Friday Morning Link Blast

Apparently it's been a busy week, as plenty of good material hasn't yet found its way into post form. So here it is for your weekend reading:

- Erin's take on EI improvements is definitely worth a read in pointing out the relative impacts of the proposals made by the opposition parties and the one now likely to be passed.

- One NDP nomination which probably deserves more attention than it's received is that of Jasbir Sandhu in Surrey North. The combination of a riding recently held by the NDP under Penny Priddy and a candidate with a strong public profile would seem to suggest that the seat is once again one of the party's top priorities. And while the Cons will obviously be fighting tooth and nail for every seat possible, the fact that incumbent Dona Cadman has repeatedly broken with her party may make the Cons slightly less eager to defend this seat than those occupied by their less-independent MPs.

- The fact that the Western Climate Initiative - including the governments of Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba - has criticized the Cons' attempt to set "intensity" targets rather than actual caps on emissions from the tar sands has received plenty of attention. But the Pembina Institute's framing of the problem is worth emphasizing:

"It's also significant that provinces are once again pointing out the problems that will occur if the federal government sets intensity targets for entire sectors like the oilsands. That would amount to providing a production subsidy to a sector that doesn't need it, and invite retaliation from our trading partners."

- Finally, while the scathing report about the Cons' plan for a more harsh but less effective prison system has received plenty of attention primarily for its similarity to policies which have failed in the U.S., it's worth highlighting what the plan figures to do compared to Canadian standards:

In addition to constructing super prisons and implementing work programs, the program will eliminate gradual release and deny inmates rights that are now entrenched in the Constitution.

Needless to say, that raises a serious question as to whether the Cons have any clue as to the relative importance of constitutional documents and department-level policies. But would it be much of a shock if they're deliberately planning to put programs in place which are unconstitutional now in the hope that court rulings which properly recognize the constitutional rights of inmates will help them rail against judges in the future?

In hiding

Following up on this post about the I Believe in Open campaign, I'm not sure it could ask for a better boost than a reminder of the type of government we're stuck with for the moment:

(W)hen reporters asked to speak to (Dona Cadman) after Mr. Harper gave a speech to a Surrey rally, she was instead whisked out of the back door, and out the building.

A spokesman for Mr. Harper, Kory Teneycke, said it was not the local candidates' priority to speak to national media, but rather to get elected. When it was pointed out that local reporters were present, he said that he hasn't said it was their priority to speak to local media, either.

A closer examination

Impolitical and Dave have already covered a couple of the interesting angles from Stephen Harper's Cadscam cross-examination. But let's note two more points which figure to undercut both Harper's position in the ongoing lawsuit, and his ability to claim any competence or responsibility in managing his party.

First, even in testimony dealing specifically with a motion to suppress Tom Zytaruk's taped conversation based on alleged doctoring, Harper still doesn't seem to have even a hint of explanation of what he thinks was altered. From the CP:

Though Mr. Harper has not taken any legal action against Mr. Zytaruk, he has contended since June that a tape of the interview Mr. Zytaruk conducted with him outside Dona Cadman's home was doctored.

Mr. Zytaruk is heard asking Mr. Harper about the life insurance policy. Mr. Harper is heard saying he did not know the details but was aware party representatives had approached Mr. Cadman with an offer of "financial considerations" in case of a snap election.

Mr. Harper has since said the financial considerations included campaign expenses and support, but added more detail during the cross-examination...

Mr. Paliare also questioned Mr. Harper over his assertion that the Zytaruk tape had been doctored and Mr. Harper said several times he believed Mr. Zytaruk himself altered the tape.

Now, if Harper wanted to successfully challenge the tape as an inaccurate depiction of his answer at the time, one would expect him to be able to offer at least some idea what he would have actually said which was shifted out of context.

But nothing in the media reports currently available suggests that even Harper's cross-examination turned up any example of inaccuracy in how the tape portrays the conversation. And indeed, the fact that Harper seems to have spent much of his time explaining exactly what he meant on the tape suggests that he recognizes the tape's content as sufficiently accurate to provide useful evidence of what he said at the time.

Second, there's once again the matter of Harper turning a blind eye to the possibility of wrongdoing in his party. From Canwest's coverage:

Mr. Harper said that when Mrs. Cadman first asked him in September 2005 if he knew anything about Conservative representatives offering her husband a $1-million life insurance policy, he did not know her husband had told her about it and did not ask where she heard that. He thought it was a product of the rumour mill on Parliament Hill.

"My first reaction to the story was it sounded preposterous to me," Mr. Harper said. "I couldn't understand how or why anyone would offer a man with cancer a life insurance policy. It didn't make a lot of sense to me. It didn't sound like a believable story."

Once again, this signals the continued disconnect between Harper's apparent trust in Dona Cadman as the Cons' candidate in Surrey North, and his complete disregard for everything she's had to say about the offers to her husband.

But let's assume that Harper could reasonably have figured that the one person closest to Chuck Cadman throughout the entire relevant time period was more likely relying on Parliament Hill gossip than on, say, what she'd heard from her husband. (And let's go a step further and assume there was no need for Harper to follow up with Dona Cadman directly to clarify the source of her suspicions.)

Even then, wouldn't a responsible party leader want to make sure that his first impression was right, if the alternative was that unknown party members were going around making illegal offers without authorization?

Ultimately, Harper's testimony serves up another indication of his eagerness to ignore the possibility of wrongdoing within his party. And whatever details emerge (or not) about any other offer, that can only offer a signal to Cons and Canadians alike that as long as Harper's in charge, he and his minions won't ever be held responsible for anything they do.

Open questions

While Scott has listed a few questions worth asking in light of Stephen Harper's injunction motion, the area I find particularly interesting arises from Dona Cadman's affidavit:

Prior to my meeting with Mr. Harper on September 9, 2005, I told Mr. Zytaruk that on May 17, 2005 my husband told me earlier that day two Conservative Party representatives had offered him a $1 million insurance policy. My husband never revealed the identities of these two people to me...It is my clear recollection that the date that my husband told me that he had received the offer of a $1 million insurance policy was May 17, 2005 and not May 19, 2005.

With that paragraph, Harper himself has put before a court sworn testimony to the effect that Chuck Cadman was offered an insurance policy by two Con representatives on May 17, 2005, and informed Dona Cadman of the offer that same day.

Now, it strikes me as highly doubtful that two Con representatives acting in concert would have approached Cadman without at least somebody else having some idea what was going on. But even if that's the case, Harper would be in the best position to encourage his party's operatives to speak up as to who offered what when. And he'd seemingly have a strong incentive to do so - lest his party otherwise continue to be represented by individuals who had in fact tried to bribe Cadman.

So who was it that made the visit on the 17th at which an insurance policy actually was offered (which Cadman so clearly remembers hearing about at the time)? Who else, if anybody, has known about the visit and said nothing about it? And why doesn't Harper seem the least bit concerned with figuring out who it was that made the offer on behalf of his party?

(Edit: fixed typos.)

What lies beneath

The burgeoning Cadman bribery scandal figures to appear at the top of national headlines for quite some time to come. But what's most interesting for now is the Cons' insistence on denying absolutely everything rather than seizing on a seemingly reasonable explanation.

For that, take a look at the comments at one of the few Blogging Tories sites to mention the issue, where a relatively plausible theory has been presented as to what was actually offered. If the Cons' visit was limited to asking Cadman to return to their party's caucus and listing off the benefits attached to that - including a life insurance policy among other standard party benefits - then many of the questions now swirling around would seem to be answered.

After all, as unbelievable as it seems that the Cons would take out a separate life insurance policy for Cadman, it's relatively plausible that they might have been willing to absorb some greater risk within an existing group policy. And it's possible that inducing an MP to join one's party - even for the transparent purpose of being able to whip their vote on an upcoming issue - would be seen as entirely different from actually offering inducements in exchange for a particular voting result.

But the Cons haven't even tried to suggest that's what happened. Instead, Deceivin' Stephen and his PR crew have tried to at least implicitly deny that the visit to Cadman was authorized at all by the party. And all this despite both the word of their own Surrey North candidate, and Harper's own statement to the contrary in Tom Zytaruk's book.

It remains to be seen whether the Cons are simply reflexively lashing out, or whether they're covering up something more - either in the form of additional inducements offered to Cadman, or a list of standard party perks which might not withstand public scrutiny. But the fact that they went immediately into panic mode when a seemingly obvious explanation was available suggests to me that we've only scratched the surface of the story.