Ethics, Political

Allan Riddell case contradicts accountability promises, threatens damage.

Stephen Harper's invoking Parliamentary privilege, to avoid testifying in a defamation suit brought against him and the party by long-time Conservative Alan Riddell, exposes serious contradictions between Harper's sanctimonious stated positions and his actual practices in the realm of cleaning up politics.

Riddell had volunteered for the Conservative party and its offshoots for decades. He got his chance to run in 2004 and then again in 2006, but Harper and the Conservatives decided to parachute a star candidate, Alan Cutler, into the riding. They wanted to be able to feature the bureaucrat who blew the whistle on the Sponsorship Scandal as a candidate for their national promotional purposes. The Conservatives ultimately lost the riding, but the point was made.

Both Riddell and the Conservatives agreed in court that year that he was offered $50,000 in "expense" money to withdraw from the race, but later the Conservatives refused to pay him. When Riddell went public, Harper, during the election campaign, said that there had never been any deal. "The party does not have an agreement to pay Mr. Riddell these expenses, and Mr. Riddell has not been paid anything to date," he said, claiming the party's national council had decided Riddell was not an "acceptable" candidate.

Riddell says that claim impugned his reputation and he is suing for defamation. An Ontario Superior Court judge has already ruled that there was such a deal, contradicting Harper's statements, and that Riddell should be compensated.

By invoking Parliamentary privilege, no defamation action can be brought against Harper until the government falls — or possibly until Parliament is prorogued — possibly never.

Harper faces difficult contradictions on this matter. He campaigned for office pledging to clean up politics in the wake of Liberal corruption scandals. He abhorred backroom deals and dirty tricks, touting transparency and making accountability one of his five key priorities. Harper presents himself as a democratic reformer, but in the Riddell case, it appears his organization has run roughshod over party loyalists, paid at least one candidate not to run, and then allegedly reneged on the payment. It would be damaging if the details of the case involved with the nomination of the Conservatives' star ethical whistle-blower involved details that called into question the party's own ethics.

The Conservatives are painfully aware that case recalls two others. In 2002 Ezra Levant had declared his candidacy in the Calgary Southwest riding when Preston Manning stepped aside in 2002. Stephen Harper, however, wanted to run there, so Levant was persuaded to step down. There were allegations that Levant was also paid to back off. Earlier on, when Stockwell Day became Canadian Alliance leader in 2000, he decided he wanted to move from Alberta to BC and run in Kelowna despite the fact that the riding had an Alliance MP, Jim Gouk. He was paid to step down, although Day has denied it.

Campaigning on an ethical platform subjects a party to intense scrutiny, as Stephen Harper is experiencing with the Allen Riddell case and as Stockwell Day experienced before him.

Related individuals, organizations and significant events
Manning, Preston http://www.harperindex.ca/ViewArticle.cfm?Ref=19

Harper Conservative vs. Public Values Frame
  Accountability / Spin, promises
  Ethics / Contradictions
  Insider / Democracy
  Backroom deals / Transparency

Links and sources
  Prime minister invokes parliamentary privilege to delay defamation lawsuit, Start.Shaw.ca
  Conservative Party back in court over deal with candidate, West Island Chronicle

Posted: May 17, 2007

Harper Index (HarperIndex.ca) is a project of the Golden Lake Institute and the online publication StraightGoods.ca