Common issues

The CP reports that while the Cons may have put an end to one lawsuit with their settlement with Alan Riddell, they may soon face claims from Brent Barr and Mark Warner over their terminated candidacies.

Which leads to the inevitable question: how long before the set of Cons aggrieved by the party's undemocratic choices becomes large enough for a class action?

Concealed agreements

The Ottawa Citizen reports that the Cons have come full circle. Having pushed Alan Riddell out of the way to make room for whistleblower Allan Cutler as a symbol for accountability and transparency, they appear to have managed to pressure Riddell into keeping quiet and going along with the party line:

The Conservative party has reached an out-of-court settlement with Alan Riddell in the Ottawa lawyer's libel suit against Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the party's president, a party statement says.

The one-paragraph statement says nothing about the terms of the settlement and does not name Mr. Harper or party president Don Plett...

Mr. Riddell said yesterday he could not comment on the terms of the settlement...

Mr. Riddell added that now that the issue has been settled, he looks forward to supporting Mr. Harper and working on behalf of the party in future elections. The party had revoked Mr. Riddell's membership, but he was unable to disclose whether it is being reinstated.

Now, there's little indication as to why Riddell would be eager to once again start working for a party which pushed him out the door, and which indeed doesn't appear willing to publicly announce that it's letting him back in. Which leads me to wonder whether Riddell's positive-sounding statement (and subsequence silence) may have been the Cons' price for paying out what they owed.

But then, it still remains to be seen whether the Cons will later try to deny the terms of the settlement as they did with the agreement which induced Riddell to drop his candidacy in the first place.

Whatever the merits of settling from Riddell's perspective, the implications for the Cons are clear: the secrecy behind the settlement offers just one more example of the party's belief that accountability applies only to others. And while Riddell may no longer be fighting to bring this particular incident into the public eye, the fact that the Cons see something worth covering up even this late in the proceedings suggests that there's plenty more worth exposing - if anybody's willing to blow the whistle.

(Hat tip to Jeff.)

Limited immunity

CanWest reports that Harper's Operation I'm Above The Law has hit another snag, as a hearing has been set for August to evaluate Deceivin' Stephen's claim to immunity in Alan Riddell's libel lawsuit:

A Superior Court hearing has been set for August to hear Prime Minister Stephen Harper's arguments that he can't be forced to testify in a libel action because he has parliamentary immunity. Lawyers for Harper and Alan Riddell, a lawyer and former Conservative who sued Harper after he agreed to step aside as a candidate for a Tory nomination in November 2005, appeared before the court's case manager earlier this week to establish a timetable for examinations and other steps that must precede the hearing on Aug. 10.

As I'd noted in my earlier post on the topic, it seems fairly likely that Harper is technically entitled to the immunity. But that doesn't mean he's obligated to make use of it - and it's worth asking again what he thinks he'll gain from postponing his obligation to answer for his actions.

After all, it's hard to think what Harper could want to hide about his public statements about Riddell that justifies making a discussion of whether he's "(impeding) the course of justice" the talk of the barbecue circuit this summer. That goes doubly when the immunity won't insulate him from testimony indefinitely in any event...and indeed would seem to make any election campaign the only available time for him to testify, pushing any embarrassing revelations into the public eye when it hurts most. And much as Harper would like to pretend otherwise, he won't be able to claim any electoral immunity against the consequences.

A just response

At least one of the Cons seems to think he's found a way out of the Alan Riddell scandal for now, as PMS himself has invoked Parliamentary immunity to avoid having to testify. But it's worth noting that in avoiding any scrutiny in court, Harper may only be opening himself up to a label which could severely undercut the brand he's trying to build.

Marleau and Montpetit describe the immunity from appearing as a witness as follows (footnotes removed):

The right of the House to the attendance and service of its Members exempts a Member, when the House is in session, from the normal obligation of a citizen to comply with a subpoena to attend a court as a witness. This exemption applies in civil, criminal and military matters before the courts. However, this claim is not intended to be used to impede the course of justice and, therefore, is regularly waived, particularly for criminal cases. When the House is in session, should a subpoena be served on a Member, the Member may wish to appear in court where he or she feels that absence from court might affect the course of justice. However, the Member still has a right to claim the privilege of exemption from appearing as a witness.

It's not entirely clear from the linked text whether or not Riddell will have any official recourse for the purposes of having the immunity lifted. It seems unlikely that a court would seek to override the jurisdiction of Parliament (see a brief outline of some of the case law here), and none of the Speaker's rulings discussed in Marleau and Montpetit suggest any particular taste for second-guessing a member's assertion of privilege.

But even if there's no clear means by which to force Harper to testify, he's still apparently opening himself up to some serious criticism based on the standard for claiming (or waiving) immunity: surely someone who's trying to sell himself as a law-and-order politician should know better than to voluntarily start a discussion about whether or not he's abusing his privilege by impeding the course of justice. And if Harper's choice ends up leading to that kind of conversation and in turn to a serious loss of face, then he may lose his privilege far faster than he'd likely think possible.

