When Stephen Harper got up in the House of Commons and declared that the Jaffer/Guergis affairs did not touch his government in any way he was lying. To suggest that he didn’t know that at least some of his cabinet ministers offices (the number is now eight) were facilitating this ex-MP’s lobbying efforts is not credible. Harper is a control freak unlike any other occupant of the PMO. He knows everything that happens. And if he doesn’t, heads role.
Harper stated on April 9th: “Last night, my office became aware of serious allegations regarding the conduct of the Honourable Helena Guergis. These allegations relate to the conduct of Ms. Guergis and do not involve any other minister, MP, senator or federal government employee.”
In fact, as we now know, aides to government ministers told civil servants they had to give Jaffer’s proposals priority. An aide to Christian Paradis, the Minister of Natural Resources agreed to meet Jaffer in Guergis’ office. Why on earth did Jaffer have the pull to command any meetings with senior political aides and at the time and location of his choice?
Unfortunately, the media got caught up in a frenzy of beating up on the weaklings in this case — Jaffer and Guergis, a couple of low-rent politicians with very bad judgment. They just accepted the line that Harper had blacklisted Jaffer regarding his government because he was angry over the loss of the Edmonton, Strathcona seat. But the record shows that Jaffer’s company continued to get favourable treatment from Harper’s government even after Jaffer got arrested for drunk driving and cocaine possession. Just from the limited perspective of avoiding such a politically damaging connection, one would have thought government ministers would have immediately put an end to their attempts to help Jaffer out with his business.
The fact that they didn’t suggests that there is a huge ethical problem in the way Conservative cabinet members and their political staffers deal with the public interest. It also suggests that those ministers were confident that Harper would not object to their helping out Jaffer.
Government spokesmen keep referring to the fact that Jaffer was not successful — no money changed hands (at least as far as we know to date). But this is irrelevant. Jaffer was trading on his access and money was going to change hands over that, as per his contract. That Conservative ministers’ aides were unsuccessful in corrupting the civil service is no credit to them or their ministers – not one of whom, apparently, even bothered to ask if Jaffer was registered as a lobbyist.
We still don’t know with any certainty that the PMO was not involved. What if Gillani, the Toronto businessman mixed up with Jaffer, was telling the truth about this one thing, that the PMO was really being opened up to him? If he was trying to impress his business contacts about getting a grant, why would he have identified the PMO rather than the relevant ministers’ offices? The parliamentary committee investigating Jaffer was hopeless on this point, never asking Gillani why he identified the PMO specifically in his “overenthusiastic” pitch to clients.
How many other sleazy, unregistered lobbyists are creeping around the Hill trying to trade on their Conservative credentials? Thank god for honest civil servants.
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