Harper to sue Liberals for ‘libel’

Stephen Harper, the Conservative prime minister, is beginning a libel action against the Liberal leadership, including Stéphane Dion, the party leader, as well as several other high-ranking party officials. He wants ‘defamatory’ articles to be removed from the Liberals’ web site, and that Dion read an apology, drafted by the Conservatives, before the entire House of Commons in both French and English, thus ensuring that embarrassment will stick to the Liberals in both French and English Canada. What, you may rightly ask, the hell is this all about?

From 1997 to 2005, the riding of Surrey North, in Metro Vancouver, was represented in the House of Commons by the independent MP Chuck Cadman. Independent MPs are somewhat uncommon in Canada, given the dominance that the three (in Québec four) major parties have over the system, but they can wield considerable power given that several major parties means frequent minority governments. Cadman was a former Conservative Party member, who lost the party primary, ran as an independent anyway, and won (think Joe Lieberman). In 2005, Cadman voted with the Liberals and New Democratic Party in favour of a budget proposal; the vote was eventually tied which meant the Speaker of the House of Commons had to cast the deciding vote. He voted with the Liberal bloc, which allowed the government to survive confidence. At the time, Cadman was terminally ill with cancer, and he died later in 2005.

Cadman stated that he voted with the Liberals because he didn’t want to put his constituents through more election turmoil only a year after a tumultuous election in 2004 that handed the Liberals minority control of Parliament. However, his wife Donna stated (before the vote), and his daughter Jodi has since reiterated that the Conservative Party offered Cadman a life insurance policy to the tune of a million dollars if he would vote against the Liberal budget and thus bring down the government. What is more, an audio tape has surfaced in which Stephen Harper, who was at the time the Leader of the Opposition, and is now PM, appears to give the plan his approval, in an interview with a CTV reporter in the driveway of Chuck Cadman’s house.

This appears to be attempted bribery, and as such a criminal offence, under Canadian law. But now Harper is moving to sue the Liberals for libel over their allegations that he personally was involved in this scandal. If you go to the Liberal Party website today—surely this will be gone in a few days’ time—you can see the ‘libellous accusations’ for yourself. The big headline: ‘Harper Knew of Conservative Bribery’. The problem for the Tories, of course, is that audio tape doesn’t lie, so they’re trying to turn the argument around and reframe the discussion: the Liberals are trying to slander my good name and the good name of the Conservative Party, oh poor me, you can’t possibly believe the Liberals because they’re lying cheats only trying to parlay this into their political advantage, and by the way Stéphane Dion should apologise both in English and French so that in Québec they hear a French-from-France accent (the equivalent to North American English speakers is a British accent) reading obsequious submission copy to the Conservatives. What’s weird, though, is that most of what’s on the web site consists of quotes from Question Period in the House of Commons, which are protected by parliamentary privilege and therefore not prosecutable as libel. The CBC is supposing that Harper wants to sue over the headlines, which are not so protected. Yay for legal hair-splitting.

I have a feeling that this could be more dangerous to the Conservatives than any of the other current issues, such as the military mission in Afghanistan and the federal budget and the environment. The issue, as Nik Nanos rightly points out, is that the Conservatives like to portray themselves as more trustworthy than the Liberals, but even the allegations of high-level bribery, even if nothing comes of them, could do great harm to the Tories’ image of trust, and harm the Conservatives when they have opportunities to pick up votes in minor byelections like in Vancouver Quadra, or in today’s snoozer provincial election in Alberta (which the Tories will win anyway, no doubt, but they seem to be suffering in turnout rates), or also in an impending federal election, if such comes to fruition.

Anyway, Question Period in Parliament is coming up in a few minutes, so I’ll put this topic to bed for now and watch the Liberals get outraged, as one MP told CBC just a few minutes ago: ‘How dare the Conservatives sue the opposition for doing their duty as the opposition’ (or words to that effect). It’s sure to be a goodie—CPAC will have it live, streaming, and in easy-to-swallow podcast format, as usual.