If There is a Referendum, I Will Vote to Abolish the Senate

There is a lot of discussion about Stephen Harper's plans to reform the Senate, by placing term limits of nine years, but only on those appointed after 2008.

Most of the opposition is coming from Harper's own senate appointments, many of whom have been rejected by the electorate, so would have difficulty finding such a cushy job, not to mention a pension for life.

Harper's other plan of an elected senate, would require a referendum, but even his current tweaking, demands a consensus from the provinces.

Being a Senator use to mean something in Canada, but the Senate is now just a $100 million a year drain on tax dollars, as a home for Harper flunkies.

They used to be there to protect us from someone like Stephen Harper, now they only protect him from people like us.

A three year study on poverty in Canada by the Liberal dominated senate, with vital input from Conservative senators, was presented to Stephen Harper. He gave it a glance then threw it in the trash.

The Parliament debated and passed a climate change bill. The Conservative dominated Senate gave it a glance, then threw it in the trash.

And any Senate bills that might help Canadians or make government more accountable, never have a chance. Even if they could get enough support from Conservative senators, the Harperites have found a way to make sure they never see the light of day.

In 2009, the Canadian Press learned of the tactic they used to hijack senate bills.

Normally, the author of a Senate private member's bill arranges to have a sympathetic MP sponsor it once it clears the upper house and arrives in the Commons. The sponsor informs the clerk's office that he or she will take responsibility for shepherding the bill through the Commons. But last month, Tory MPs began rushing to the clerk's office to sponsor bills almost the moment they were introduced in the upper house, whether or not they actually supported the bills and without waiting to see if they'd actually ever make it to the Commons.

A bill automatically dies if its sponsor fails to show up twice for debate on it. The Harperites who rush to sponsor the bill, make sure that they never show up to debate, stopping it in its tracks.

Ralph Goodale said the latest ploy is "an effort to muzzle a house of Parliament," and part of the government's continuing "vendetta" against the Senate. He said it's particularly hypocritical given the Tories' denunciations of the unelected chamber as an affront to democracy. "What they're basically saying is these topics (in the senators' bills) will not be debated. So it is very clearly the stifling of free speech."

It has just become another body that Harper can control at his whim.

A senator, especially a Conservative senator, is nothing more than a high priced bench warmer.

I did get my own back on one of them though. Senator Hugh Segal lives in Kingston, but we only hear from him when there's going to be an election. Like Wiarton Willie, if we see Segal's shadow, we know we're going to the polls.

When Stephen Harper was in Kingston, protesters were treated like criminals, kept behind imaginary lines and vivid barbed wire.

I was there, and when it was over made my way to the restaurant to use the bathroom and phone my husband. The door I normally used was locked, but I spotted Segal coming out the side door.

I approached him, and with all the innocence I could muster, asked him if he worked there, and could he let me in. He bent his head slightly, perhaps thinking I hadn't recognized him, and "feared" that I might ask for his autograph. I knew who he was, but it felt good to pretend I didn't.

He's done nothing to earn my respect, and that's something I don't hand out for free.

So if there is a referendum, I will be voting to abolish the Senate. It no longer has a legitimate function.

Stephen Harper and His Cheating Ways

Your cheatin' ways,
They make us weep,
We'll cry and cry
And try to sleep,
You broke the law
We're onto you
Your cheatin ways, mean that you're through...

When you're brought down,
For causing pain,
You'll flail around,
And curse our name,
But there's the door,
We've had enough
You tried to lie, but we called your bluff...

Your cheatin' plan,
to steal from us,
It's been exposed,
Now eat my dust,
You knew the rules,
You made your bed,
You didn't think. What was in your head?...

But it's now come down,
To a beaten man,
And his frightening base
Who no longer rule the land,
There's just one more thing
Before you go
Tell me who is, the jackass now?

Charges Finally Being Laid Against the Conservative Party for Election Financing Scheme

Good news today, that finally after years of tying this up in the courts, the Conservative Party is having to face charges for the election financing scheme dubbed the "In and Out".

