Liberals to Break Silence on the Cadman Affair?

Posted by Devin Johnston on January 23rd, 2010

Today, as thousands of Canadians are demonstrating against the Harper government's second prorogation of Parliament, the Liberals put out a press release outlining Stephen Harper's top 20 democratic abuses. The list is worth a look, though there is a much more comprehensive list over at Driving the Porcelain Bus. What caught my attention, though, is item number 18 on the list:

18. Launching a lawsuit to hush-up the Cadman Affair into bribery allegations.

Many will recall the allegation raised against Prime Minister Harper that he offered a bribe to the late MP Chuck Cadman in 2005 in an attempt to topple the Martin government on a budget vote. In the end, Cadman voted in favour of the Liberal-NDP budget, forcing a tie in the House of Commons. The tie was then broken by the Liberal Speaker of the House, Peter Milliken.

In 2008, author Tom Zytaruk released an audio tape of an interview he conducted with Harper, then Leader of the Official Opposition, in 2005. In the tape, Harper appears to confirm that "financial considerations" were offered to Cadman for his vote in the House of Commons. A court-appointed expert would later find no evidence that the tape had been altered or edited in any way.

In the midst of the controversy, the Liberal Party posted a news item on their website, alleging that Mr. Harper knew of an attempt to bribe Cadman. In response, Harper launched a $2.5-million libel suit against the Liberal Party. The Liberals, already in a precarious financial position at the time, settled out of court in early 2009. Neither side would discuss any details of the settlement; however, since the case was dropped the Liberals have completely let go of the Cadman bribery allegations.

The assumption that I and others made about this series of events is that the Liberals agreed as part of the settlement agreement to drop all attacks on the Conservatives regarding the Cadman affair. This would explain why the Liberals appear to have forgotten so readily about a bombshell political issue that had the potential to shake the public's confidence in Mr. Harper and in the Conservative Party more generally.

Given my speculation about the contents of the settlement agreement, I was very surprised to see the Liberals openly discussing the Cadman affair with the media after months of silence. Again, I can only speculate as to what is happening, but I wonder if the Liberals are preparing to break their silence on Cadman and re-open Harper's old political wound. If so, it will be interesting to see what, if any, legal consequences arise for the Liberal Party.

Spread the word and fan the winds of change: