PM dropped Cadman suit ahead of key hearing
TIM NAUMETZ
The Canadian Press
— Stephen Harper dropped his lawsuit against the Liberals in the Cadman affair just weeks before a hearing on whether his emails, notes and agenda could be called into evidence. A court date was to be scheduled this month over the failure of the Prime Minister's legal team to provide documents and answers to questions that had been requested during a series of cross-examinations last summer. The lawyer for the Liberal party was set to ask the court to rule whether Mr. Harper would have to provide emails and notes for meetings his staff held related to Chuck Cadman. The matter involves allegations that the Conservatives offered a financial inducement to Mr. Cadman, an Independent MP, while trying to defeat the minority Liberal government in 2005. The Tories deny the charge. The Prime Minister dropped his $3.5-million defamation lawsuit on Friday after reaching a deal with the Liberals. Sources say the Liberal party is not obligated to pay any damages or apologize for claims on its website that Mr. Harper was aware Tory officials offered Mr. Cadman — who was dying — a $1-million insurance policy if he sided with them in a Commons budget vote. Despite the refusal of either side to comment about their agreement to dismiss the case, records show a legal fight was brewing over the documents and other information Liberal lawyer Chris Paliare had requested. Hearings were expected to begin this month over Mr. Harper's failure to have his lawyers respond to Mr. Paliare's request for documents and information from the prime minister's office. In a series of cross-examinations last summer, Mr. Paliare requested copies of Mr. Harper's agenda for the day he was interviewed by B.C. journalist Tom Zytaruk, who reported the life-insurance allegations in a biography of Cadman. Mr. Paliare had also asked for copies of Mr. Cadman's journals and diaries for the period of time during which the financial inducement allegedly took place. Harper lawyer Richard Dearden abruptly quit last November, to be replaced by Toronto lawyer David Wingfield, after the initial stages of the Liberal efforts to obtain the documents and information began. Mr. Dearden gave no explanation for his departure, and court notices of the lawyer swap do not indicate whether it was at Mr. Harper's wish or Mr. Dearden's. During the examination of Mr. Harper last August, Mr. Dearden objected to Mr. Paliare's request for an email said to discuss a meeting between Cadman and two Conservatives the day of the confidence vote in 2005. Other documents Mr. Paliare requested during his cross-examination of Mr. Harper included the notes of "all the people" who attended meetings in the prime minister's office in late February when the allegations were first reported. Mr. Harper's lawsuit prevented the Liberals from exploiting the allegations during the federal election last fall. Tom Conway, a prominent Ottawa lawyer who represented a former Tory member who sued Mr. Harper, said the looming court fight over access to emails and notes may have been behind the Prime Minister's decision to abandon the lawsuit.
James Morton
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2 comments:
Oh my well we won't have to wait 20 years afterall. Keep the leaks coming peeps.
So we're supposed to believe that Harper dropped the lawsuit in late January because of the Liberal lawyers' investigation, begin in November, and not the budget vote, in late January?
Not buying it.
If opening his files would rile Harper so much, he would have dropped the lawsuit in November, when the threat was made. Instead, he drops it just after receiving a government-saving vote from the Liberals.
'Bombshell' announcements don't disguise this.
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