Elections Canada has laid charges against the Conservative Party and four of its members, including two senators, over alleged violations of election spending rules. CBC News has learned from Conservative sources the charges were laid Wednesday. The party members charged are: Senator Doug Finley, the party's campaign director in 2006 and 2008, and the husband of Human Resources Development Minister Diane Finley. Senator Irving Gerstein, a prominent businessman and fundraiser for the party.

Michael Donison, a former national party director. Susan Kehoe, who has served as an interim party executive director. The charges, which were laid under the Canada Elections Act, are regulatory, not criminal, and relate to the so-called "in-and-out" campaign financing case from 2006.

When the RCMP raided the Conservative offices they called it a publicity stunt, engineered by the Liberals. But the fact is that when Elections Canada arrived at their offices with a search warrant, the staff refused to hand over documents, while the shredders could be heard in the back offices. It was only then that Elections Canada was forced to call in the RCMP.

The Liberals arrived two hours after the event, when the news was spreading.

I suspect they will spin this as well, but both those senators must step down, without pay.

It's Not Just About the Money But the Acknowledgement

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Lao-tzu. Chinese philosopher (604 BC - 531 BC)

My husband and I are raising a grandchild. It's both wonderful and terrifying. But it's also expensive. Freedom 55 becomes Freedom 75.

We're holding onto our house longer than we'd planned, we've cashed in RRSPs and my husband is still working though he turned 65 last year.

But you do it because you can't imagine your grandchild going into foster care. And that's where many of these children from what are referred to as "skipped generation" families, would end up.

I belong to an advocacy group who have been lobbying the government for years, to create a system that is fair and designed to keep children with their families.

It's difficult because once you mention money in relation to a grandchild (niece, nephew, sibling), you're thought of as callous. You want to be paid for something that should be a responsibility. "Feeding off the public trough."

In Ontario the $ 241.00 per month provided comes from social services and you have to jump through hoops to get it. Many of the children are disabled, as is my grandson, and many of the grandparents raising them have medical problems, as do I. But you're terrified that if you raise these issues with the authorities they will take your grandchildren away. And it happens. Believe me.

There was one man in our group who learned that his three grandchildren had just been placed into foster care in a city about 200 km. from here. He was living in a one bedroom apartment and is on worker's comp from a back injury. He contacted our local Children's Aid and was told that he may be eligible to receive a foster care allowance. They gave him $ 100.00 to pay for the gas to go and pick up the three children. That's the last money he ever received.

Once the children arrived he was told that he didn't qualify to become a foster parent because of his back and his apartment was two small. He couldn't yet get the child tax credit because their residence hadn't been established and he didn't have the funds for first and last month rent so that he could get a bigger place. He tried keeping the children in his small apartment, but obviously it didn't meet the criteria of suitable accommodation. The children were eventually taken away.

The government would rather spend thousands of dollars a month to put the children in foster care, than offer help to a family member, where the children feel secure.

There is another woman whose mentally ill daughter lost custody of her five children, when she was institutionalized. This woman applied for custody but was told that because of her age and the size of her small country home she could only have two of them. How does a grandmother make that choice? How do you explain that to the three you will have to give up?

These stories are not unique unfortunately.

And for those "no tax", "no hand outs" groupies, weigh the cost of putting children into foster care against providing a bit of help to keep them with family members. It's staggering.

Yet the most common complaint among us, is the lack of respect or understanding of the situation. None of us are looking for medals or pats on the back. We just want the government to take this and us seriously.

The stories above are from those whose grandchildren were already in the system. Most of us are fortunate enough to have been able to step in before that happened. But the threat is with you everyday.

Carol Goar wrote an excellent piece on Michael Ignatieff's new "family care plan", which would offer help to those taking care of aging relatives. Stephen Harper called it "reckless" and Diane Finley suggested that they simply use their vacation time.

This is the same Diane Finley who earns $ 200,000.00 a year as a cabinet minister plus perks, drives around in a limo with a driver paid for by us, and whose husband is a patronage appointed senator. Both living very well off the "public trough". What would she know about hardship?

