Toronto Star Whips Harper and Cronies

Go get 'em:

But who is playing partisan politics here? A prime minister who sues the Liberals while his point man on the justice committee prevents them from asking fair questions? How can Hanger talk about "unsubstantiated scandal" when so many questions remain to be answered? What, for example, did Harper mean when he told Cadman's biographer about "financial considerations" for the dying MP?

Harper and Hanger should know that their outlandish responses only make it look as if they do, indeed, have something to hide.




Investigate Them, Already [Updated]

There is more than enough evidence to go forward with an investigation into the bribery allegations surrounding Canadian PM Stephen Harper and his Tory party. (Background here.)

Good God, people, the wife and daughter of the now-dead Chuck Cadman, the receiver of the alleged offer, believe it was a bribery attempt. And they say that Cadman himself considered it a bribery attempt.

What farking else do you need?

Extra: Hey look - put "harper" and "bribe" into Google and We're Number One! We're Number One!...

Update: Holy crap, Harper has gone through with his threat and sued the Liberal party for libel for saying (or for posting on the Liberal Web site) that Harper knew about the bribery attempt. Which he freaking did. He freaking admitted it.

P.S. Am I gonna get sued now, too?






Harper is Bluffing

See second and third post down for background on the Canadian Bribin' Scandal.

There is no way he sues for libel and though he's still saying he will I've got to believe he regrets it.







Tory/Harper Bribe Scandal Update

Updating this post, we see today that former MP Chuck Cadman's widow, who earlier confirmed claims that her husband was offered incentives in exchange for a favaroble vote while he was dying, says it wasn't Stephen Harper's doing.

With respect to Dona Cadman, and I believe she's being sincere, this doesn't wash.

Going back to the aforementioned post with its link to Harper's 2005 interview, Harper in that interview admitted to knowing about the offer; that it was linked to the desire by the party for Cadman to vote in the party's favor; and that it related to "financial considerations."

Harper was head of the party. How is this not simple?







PM Harper: We Tried To Bribe Him

It's stunning to me that this isn't a much bigger story. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has as much as admitted that members of the Tory party - with his knowledge - attempted to bribe a dying MP. (See post below for background if you need it.)

While researching the mentioned book author Tom Zytaruk interviewed now Prime Minister, then opposition party leader, Stephen Harper. Zytaruk asks him a question about a rumor of an offer being made to dying MP Chuck Cadman. Zytaruk's question is garbled, but it becomes clear what they're talking about as the conversation progresses.

What Harper admits should be enough for him and others to be investigated already. He confirms:

• A meeting between two people who were "legitimately representing the party," that being the Tory party, met with Cadman in 2005 to discuss a vote to bring down the Liberal government.

• Harper spoke with "the individuals" before they met with Cadman (he was against their going, he says, saying Cadman's mind was made up).

• The individuals "were convinced there were financial issues." Later in the interview he says that he told the two men not to press Cadman, saying "You have this theory that it's, you know, financial insecurity - um - uh - if that's what you say make that case, but [car starting]..."

• He later says that as he understood it, "The offer to Chuck, it was, that it was only to replace, uh, financial, uh, considerations he might lose due to an election."

• Staying on the two last points, Harper admits that the Tory Party offered Cadman something related to "financial issues," "financial insecurity," and "financial considerations," in exchange for a vote against the Liberals

• Cadman refused. His daughter now says that her father was enraged, and refused to disclose what had happened because he was dying: "All of this, this circus, would have been happening for the last weeks of his life," she said. "What would they want, cameras around his deathbed? He didn't want that. He was dying."

• Can this be more clear? This is clearly an attempted bribe. Harper's shrugging it off as "only to replace financial considerations he might lose due to an election," which Cadman apparently feared [add], doesn't make this not a bribe attempt. And remember that Harper was and is the head of the party. That he didn't stop it, and didn't report it when he knew it had happened, makes him complicit.

This is unbelievable. Again - why is this not a story?

National Post writer Jonathan Kay says The Cadman scandal is bogus. I've sent him an email with questions. We'll see.