THE BALLAD OF CHUCK CADMAN

In Roman times, when a fellow tried to bribe a public official, they would cut off his nose, sew him in a bag with a wild animal, and throw that bag in the river.
~Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner), The Untouchables

The Conservatives have really stepped in it this time. The Harper Gang has been getting dizzy trying to spin away the story that Stephen Harper may have personally approved an attempt to bribe a dying man.

Nothing has been proven yet, but then again not all the particulars are known. What we do know doesn’t make the Conservative looked like the party of accountability and transparency they claim to be.

What we do know is that the late Chuck Cadman’s wife Dona says her husband told her he was offered a $1 million life insurance policy in exchange for his vote in a May 2005 confidence motion in the Commons. Cadman had gone from an Independent Member of Parliament, dumped by the Conservatives shortly before the 2004 election, to the man who held the fate of Parliament in his hands in May 2005. What we know about Chuck Cadman suggests that Stephen Harper was essentially trying to buy Cadman’s soul and Chuck told him to stuff it. Cadman voted with the Liberals and the Paul Martin government survived six more months. He didn’t survive to see the next election as Chuck Cadman succumbed to cancer in July 2005.

We also know Stephen Harper has sharply contradicted himself since the revelations of the Conservative carrot dangled in front of Cadman. Harper claimed after the story first broke that there was “absolutely no truth” that an offer as made to Cadman. Too bad really, because the next day there was tape of Stephen Harper from a 2005 interview saying the exact opposite explaining, on the tape, that he gave the go-ahead to people “legitimately representing the party” to offer Cadman “to replace financial considerations he might lose due to an election.”

Smoke detectors should have gone off from Stephen Harper’s pants catching fire.

When the lie didn’t work, the Cons began to invoke the good name of Chuck Cadman, citing an interview by Cadman the day of the crucial 2005 vote where he said he was offered a chance to get the Conservative nomination in the his riding uncontested and that “there was no offers on the table up til that point about anything from any party."

James Moore, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services, said in the Commons that “Cadman himself said, ‘There were no offers.’ I hope the Liberals can accept Chuck Cadman's word, because we do.” (And who would else would you trust to uphold the honour of the government but a junior member of a second tier ministry. James Moore, meet Rona Ambrose.)

One problem with what Moore says it is not exactly what Chuck said. But it’s the nothing compared to the answer given when Stephen Harper was asked if he was accusing Dona Cadman, Chuck’s widow, and one of Harper’s Conservative candidates in a Vancouver area riding, of lying.

Harper said nothing!

In fact the PM never left his seat to even offer a weak explanation. With Stephen Harper caught red-handed and his minions unable to spin out of the scandal, the Conservatives came up with another ploy.

They assert the taped interview with Stephen Harper was edited.

James Moore claims the tape was doctored and demanded the full unedited tape. The publisher of the book the revelations are exposed in says the tape is unedited and the author/reporter who was asking the questions of Harper says he turned the tape off for a brief time when Harper, who was doing the interview in Chuck Cadman’s driveway, went back to his car to get something. But I guess after the Germant Grewal episode, no party would know better than the Conservatives what an edited tape would sound like.

As I wrote at the beginning of this, all the facts aren’t in but if the allegations prove out it will be hard for Stephen Harper to save his nose because he maybe too busy covering his ass.