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June 7, 2005
What's eating Gurmant Grewal
Tory MP takes stress leave
Yesterday, the office of Official Opposition leader Stephen Harper announced the man dubbed "Secret Agent Grewal" by some in the Parliamentary Press Gallery is taking stress leave. British Columbia MP Gurmant Grewal earned his nickname by recording conversations he had with senior Liberals about his possible defection from the Conservative Party and then releasing the recordings to the media.
Double-O-Grewal says he had no intention of joining the minority Liberals, instead, he wanted to show to the depths to which they would stoop to keep themselves in power. And, in fairness, he caught them. Prime Minister Martin's Chief of Staff coaches Mr. Grewal on how to deny there is any arrangement while, at the same time, appearing to set out the terms for an arrangement. Health Minister Ujjal Dosanhj makes it that "certain conduct" is rewarded "99.9% of the time." It should have been enough to cost the subjects of his "sting operation" their jobs.
But instead Mr. Grewal now finds himself at the heart of his own controversy. Canadians initially didn't respond well to the fact he secretly recorded the conversations in question and he compounded his credibility gap by choosing to release selected sections of the tapes, insisting other recordings needed to be translated from Punjabi. That coupled with his insistence that he had no intention of crossing the floor gave the Liberals an avenue of attack. They say he approached them about crossing the floor and initially implied he wasn't releasing all the recordings because they proved he wasn't being straight with Canadians.
As soon as the "complete" recordings were released, the Liberals accused Mr. Grewal of doctoring the tapes, an allegation that was supported by a number of forensic audio experts. The apparent editing of the tapes has left overshadowed the important issue of whether the Liberals were willing to trade favours for votes and has prompted the media to increase their scrutiny of the MP. They started asking questions like: Did Mr. Grewal have a "Nixon Moment" and delete embarrassing section of the recordings as the former American President allegedly did to the Watergate tapes? If something is missing, what is it? Is it truly an honest digital transfer problem as the Tories suggested, or is there something more sinister going on? Why did it take so long to translate the tapes?
Then it got worse for the BC MP. Mr. Grewal is under investigation by Air Canada for breaching airport security regulations. According to the airline, he tried to get passengers on a flight from Vancouver to Ottawa to transport a package for him. That revelation prompted Conservative Party officials to meet to determine if he should remain in the Tory caucus. It appears the compromise, borrowed from the Liberals and their handling of some of the controversies facing their members, was for Mr. Grewal to take "stress leave."
Mr. Grewal's choices (having discussions with the Liberals, surreptitiously recoding them, editing the tapes, attempting to break airport security regulations) have brought his party into disrepute. The Tories made the mistake of trusting him when he came to them with the recordings, but he has badly let them down. For Grewal I suspect "stress leave" is just the first step on the path out the door of the Conservative Caucus room.
Posted by maxthecat on June 7, 2005 at 11:52 AM | Comments (0)
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