Double Blind

I love a good political scandal – the Mulroney stuff is ancient history and wasn’t worth writing about. The best lie is a half-truth, and the alleged Chuck Cadman bribe scandal has all the elements of half-truths.

So the story is that an author, Tom Zytaruk, is about to publish a book (Like A Rock: The Chuck Cadman Story) that alleges that two Conservative party top officials offered a $1 million life insurance policy on Cadman if Cadman would vote against the Liberals in the 2005 federal budget. Cadman eventually voted for the Liberals and then he died two months after the vote, due to melanoma.

The book hasn’t been published yet, so these allegations came out when an excerpt of the book was “leaked” and then it all hit the fan. Confusing things even more, the source of this information was Dona Cadman, who is Chuck Cadman’s surviving wife. Dona Cadman is the Conservative party’s nominee for Surrey North. So it was definitely not in her best political interest to reveal this information – unless if she was told to by the Conservatives.

The speculation has been rampant, but the analysis is simple: If Dona Cadman has her nomination removed by the Conservative party’s national council, then the nature of this news is likely more real than not. If Cadman remains the nominee, then chances are the leak was actually a Conservative one to distract attention away from some other on-goings of the government or perhaps create some negative, but temporary, news in order to goad Dion into a motion of non-confidence (thus spawning an election). This is a classic Stephen Harper play if it is indeed the case. The probability of this case is unlikely but I would not discount it completely.

I knew nothing of Zytaruk, but Jordan Bateman apparently thinks that he doesn’t succumb to sensationalism in reporting – so if this is the case then one can rule out the “I want to drive up book sales” excuse for this leak, although the nature of the leak itself is suspicious.

Finally, no insurance company would give a $1 million policy on a person due to due of cancer in two months unless if you paid over a million dollars of premiums in exchange. So I highly suspect the amount of the alleged bribe was misunderstood or not transcribed properly – perhaps Chuck or Dona did not understand what the attempted “bribe” (legal or otherwise) would be.

Watch the opposition try to condemn the Conservatives on this one, but miss the mark on some other critical issues of government operations.

History in retrospect tells the entire story – the Conservatives were able to smash the Liberals in the 2006 election, which certainly would have not happened if the 2005 budget vote was rejected. Also, getting MPs on board seems to be easy for both parties – the Liberals acquired Belinda Stronach and “bribed” her with a cabinet position, and the Conservatives took David Emerson a few days after the election results were known. You can be sure that this type of wheeling and dealing will be happening in any minority government situation in the thirst for more power.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 29th, 2008 and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.