[Scape]

Conservative MP Gurmant Grewal today made public several recordings and transcripts of conversations he held with Tim Murphy (Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister), Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh, and Sudesh Kalia.

[ridenrain]

The CTV bit is on the font page:


Tape transcripts to shed light on Grewal claims
CTV.ca News Staff

Although the Liberal government won a crucial budget vote less than two weeks ago, the Opposition parties are not letting the prime minister breathe easy just yet.

The Opposition is pushing for an RCMP inquiry into the audiotapes that Conservative MP Gurmant Grewal alleges proves Liberals were trying to woo defectors with deals prior to the budget vote.

"There is a real concern about this taped conversation that went on amongst Canadians. It has placed the entire House under a real cloud," NDP Leader Jack Layton said in the House of Commons during Monday's question period.

Prime Minister Paul Martin denies the Liberals did anything wrong.

"No offer was made -- that means no offer was made."

He also called on the tapes to be fully released. So far, only a segment has been made public.

"Those tapes are in the possession of a member of this House, and one would hope Mr. Speaker that the member will make those tapes public," Martin said.

CTV News' Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife reports that the Prime Minister knew of the negotiations.

According to Fife, the full four hours of transcripts of Grewal's taped conversations with a top Martin aide and Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh show:

Martin was ready to talk to Grewal about defecting like he did with Belinda Stronach Grewal was offered a government position two weeks after the vote
The transcripts could be released Tuesday. Conservative House Leader Jay Hill has said the party will be turning the tapes over to the RCMP soon.

The federal ethics commissioner Bernard Shapiro is also expected to announce Tuesday whether he will conduct an investigation into the alleged Liberal deal-making.

[insignificant]

This activity will continue forever until the setup of the house is changed dramatically!

[ridenrain]

TRANSCRIPTS OF SECRET TAPES IN PDF FORMAT: 1, 2, 3, 4
http://www.nealenews.com/

Let's see if this PM has the golfballs to make this one funny.

[xerxes]

Sounds aas though Grewal has a history of secretly taping people....

$1:

LARRY ZOLF:
L’affaire Grewal
CBC News Viewpoint | May 30, 2005 |

"Mr. Grewal has got a history," the Toronto Star proclaims in a headline. It goes on to say, "Tory MP made accusations against political rivals in the past. Liberals say cases show vote buying charges not credible."

One allegation was that, in 1995, leader of the B.C. provincial Liberal party Gordon Campbell made Gurmant Grewal an offer of "a plum position" if he dropped out of a hotly contested race for a provincial riding nomination before an upcoming election. Grewal said: "A senior party official acting on behalf of Campbell" offered him a deputy minister's job if he dropped out of the nomination battle.

In 2000, Grewal, then an Alliance MP, said a Liberal MP offered him a job in Jean Chrétien's government if he "switched back to the Liberals." Grewal did not name the Liberal MP and "a spokesman for Chrétien pointed out that MPs do not have the power to offer senior government appointments."

Now Grewal says he was approached by senior Liberals, spoke at length with Tim Murphy, Paul Martin's chief of staff, and was offered a diplomatic post and a Senate seat for his wife, Nina, also a Tory MP, if they abstained from the crucial budget vote earlier this month.

What is puzzling here is how the Grewals could have abstained when all the whips were laid on and their votes were critical for the success of Stephen Harper and the Tories, and could have brought down the government.

Grewal's charges were picked up by the Tories. Said Geoff Norquay, spokesman for Harper: "The PMO guys should concentrate on explaining exactly what the prime minister's chief of staff Tim Murphy was doing coaching a member of Parliament on how to lie and how to maintain … plausible deniability."

It was Grewal who decided to secretly tape his dealings with Murphy. The Tories produced an eight-minute excerpt of a recorded conversation between Murphy and Grewal. The tape includes "no specific offers from Murphy," but it does discuss various strategies for abstentions by Grewal and hints at "future accommodation."

The Tories admit they learned about Grewal's secret tapings but they didn't give Grewal instructions to tape, "nor did we tell him not to tape it."

The Harper Tories did not seem to be worried about the entrapment of Murphy. The ethics of the secret tapings seem a bit dubious in all this. The Globe and Mail's Jeffrey Simpson suggests: "The Grewal tapes are pretty thin gruel."

Says Simpson: "Much stranger and rather more chilling is what a member of Parliament was surreptitiously doing taping conversations with anybody … and what about the bizarre motives of an MP who walks around taping conversations, presumably including ones with ministers he had asked to see? If there's anything fishy about this business the smell comes from the one with the tape recorder."

Simpson concludes: "The circumstantial evidence suggests that Grewal has a few questions to answer. Maybe some of the answers are on those tapes. Failure to release them would perhaps suggest someone with something to hide."

The Globe, in an editorial, notes the Tories have not "supported calls from the NDP or the Bloc Québécois for an RCMP or parliamentary investigation." Says the Globe: "Regardless of who's telling the truth, this murky affair needs a thorough airing by the House of Commons ethics commissioner, Bernard Shapiro … Laws may have been broken – it is illegal to offer or accept benefits in exchange for votes – and if not, ethics certainly took a beating. The only question is from whom?"

The Grewals were aiming very high indeed. Sudesh Kalia, the intermediary Grewal used to get in contact with the Liberals, said it was Mr. Grewal who approached the Liberals "seeking a reward. He's lying. I'm not lying. I'm an honest man. I'm telling the truth."

Kalia said Grewal asked if the Liberals could make his wife Canada's ambassador to the United Nations. What would happen to Allan Rock, the present ambassador to the UN, did not seem to bother the Grewals one bit.