But I understand how Harper's and Finley's statements would have impacted those who do struggle to keep their parents out of nursing homes. I've heard similar. Many, many times. It's like a punch in the gut.

... to the 2.7 million Canadians who look after aging parents and infirm spouses, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff’s “family care plan” offered a sliver of hope. These caregivers save the health-care system $25 billion a year. They sacrifice their savings, job prospects and sometimes their health to keep frail seniors out of hospitals and nursing homes. They get nothing in return — no recognition, no recompense.

Ignatieff’s modest initiative would help only a quarter of them. But its size is not the real measure of its significance. It is an acknowledgement of the work caregivers do. It is a first step in confronting the issues posed by an aging society.

That important first step.

And Goar reminds us of the basic difference between Stephen Harper and Michael Ignatieff. Harper views helping the aging as "reckless" while spending 16 billion dollars on state of the art fighter jets, that experts say are useless. 10 billion dollars on prisons when the crime rate is down. And more than 1 billion dollars on a summit where expenses included 85,000.00 at a mini-bar.

And Michael Ignatieff is not suggesting that we raise taxes to pay for this. Only ending the ridiculous corporate tax cuts.

As Goar says:

The Liberal plan would not break the bank or jeopardize economic growth. It would give Canadians a choice: A government that spends their money on military hardware and prisons or one that uses their tax dollars to alleviate the strains of an aging society.

I know my choice.

Doug Finley Says "Let's Dance" Harper Says "Not Now Dear I've Got a Headache"

With the Omnibus Bill from hell, held up in the senate, the Neocons were promising an election over it. Doug Finley, one of the most blatant patronage senate appointments, said "Let's Dance".

He may have had a bit of false bravado after an Ekos poll suggested that Harper was 10 points above Michael Ignatieff. But the Reformers were quick to get out a memo telling their people not to get too excited because their own internal polling showed very different results.

And now they are saying that they are not quite as ready to go to the polls as Finley might suggest.

"Down Boy."

Conservatives are playing down the prospect of a fall election, despite threats of a snap vote from the party's national campaign director. Election speculation, never entirely muted in a minority parliament, went into hyper drive Thursday after opposition members of the Senate finance committee voted to strip a number of controversial measures out of the government's massive budget implementation bill.

The move prompted Tory Senator Doug Finley, the party's head campaign honcho, to warn that Conservatives are ready to plunge into an election if the budget bill is revised. However, a spokesman for the prime minister immediately let it be known that Stephen Harper "isn't looking to call an election this fall." And Harper backed that up Friday by bolstering Conservative ranks in the Senate, signalling that he'd rather fight to save the budget bill rather than call an election over it. Harper appointed former Tory candidate Salma Ataullahjan to fill the one Senate vacancy, bringing the Tories to 52 seats in the 105-seat chamber — just shy of an absolute
majority.

Thank heavens there is one Progressive Conservative in the Senate who doesn't take kindly to tricks and bullying. In Kingston both Hugh Segal and the Reformer candidate Brain Abrams, claim to be Red Tories. No Red Tory in their right mind would ever agree to this. None.

Lowell Murray is not a Liberal. But the Progressive Conservative senator finds himself voting with the opposition Liberals against the Stephen Harper government these days to protest an abuse of Parliament. That it should fall to an unelected Tory senator to defend our democratic institutions shows how Canadians are being held hostage by the subterfuge of spin and cynicism that passes for federal politics in the Harper era.

A one-time Tory cabinet minister, Murray cannot stomach the government’s tactics in lumping together several complex issues into a grab-bag “omnibus bill” — tied to the budget to make it a “confidence” matter that would trigger an election if defeated.

As Canadians showed when Harper prorogued Parliament last December, they care deeply about abuses of parliamentary procedure. So too, at one time, did Harper. In 1994, Harper complained vociferously about a previous Liberal government’s omnibus bill that dumped disparate bits of government business into one piece of legislation as a way of quickly tying up loose ends. Back then, Harper argued that “the subject matter of the bill is so diverse that a single vote on the content would put members in conflict with their own principles.” But that old Liberal bill was a mere 21 pages long. His own Conservative omnibus legislation is an unprecedented 880 pages long and contains 2,200 sections.

