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Monday June 13, 2005 |
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MURPHY'S GOT TO GO, GREWAL TOO
by Angelo Persichilli
THE HILL TIMES
(Versione italiana)
If the position of
Prime Minister Paul Martin’s chief of staff Tim Murphy is shaky, and I
believe it is and that he’s got to go, Conservative MP Gurmant Grewal’s
status is definitely no better.
I don’t
question the need to tape the conversation with Liberal emissaries in order
to prove that they were in a search-and-buy mission in the Conservatives’
bargain stores. Too many times rumours of "indecent proposals" have surfaced
and the media have systematically disregarded them.
Furthermore, the Belinda Stronach "acquisition" is proof that the Liberals
are at least consenting partners and obviously over 18 years old.
The
question, however, is different: was Grewal really engaged in a mission to
expose “The (real) picture of Dorian Gray”, or, was he just looking for a
soft landing to a not-so-brilliant political career resorting to a power
sale offering of two for the price of one? This is a question that only he
can answer; but, unfortunately, his answer cannot be taken at face value.
Let’s
pretend that he tells us the truth when he says he was only on a
search-and-destroy mission. If this is the case, he hasn’t exactly acted
like a 007 agent, but more like a suicide bomber. He rushed on headlong into
Liberal quarters wired like all get-out with a tape recorder in an effort to
expose the Liberal way of increasing the size of their caucus, but also his
dangerous political naiveté that should make any leader feel uneasy.
But if
he really had in mind to expose the Liberals, and if he was politically
smart, he would have done a couple of things.
First he
had to talk, beforehand, to a friend, explaining his plans, or send a sealed
envelope to a lawyer with a letter explaining his stunt and with the
instructions to open it the day before the confidence vote in the House, at
the same time he was having a press conference in Ottawa revealing the
stunt. He didn’t.
The
second mistake was the kind of requests made to the Liberals for his switch.
If he really had in mind that he was just trying to prove a point, meaning
that the Liberal Party is willing to "pay" in order to buy votes in the
House, he could have lowered the request, have them accept the offer, and
then expose it. After all, it was not the kind of position he was interested
in, but just to the principle of bargaining for votes.
If the
Liberals had really called him, it can be assumed that they might have had a
proposal on the table: if he had in mind to expose them, he had only to say
yes and les jeux étaient faits.
But it
didn’t happen.
Instead,
what’s on the tapes is not a Liberal proposal, but, about 90 minutes of
bargaining on his requests for a possible exchange. And it was not even
cheap. He didn’t appear to be bargaining to expose the Liberals, but based
on the tapes, was doing some serious bargaining for appointments.
We have
to accept the possibility that he is telling us the truth, but he has also
to concede to us the benefit of the doubt. If anything, he lost the purpose
of the mission along the way and he got carried away with the bargaining.
At this
point the attention switches to the leaders: Conservative Party Leader
Stephen Harper and Prime Minister Paul Martin.
I know
that Mr. Harper did not authorize the stunt and he did not even have the
tapes. In fact, when Mr. Grewal was at the Vancouver International Airport
accused of challenging the rules of security of Air Canada, he was complying
with a request from the Leader’s Office "to have a full copy of the original
tapes." This means that Mr. Harper, two weeks after the events, still did
not have the original copy of the tapes, and not even a full copy. This,
however, doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have enough elements to suspend his MP
from the caucus.
The same
goes for Prime Minister Paul Martin. Someone close to the PMO once told me
that Mr. Martin considers his ministers like staff, and his staff like
family. That might be true, but the lack of action in this case, cannot be
justified exclusively by the inaction of Mr. Harper. If anything, Mr. Murphy
is the chief of staff to the Prime Minister of Canada, underscore of Canada.
The Prime Minister’s Office is not an extension of Mr. Martin’s family ties.
It’s not some personal, private fiefdom. |