Update: One more point of interest to add, as the only time when Riddell could be sure of avoiding Harper's claim of privilege would be during an election campaign. Is it too early to book trial dates for September 2009?

Delaying the inevitable

Having already lost a first attempt to back out of their deal with former candidate Alan Riddell, the Cons are now looking for a way out of a hearing to determine whether Riddell himself breached the deal:

The federal Conservative Party will try to halt a trial Tuesday that could shed light on the deals that paved the way for the candidacies of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Public Works Minister Stockwell Day after they became leader of the former Canadian Alliance.

Mr. Harper has hired a lawyer to represent him at a proceeding that will be held this week to determine whether there was implied confidentiality in the Conservative Party's agreement with Alan Riddell, who gave up the nomination in the riding of Ottawa South so the Tories could run a high-profile candidate.

But the Conservatives will tell the court Tuesday that the trial should be adjourned — a position Mr. Riddell's lawyer says may have been influenced by the fact that details of similar agreements made by the Canadian Alliance, a predecessor of the Conservatives, could be called as evidence.

Tom Conway said that he plans to raise similar deals that paved the way for the candidacy of Mr. Harper in Calgary in 2002 and for Mr. Day in British Columbia in 2000.

“I am just speculating here, but that may be one of the reasons they don't want it to proceed this week,” Mr. Conway said.

At this point, it's surprising that the Cons haven't simply cut their losses with a settlement (and one with a clear confidentiality clause if it's that imporant to them). What's more, even if the Cons are determined to have the case heard, a time when a federal election looks unlikely would seem to be the best opportunity to minimize any damage.

But for now, all indications suggest that the Cons really are both too stubborn to admit defeat and too short-sighted to at least get the outcome determined in the near future. And that combination makes for a stronger indictment of the Cons' suitability to hold power than the contents of any past agreement.

Not to be trusted

David Akin follows up on the Alan Riddell case, pointing out that the Cons conceded in court the existence of an agreement that they vehemently denied publicly during the campaign:

I remember clear as if it was yesterday standing in a scrum with Stephen Harper on Dec. 4, 2005 -- in the middle of the election campaign Harper would eventually win -- asking him if the party had agreed to pay Riddell off as part of a backroom deal -- a confidential agreement -- to clear the way for Riddell.
"In fact there is no agreement and he hasn't been paid anything," Harper told reporters on Dec. 4, 2005.

"The party does not have an agreement to pay Mr. Riddell these expenses, and Mr. Riddell has not been paid anything to date," Harper told us said when asked again on the same day...

Among those who negotiated directly with Riddell or his representatives in late 2005 were Ian Brodie, who was then and is now Harper's Chief of Staff; Mike Donison, then and now the executive director of the Conservative Party; and Don Plett, who was, then and now, the president of party. Brodie and Donison had, like Harper, rejected the idea that there was any backroom deal with Riddell when asked about this in late 2005.

What's even more interesting in a look at the decision is that the Cons manage to have twisted their public denials that any agreement existed into an attempt to claim they gave notice to Riddell that they were repudiating the agreement (treating their own responsibilities as being done with due to an alleged breach by Riddell). But this new effort at spin met with about as much success as the Cons' attempt to deny the agreement in the first place. From para. 79 of the judgment:

The C.P.C.'s position is that its statements made to the news media following its becoming aware of Mr. Riddell's press releases and communications to third parties to the agreement that "there is no agreement to pay Alan Riddell ..." should be interpreted as an act of repudiation. I cannot and do not accept this argument as reasonable in light of the facts.

It's significant enough that so much of Harper's inner circle was flat-out lying to the public during the course of the campaign - but it shows the Cons' sheer contempt for reality that after admitting the lie to the court, they'd then try to read those words as meaning the exact opposite of what they said in an effort to avoid being held to their own contract.

Fortunately, Power J. didn't see fit to play along. And in light of yet another admitted incident of lying to the public by the Cons' inner circle, there's no reason at all for anybody within that group to be seen as remotely credible in the future.

A noteworthy finding

The Cons' efforts to break a contract with former candidate Alan Riddell then stonewall against his resulting claim have apparently come to an end, as Riddell has won his lawsuit against the party:

The Conservative party has been ordered to pay up to $50,000 to a former candidate who agreed to step aside for a star recruit in the last election.

A judge has ruled that the party had no right to renege on agreement struck with Alan Riddell, who stepped aside as the candidate in Ottawa South so that Allan Cutler, the bureaucrat who blew the whistle on the sponsorship scandal, could carry the party banner in the riding.

The party had argued that the agreement was void because Riddell broke a confidentiality clause, telling the media the party had agreed to pay him up to $50,000 to cover expenses he'd incurred in running for the nomination.

For all the justified concerns about the Cons' consistent effort to shoot the messengers of any undesired statements both within their party and in the public service, the decision should offer a hint that such a strategy isn't going to be met with any better reception in the courts than in the wider public. Which leaves only the question of whether PMS and company will learn that it might be worth changing that pattern - or whether they'll instead choose to deal with far larger consequences down the road.