security guard in a 15-second cameo (as well as acting as the film’s bank heist consultant) in the independent movie Four Days (1999). Unfortunately, in the spring of 1999 in Victoria, BC, his heroin addiction resulted in a return to crime and a botched robbery and shootout; currently, Reid remains in prison. The leader of the gang, Patrick “Paddy” Mitchell, called “North America’s most famous, most successful and, especially, most likeable bank robber of our time” by his son, grew up on Preston Street in Ottawa, and died of cancer on in 2007 in a US prison while serving a 65-year sentence. Wright served his sentence, and according to a 2005 report from the CBC, worked as an accountant for Corrections Canada. The gold from the airport robbery in 1974 was never recovered.