Kalia has been arguing Grewal should release all the tapes now. Says Grewal: "I believe that there will be an investigation … and I would be more than happy to co-operate with that."

Norquay said the Tories would release the tapes and contact the police only after they're translated from Punjabi to English. Much of the talk on the tapes is with Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh and is in Punjabi.

Andrew Coyne of the National Post, who used the Grewal affair to hammer the Liberals, got a libel suit from Tim Murphy for his pains. To show that he remains unfazed Coyne wrote a column entitled: "He Started It Is Not a Defence."

Coyne dismisses the defence of the Liberals that Grewal started it all by coming to them. They argue that Grewal couldn't take "no for an answer." Said Coyne: "If Mr. Grewal had corrupt objectives in mind, it seems odd that he would tape himself in the act, still odder that he would tell the world of the tapes' existence.

"A more plausible explanation, if indeed it was he who first approached them, was that he was out to lay a trap for them. It was in Mr. Murphy's and Mr. Dosanjh's power not to fall into that trap."

Both Murphy and Dosanjh are "guilty of a grotesque error in judgment." Editorially the National Post suggested that "the Liberals should explain Mr. Murphy's troubling ambiguity."

Murphy was recently the subject of a very flattering piece by Graham Fraser in the Sunday Star. L'affaire Grewal rated just a few lines in it. Murphy, it seems, had a comfort zone with the Martin Liberals and the media.

[ridenrain]

[canucker]

Grewal's ethics questioned

Conservatives privately question Grewal ethics but argue end justifies means



News 1130 Poll

So who do you believe in the controversy over the audio tapes?

Prime Minister Paul Martin: 41%

Gurmant Grewal: 17%

Neither: 42%

[ridenrain]

If the Liberals didn't want to deal, it doesn't take 4 hours, the Prime Minister's chief of Tim Murphy and top Martin aide and Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh to just say no.

[Scape]

Tale Of The Tape: Grewal Tapes Disputed

It takes two to tango.

$1:

Grewal claims the tapes prove the Liberals offered him rewards, perhaps even a cabinet position, if he sat out the May 19th confidence vote.

But the Liberals say Grewal's tapes have been doctored, a charge the Conservatives flatly deny.

CFRA producers have examined the .wav files of the tapes and offer their opinions.

Both believe the tapes have been edited.

Why?

[ridenrain]

Is that radio station an RCMP approved audio lab?

I guess it depends on where these clicks are. If they are between conversations, then it's probably the recording gear being switched on and off. Even if they are between words, it could still be the mike being bumped or many other things.

I don't have experience recording people but the odd occasion when I pick up the phone after the answering machine starts, the recording sounds terrible. That alone makes me a disreputable person, but I'm sure that recording could be refuted also.

I guess it depends on whether you see the glass as half full, or you own the cup.

[Scape]

No, something stinks. The Liberals are pressing hard on the attack in the commons right now. There is a charge now that the tapes had Harper on them and he was edited out and that there were hours missing leading up to what was currently released.

The only party looking good in all of this is the NDP and Jack. He was using it to attack the Liberals on privatizing heathcare. OMG, so off topic for Jack but ironic. He was actually trying to raise an issue in the house.

[ridenrain]

No doubt this is more of Harpers secret agenda? Grand mastermind behind all that is wrong with Canada. No one even knew he spoke Punjabi.
Why can't the most simple answer be the right one?

The only problem is that Jack & the NDP were bought by the exact same process.

I'm all for an impartial, public investigation by the RCMP. The public deserves no less, but I'd rather the Ethics Commissioner didn't attend because he's been compromised on the tapes too.

[Gunbunny]

Scape Scape:

No, something stinks. The Liberals are pressing hard on the attack in the commons right now. There is a charge now that the tapes had Harper on them and he was edited out and that there were hours missing leading up to what was currently released.

I agree Scape something does stink about this one. With Stronach crossing the floor I couldn't imagine the Liberals holding off there. Any Party would try to keep going. I think the Liberals got caught with there hand in the cookie jar here. Of course they are just gonna stone wall this untill it's not important any more, it's the famous talking non answer. Made famous by you know who, the man who could talk for an hour and have it not mean a thing. The great former PM. I swear that Crietien made this policy in the liberal party.

[BurytheNDPforgood]

What is going on right now in Federal politics, and for that matter, in the largely limp-dick media that we have in this country eg. Mandsbridge and his town hall meetings at every bloody opportunity, is a complete disgrace.

The Liberals were voted down in 6 consecutive votes. They refused to walk and in the time window they had following that, they were definitely working on deals. They were probably working on the Grewals and Stronach at the same time, in case either party did not agree.

It is unprecedented in our Parliamentary history that an arrogant administration would refuse to walk and would decide when to have a confidence vote. It would never have happened in the UK or the US.

Canada should be broken up. Quebec can sod off. BC and Alberta can form their own republic, and the rest can be run by Ontario.

Then the Libs can do whatever they like

[Rev_Blair]

Something stinks bad with these tapes. Two technicians from CFRA in Ottawa, a radio station owned by Conservative Lowell Green and noted for its support of the Conservative Party, say that the tapes have been spliced and doctored.

Grewal originally said there were four hours of tape, now there is considerably less than that. The Conservatives had the tapes for two weeks before releasing them, yet can offer no valid reason why. Neither the Conservatives nor the Liberals were in any hurry to see the RCMP investigate this.

The RCMP have the tapes now and I suspect that both the Conservatives and the Liberals are going to suffer recriminations and maybe even resignations. I doubt that anybody will go to jail, but I strongly suspect that people from both sides should.