These kind of Gestapo tactics should have died with the Gestapo.

Doug Finley Reminds Harper That Freedom of Speech is the Bedrock of Democracy

Another Harper insider has lent their voice in support of Canada's media, who are currently battling Stephen Harper over the right to information.

Harper patronage senate appointment and top dog in the pit bull kennel, Doug Finley says.

“I rise to call the attention of the Senate to the erosion of freedom of speech in Canada." “There could scarcely be a more important issue than this.

“Freedom of speech is, and always has been, the bedrock of our Canadian democracy.“The great Alan Borovoy, who was the head of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association for more than forty years, calls freedom of speech a “strategic freedom”. “Because it is the freedom upon which all of our other freedoms are built. “For example, how could we exercise our democratic right to hold elections, without free speech? “How could we have a fair trial, without free speech? “And what would be the point of freedom of assembly, if we couldn’t talk freely at a public meeting? “It is the most important freedom. Indeed, if you had all of your other rights taken away, you could still win them back with freedom of speech.

Clearly Mr. Finley agrees that elected Members of Parliament should have free speech. That civil servants should have free speech. And our media should have freedom of the press to report what those people say.

If Doug Finley understands this, why doesn't Stephen Harper?

And James Travers agrees with Finley:

Stephen Harper’s sudden conversion to ministerial accountability would be refreshing if it weren’t so sinister. Silencing political staff tightens the screws on an administration already consumed with managing its message and adds an essential layer of secrecy to the cover-up of Afghanistan prisoner abuse.

Garth Turner Must Think He's Died and Gone to Heaven

Garth Turner was a former Conservative MP, who was removed from their caucus because he refused to shut up and allow unelected officials to speak for him, in the way that all other Tory MPs have.

After the 2006 election, he immediately locked horns with Stephen Harper over a cabinet post being given to David Emerson, in exchange for his crossing for the floor from the Liberals. He also refused to shut down his blog, believing that his constituents elected him to speak for them, not the Conservative party of Canada.

He describes the turn of events in his new book, Sheeple.

I walked into the Prime Minister’s office. It was 6:15 p. m. and snow whipped against the outside stone walls of Centre Block. Downstairs the reception was thinning and the foodplates decimated. Upstairs, the door closed behind me, and Harper approached. We shook hands. There were a few small words about the campaign in my riding and we stood during them, while Chief Whip Jay Hill watched. The Prime Minister then motioned me to sit down, which we did on either side of a small wooden end table with a brass lamp on it.

My bottom was barely in the chair when Harper let it fly. I am very disappointed with you, he said. It got worse quickly, and the tone was unmistakable. Stephen Harper was condescending, belittling and menacing. Here was a man with whom I had exchanged perhaps 200 words in the last year, talking to a newly elected MP, a member of his own caucus, who had just succeeded in taking a riding from the Liberals after more than a decade — a riding that was a beachhead into the constituency-rich GTA–and he spoke to me as if I were a petulant, useless, idiot child.

His voice was without a single shred of respect. No acknowledging I’d been in this office before, or in the Cabinet room down the hall, or had run to be leader of a legacy party. It was as if conservativism had started with the election of Stephen Harper as leader and led directly to this moment. Prior to that, he may have believed politicians bobbed like rudderless vessels on a sea of public opinion, blown helplessly by the winds of media know-italls. And he alone was out to change that.

The Prime Minister was at me now about my comments on former Liberal David Emerson, and I explained my opposition to floor-crossing MPs and my position that despite the new minister’s worth and experience, the ethical action would be to re-submit to the people. How, I asked, could you have been critical of what Belinda Stronach did, and now turn around and cause this to happen?

Harper glared. He pointed out to me that he had not voted for legislation in the last Parliament that would have banned floor-crossing (although half his caucus did). He said there had been nothing in the election campaign platform that prevented an MP from abandoning a party, or the voters, to pursue his or her own agenda.

