What Lurks Behind Harper's Capitulation?

Okay, we all know that Stephen Harper has dropped his defamation lawsuit against the Liberals over the Cadman affair. No costs, no apology, no injunction. No explanation.

The story, released late in the Friday news cycle, raises more questions than it answers. Harper's lawyer, Rick Dearden of Gowlings, withdrew as Harper's counsel last November. A lawyer from a prominent Canadian firm ditches a sitting prime minister? No explanation.

And then, the prime minister retains new counsel who drops the lawsuit altogether? No explanation.

There's a huge back story here. Watch for snippets to leak out in the weeks to come.

http://www.canada.com/news/Lawyer+representing+Grits+withdraws/968058/story.html

Is Chuck Cadman Speaking From the Grave?

Strange to say the least. Harper's defamation counsel, Rick Dearden, withdraws from the PM's case against the Libs and, on a quiet, late Friday afternoon, Harper's people announce the case is settled - no costs, apparently no damages and no injunction - dropped by all appearances.

Imagine a Canadian lawyer representing a sitting prime minister withdrawing - in layman's terms, firing his client.

The news isn't the fact that Harper "settled" but what was so serious that Dearden considered he could no longer represent the prime minister of Canada? Dearden is a partner in a prominent law firm, Gowlings, and it's inconceivable that he would have fired Harper without the approval of the firm's partners.

There are several reasons why lawyers withdraw from cases. The most common is that the client hasn't come up with a suitable retainer - hardly likely in this case. Many of the alternate reasons are far more spicey than that but it would be unfair to Mr. Harper to even canvas those without knowing more of what transpired between Harper and Dearden and Mr. Dearden, quite properly, isn't talking.

Dearden gave Harper the boot shortly after it was revealed by Harper's own experts that the tape of the PM discussing the Cadman case had not been doctored as alleged by Harper.

Maybe Chuck Cadman has returned, speaking from the grave.

Surprise, Dead Men Tell No Tales

The RCMP have announced they'll pursue no charges in the Cadman Affair. What a surprise!

Chuck, of course, is long gone, lost to cancer in 2005. Before he died he told his wife, daughter and son-in-law about an apparent bribe offered by some Conservative fixers to get him to vote to defeat the Liberal government of Paul Martin.

Unfortunately this man of such great integrity didn't get into details of who, what, when and where - the information the cops would need to build any case warranting prosecution.

With Cadman dead and the possibility of the others voluntarily incriminating themselves pretty slim, there's really nothing for the cops to go on but that doesn't mean they shouldn't have tasered a few highly placed Conservatives just to avoid the appearance of favouritism.

So, what does the RCMP announcement tell us about the Cadman affair? Precisely nothing.

Rick Mercer on Harper/Cadman

Here it is, Kids. This one is definitely worth the price of admission.

Jodi's Right

Dona Cadman looks a bit spinny at the moment, vouchsafing for the prospective boss on the strength of having looked into his eyes, but no matter.

There's endless debate over what happened and whether it was illegal and whether some Libs defamed Harpo by claiming he was in on it, but no matter.

What does matter is this. Jodi Cadman said it herself, it was an "indecent proposal." It was a truly indecent, utterly sleazy act to try to take advantage of a man just weeks away from death, a man about to leave a wife and child to an uncertain future.

It was indecent and, by his own admission, Harper knew of this indecency and did nothing to stop it when he could have. Harper was content to sit back and let his henchmen try to take advantage of a man's vulnerabilities and weaknesses in a moment of enormous peril.

Stephen Harper might not be a criminal but he's shown, beyond the slightest doubt, that he is a vile, loathesome creature utterly devoid of any shred of integrity or even decency. He's a moral reprobate, a huckster. He's a power-grabber, sneak thief and a theoconservative mandrake. Canada can do well without him and his kind.

(p.s. the "mandrake" reference - Mandrake is a powerful herb of the Nightshade family used for its anaesthetic and supposedly magical qualities. Closely related to the deadly Belladonna, Mandrake (like Harper) can cause hallucinations and delerium if ingested. According to folklore, the humanoid Mandrake root screams when it is pulled from the earth, and the human who hears it will go deaf, become insane, or in more extreme versions of the legend, drop dead)

Tory Desperation - Reviving Grewal

The Grumpy Voter has posted a warning to the Libs not to get too haughty over the Cadman affair lest they be forced to again wear the shame of the Grewal scandal. Oh, that was a Liberal scandal, Grump?

