New evidence emerged Friday that former MP Rahim Jaffer engaged in what some MPs say was illegal lobbying of his former Conservative caucus colleagues.
In fact, it is those former caucus colleagues who are blowing the whistle on Jaffer. On Friday, it was Environment Minister Jim Prentice who told the House of Commons that Jaffer met last April with one of Prentice's staff to talk about a business idea.
The Conservative strategy "to throw Rahim under the bus," as an NDP MP described it, appears to have helped mitigate any political damage for the federal Conservatives.
Results of a poll, provided exclusively to Canwest News Service and Global National, show that while the gap between the Conservatives and the Liberals has narrowed somewhat over the last two weeks, the Conservatives are maintaining a healthy lead.
The poll finds that the Conservatives enjoy the support of 35 per cent of voters; Liberals are the pick of 29 per cent; and the NDP is at 16 per cent. In Quebec, the Bloc Quebecois is on top with 35 per cent, followed by the Liberals at 24 per cent, Conservatives at 20 per cent and NDP at 11 per cent.
Pollster Ipsos Reid surveyed 1,000 Canadians by phone between Tuesday and Thursday, after Canadians had begun to digest many of the scandalous elements of the allegations involving Jaffer and his wife MP Helena Guergis.
On April 9, Prime Minister Stephen Harper fired Guergis from cabinet, kicked her out of caucus and called in the RCMP and ethics commissioner for unspecified allegations about her conduct. Since then, allegations have surfaced that Guergis and Jaffer were photographed in the presence of cocaine users and prostitutes — allegations which Guergis denies — while multiple complaints about the pair, separate from Harper's, have been laid before Parliament's lobbying commissioner and Parliament's ethics commissioner.
"There's a corrosive effect if it lasts for long enough because if it looks like the government is not in control of the agenda and isn't managing the country," said Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos Reid. "It hasn't started yet."
Two weeks ago, Ipsos Reid found that 37 per cent of Canadians supported the Conservatives and 27 per cent supported the Liberals — a 10-point gap. The gap this week narrowed to six points but Bricker said that movement is small and attributed it largely to the poll's margin of error of three percentage points 19 times out of 20.
"Everything we've seen is within the margin of error but it's a bit of a test when you see the gap reduced by that much," Bricker said. "It's something that's a bit of a watching brief."
Prentice was the second cabinet minister in as many days to release information that seems to contradict testimony Jaffer and his business partner Patrick Glemaud, a former Conservative candidate, gave to the House of Commons government operations and estimates committee earlier this week.
On Thursday, Infrastructure Minister John Baird released a series of documents which showed that Jaffer and Glemaud's company, Green Power Generation, sought up to $135 million in federal funding for three projects.
Baird provided his documents to the committee investigating the activities of Jaffer, Glemaud and Green Power Generation.
But Prentice went further. He said Friday that he has sent his information to Parliament's lobbying commissioner and Parliament's ethics commissioner, in addition to the government operations committee.
It amounts to more bad news for Jaffer, who may now be called back to the House of Commons committee to explain statements he gave there in which he said neither he nor his company engaged in any lobbying and that they "by no means" sought federal financing for their projects.
"You can't come to a parliamentary committee with a boldfaced lie and expect there to be no consequences. We won't accept that," said the NDP's Pat Martin.
The proactive disclosures by Baird and Prentice — neither minister was asked by any official body to disclose any documents or information — reinforced the view of their political opponents that the Conservatives were giving Jaffer special treatment because of his political connections.
"You can't say that Rahim Jaffer is an ordinary citizen," Bloc Quebecois MP Pierre Paquette said. "He's the former chair of the Conservative caucus and the husband of the dismissed minister."
Liberal MP Bonnie Crombie said it doesn't matter that Jaffer never received any funding for his plans — he got special access, she said, to ministers, their aides and government MPs.
The opposition has been calling on the government for a full accounting of all the meetings with Jaffer and Glemaud.
"I think all of the ministers are scouring their calendars to see if there's any record of Rahim Jaffer coming to them," said Martin. "Now that they've made up their mind to throw Rahim under the bus . . . they're going to go to great lengths to distance themselves from any record of contact.
"Minister Prentice has done the honourable thing and come forward, but it does beg the question — why did they wait nine or 10 months?"