That, he said, leaning forward and staring hard at me, was not his position, and I was absolutely wrong in talking to anyone about it. Pointedly, he did not mention Belinda’s name. I thought the better part of valour at the moment was to follow suit. But it also struck me:Here was a man hiding behind semantics, convinced his position was unassailable because words defended him. He may have hinted broadly that Belinda was a weak person of questionable intellect that led her to make the wrong decision in leaving his side. But he never actually said the process was incorrect. In an argument of logic, he won. So when I said, “I still find this position unprincipled,” he needed only to look at me with disdain.

He was done with that. We moved on to me. It was not going well.

Harper said he felt he could not trust me. “To put it charitably, you were independent during the campaign.” The penny was dropping now. The dots between anonymous on-the-phone Doug Finley, worries about my blog and the leader’s ear were filling in rapidly. He turned to look squarely at me and said, “I don’t need a media star in my caucus.”

Media star. The choice of words was interesting. I had come to my candidacy as a businessman, employer and entrepreneur, running three companies. I thought the man would have known that, realized I had not been an on-camera personality for a few years, or a daily newspaper columnist for decades. But perhaps some sins could never be expunged.

The Prime Minister paused. “I was going to offer you something, a role, something I had that is delicate, something important,” he said. “But now I’m not going to anymore. Instead we will just see what happens, what you do, over the next few weeks.”

The Prime Minister looked over at me, waiting for my face to react. Was he seeking disappointment, anger or regret? Remorse, maybe? A desperate cry for forgiveness? Stephen Harper had just dangled some valued, unnamed position or title, then snatched it away.

But I was not here to ask for anything. He had nothing I wanted. The only goal pursued had been to become a Member of Parliament, and my behaviour, principles or beliefs could not be changed with a job offer.

I started to rise out of my chair. “Well,” I said, “I guess that’s it then …”

But Harper wasn’t done yet. “Sit down.”

“You’re a journalist,” he said, “and we all know journalists make bad politicians. Politicians know how to stick to a message. That’s how they are successful. Journalists think they always have to tell the truth.”

The phone rang. “This is the Prime Minister’s office,” a woman announced. “I have the Prime Minister’s chief of staff on the line. Please hold.”

“This is Ian Brodie. I have Jay Hill, the government whip, here with me.”

It was mid-morning, and I had promised many media outlets I’d tell them shortly whether or not interviews would happen. After the events of the previous evening nothing was exactly clear. Pathetically, I imagined Brodie was about to extend an olive branch.

“I’m a blunt person,” Brodie said. “I heard your comments on Canada AM, and this freelance commenting of yours has to end. The public undermining has to end. There was nothing in our platform that was against floor-crossing. If you want to f–k with us, we will certainly f–k with you. Do you want to sit as an independent? Then we can arrange that. Count on it.”

The tone was shocking, the words driven by an obvious anger. I tried a compromise, and offered to turn down any further media interviews. Jay Hill spoke. “That is unacceptable,” he said. “You are damaging your colleagues and the Prime Minister. You will do no more media.” Then he asked me, simply, why I was saying the appointment of David Emerson was wrong.

“Because that’s what I believe,” I said. Hill laughed.

“Let me make this clear.” Brodie’s voice dropped a bit and he slowed. “I am telling you, you will not give any more media interviews. I am telling you, you will stop writing the blog. And I’m telling you that you’ll issue a press release today praising the Prime Minister’s appointment of Emerson. Are you clear?”

Yes, I said. Clear.

It was clear that a political staffer, unelected and unaccountable, answering directly to the Prime Minister, had just tried to gag a Member of Parliament, threatened to throw him out of the party he’d been elected by the people to represent and ordered him to make a false statement.

Oh my God. Here we go.

Stephen Harper hates to be challenged, so when Garth Turner eventually crossed the floor to the Liberals, after sitting as an independant, Harepr made sure he wouldn't win another election.

Enter his sweetheart Lisa Raitt. He would plant her in Turner's riding, then pull out all the stops to get her elected there, despite knowing of her troubled past.

So what does Garth Turner think today?