What's Grewal up to these days, Grump? You might remember that he resigned in disgrace. And, as for his "smoking gun" tape, do you recall what happened with that? Recall how Grewal's tape was found to have been fiercely edited? Recall how Grewal "chose" not to produce the original? And, for the record, Dosanj was investigated - and cleared.

So, don't lecture the Liberals on the Grewal Scandal, Grump. Point your finger in the other direction. Yes, and we're talking about the same bunch that lurks behind the Cadman story.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20051129/gurmant_grewal_051129?s_name=&no_ads=

See also the delightful blog, "Buckets of Grewal"

http://bucketsofgrewal.blogspot.com/

The Tories must be in a psychotic fit of desperation to drag Grewal to their defence.

Cadman Day II - It Only Gets Worse

It was one thing for the Harpies to maintain, even without having the guts to come out and say it, that Chuck Cadman's widow, Dona, was wrong about her claim that her husband was offered a million-dollar insurance policy bribe to vote against the Martin government. Now Chuck's daughter has confirmed her mother's account.

From the Toronto Star:

"Independent MP Chuck Cadman confided on his deathbed to his daughter days after the 2005 budget vote that he had been offered an insurance policy for a million dollars by the Conservatives.
Jodi Cadman said this morning she burst into tears when her father revealed that news to her.

"My first reaction was I was hurt, very hurt and I started crying," she said in an interview. "If there was an Achilles heel for him, it was complete selflessness. It would have benefited myself and my mom."

That despicable, greasy, lying pr__k of a prime minister isn't going to talk his way out of this one. The author of the Cadman bio has a tape of Harper making it clear he knew the offer was going to be made and did nothing to stop it. He claims he told them not to bother because Cadman wouldn't accept but he didn't order them not to do it.

You can listen to the tape itself, Harper's own admissions, here:

http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/308224

The Tories' Lying Line on Cadman

The Vancouver Sun has published excerpts from Question Period today when the allegations of bribery of Chuck Cadman were raised by the opposition:

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=2a01a5bb-1b7a-4474-86b2-074ef191ef21

The government line is plainly "there were no offers." Nothing to see here, move along. Peters Politics has a post from May, 2005 that includes the following quote from the Guelph Mercury of May 4, 2005:

"The tense atmosphere was underscored when the Conservatives made a public overture Tuesday to Independent MP Chuck Cadman.

The onetime B.C. Conservative is being guaranteed a nomination in the next election if he rejoins his former party now, said Tory election co-chair John Reynolds.

Cadman has not yet responded to the offer. His vote could be decisive in toppling the Liberal-NDP alliance."

I guess John Reynolds, according to Harper's pathetic denials today, was also a bald faced liar. There was at least some sort of offer. The only question now is what was the full deal offered? Does anyone really believe this gang wouldn't up the ante to toss in a million-dollar insurance policy if that would make the difference to toppling the Martin government?

So, let's get this straight. According to Reynolds himself, the Tories were already making offers to Cadman by May 4th. That was two weeks prior to the critical vote of May 19th during which Chuck Cadman showed all the integrity his former colleagues lacked. Two weeks. But we're supposed to believe there were no further offers? Yeah, right.

Then there's Reynold's bizarre account of offering Cadman a guaranteed nomination if he played ball. The guy was two months away from his death. An offer could not have been more pointless. C'mon Reynolds, get real, what did you really offer Chuck Cadman? Reynolds, as you may recall, was instrumental in getting Emerson to defect from the Libs before he was even able to take his seat in parliament. Neat trick. No offer there either. Of course not.

Why would Dona Cadman make this allegation if it was groundless? After all, she's supposedly intending to run as a Conservative candidate. It makes absolutely no sense that she would lie to bring this down on her head for absolutely no good end. There are plenty of people with plenty of reasons to lie about this but that doesn't include Dona Cadman. I believe her - absolutely. You should too.

Vic Toews Weighs in on Cadman - "It's Bullshit"

Treasury Board chairman Vic Toews has dismissed claims that MP Chuck Cadman was offered bribes to vote to bring down the Martin government as "bullshit."

Vic "Taser" Toews, the former Justice Minister who saw a fledgling serial killer lurking within every 12-year old young offender and whose fondest dream was to introduce the rack, the waterboard and the guillotine as instruments of criminal rehabilitation, dismissed the widow Cadman's claims as old nonsense.

So, Vic, you're saying that Chuck was a liar and his widow is too. Pretty nice, Vic. You're all class.

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=53ee2a9c-266c-4cd7-b30f-231a9f03bd79&k=8779