Sexy isodopes
June 8th, 2009

This is not a political blog, nor do I wish it to become one. Nonetheless, I spent most of my day fielding emails and calls from people who thought I might know Lisa Raitt better than them. Likely, I do, even though our encounters during the last campaign were restricted to all-candidates debates.

My supporters also built a fat file of damning information on her tenure as head of Toronto’s federal waterfront agency. The local media was not interested in passing that on to the voters. So, they got her as their MP.

Now they also have a rep who sees the medical isotope crisis as a great chance to build her career in Ottawa. So, she called the issue – which is seeing cancer victims denied needed therapy – ‘sexy”, one she was happy to “roll the dice” on and take credit for solving.

This is the callous, egocentric chatter you hear a lot of in Ottawa. Reputations are made or broken in the “managing” of “files.” Ministers or high-profile MPs who get their spins across in the media or QP can rocket in status overnight, and it’s that political momentum which is more important than the people affected by the actual issues.

This focus on party, leader and personal career is a cancer all its own eating away at the public body. It was at the basis of the dispute I had with the prime minister, and which cost me my party affiliation, my colleagues and my job. I argued that I worked for the people and answered to them above all. Stephen Harper was unwavering in his belief I worked for him, and voters second. He demanded I relent. I did not. You know the rest.

Mrs. Raitt is a very ambitious, career-oriented person. It defines her, I would say. Aggression has made her sharp, judgmental, combative and condescending. Clearly she’s also smart, accomplished, telegenic and marketable. Her entrance into cabinet in a significant role, and her placement in the Commons in the camera’s eye behind the PM, show the influence she can exert.

Unlike me, she places party above all. She sees herself on a political ladder to the sky, and her minister’s position is inherently partisan, rather than as a job to serve the people whose government it is.

Until last week, she was being touted as a Harper successor – probably the ballsiest woman in a caucus already swimming in testosterone.

But, that’s gone. Leaving a secret briefing book in a TV studio was bad. Throwing her assistant under the bus was worse. Getting steamy about a crisis that could help her career, even while it devastated Canadian cancer patients was the mark of a person in politics for the wrong reason.

We have too many.

I hope Garth runs again. I've always admired his tenacity.

Tories Break the Law in Cadman Affair

A story beginning with 'Tories break law' should follow with a shocking revelation, but with the Conservative Party of Canada it has become so common that we now simply accept it as part of their Party platform.

From the "in and out" to "airbus", they are nothing if not consistent.

This brings us to the Chuck Cadman affair, and Harper's role in the illegal attempt to buy an MP's vote. This one is particularly sleazy because the vote in question was that of a dying man, and the bribe was a million dollar life insurance policy.

So if you're wondering just how low the Tories can go, wonder no more. And an audio tape suggests then-opposition leader Stephen Harper was not only aware of a financial offer to Chuck Cadman but gave it his personal approval.

It's not difficult to imagine how the scenario played out. I'm reminded of a similar, though on a smaller scale, con pulled off by Rahim Jaffer (Jaffer is the husband of Conservative MP Helena Guergis), Jason Kenney and Ezra Levant.

When Jaffer pulled a hoax on a national radio program by having his assistant fill in, Kenney and Levan paid off the aid with a $ 40,000.00 'severance', though the truth came out eventually.

The ease with which they not only bribed Matthew Johnston to lie, but actually bragged about it, makes the Cadman affair even more credible.

Cadman affair sparks election threat
Liberals may rethink plan to prop up Tories
Mar 01, 2008
Toronto Star
Richard Brennan
Bruce Campion-Smith
OTTAWA BUREAU

OTTAWA–Liberal MPs are openly musing about toppling Prime Minister Stephen Harper's minority government over allegations the Conservatives tried to buy the vote of an independent MP.

Just days after ruling out an election over Tuesday's federal budget, opposition Liberals say a change of strategy is in the air and a spring election is a possibility as the Tories struggle with charges that they used financial incentives to win the support of British Columbia MP Chuck Cadman in May 2005.

Liberal MP Dan McTeague (Pickering-Scarborough East) said it is now very difficult for the Liberals to continue to support the Tory government.

"The (Liberal) party may have to reconsider, in light of the allegations, whether it ought to prop up the government now facing ethical allegations that go right to the top," McTeague said.

"If this story is not discredited substantially in the next 48 hours, I am sure that a number of our colleagues will be very keen come Monday to pull the plug on this (minority) government," said Liberal MP Garth Turner (Halton).

"I don't know how (Harper) can stay the prime minister and I don't know how the government can remain the government," he said, adding that Harper should step aside if the RCMP launches a probe of the allegations.

A biography of Cadman, to be published this month, charges that two Conservative party officials offered Cadman, who was critically ill with cancer, a $1 million life insurance policy if he voted against the then-Liberal minority government in a confidence vote on May 19, 2005. If he had voted with the Conservatives, the government would have fallen, forcing an election.

Jodi Cadman told the Star yesterday that her father confided shortly before he died that he had been offered the insurance policy. She echoed statements made by her mother Dona that are in the biography.

She said her father asked her to keep the information confidential.

Cadman sided with the Liberals, keeping the government alive for a few more months. Harper then won a minority government on Jan. 23, 2006.

"I was incredibly proud that he didn't take it," she said. "People didn't know he was so close to the end." Cadman died on July 9, 2005.

Harper has denied the allegations and said party officials made no offer to Cadman, a defence Conservatives continued in the House of Commons yesterday. (The tape shows that Harper lied)

"There were three people at the meeting that we are talking about here and all three of them said that no offer was made. That is the simple fact. I am sorry if it does not jive with the Liberal political tactic here, but it is the truth," said Conservative MP James Moore (Port Moody-Westwood-Coquitlam).

Conservative officials Tom Flanagan and Doug Finley (MP Diane Finley's husband) issued a statement Thursday saying they met with Cadman on May 19, just hours before the vote. They could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Moore later acknowledged the Conservatives were trying to negotiate Cadman's return to caucus.

"We, our government and our party, made no offer to Chuck Cadman that was in any way inappropriate. We had a desire to have Chuck Cadman rejoin the Conservative party," Moore said.

However, Dona Cadman insists that two Conservative officials visited her husband's office on May 17, 2005 – two days before the vote – and tried to lure him back into the Tory caucus with the promise of a $1 million life insurance policy.

"They want him to vote against the government," she is quoted in the biography, Like A Rock: The Chuck Cadman Story.

And an interview with the book's author, Vancouver journalist Tom Zytaruk, Harper, who was opposition leader at the time, even suggests he knew of the offer.

Asked about the insurance policy, Harper said, "it was only to replace financial considerations he might lose due to an election, okay? That's my understanding of what they were talking about."

It is considered an offence under the Criminal Code to offer a politician an inducement, financial or otherwise, to influence him or her.

The RCMP is considering the Liberals' written demand for a police probe of the allegations, police spokesperson Sylvie Tremblay said in an interview yesterday.

"The RCMP is currently reviewing the content of the letter to determine what action, if any, the RCMP will take," she said.

Outside the Commons, Moore suggested the "bootlegged" tape of Zytaruk's interview with Harper had been edited, and called on the author to release the "full version." (is this anything like the 'bootlegged' tapes of Michael Ignatieff they're using in attack ads ... leaving out the context?)

"We've only, of course, seen a segment of the conversation and we want to see a full unedited version of this conversation," Moore said.

But Zytaruk said the tape released by his publisher to media outlets, including the Star, is the "full and unedited" tape of his conversation.

"You've got it there from the beginning to the end, the entirety," Zytaruk said in an interview. "If they're making noises that this tape has been doctored ... that's preposterous."

Conservative party spokesperson Ryan Sparrow said there was no meeting on May 17. On May 19, the Tories say, Finley and Flanagan met with Cadman and offered the independent MP the Conservative nomination for his riding, if he agreed to return to the party.

As well, they also offered him a loan to help offset the costs of running an election, Sparrow said. " It was supposed to be repaid back to the party," he said.

Harper would later sue the Liberals for libel, by sticking to his story that the tape had been doctored. When an FBI forensics lab stated otherwise, he dropped his suit but has still not answered to the public for his criminal intent.