James Moore

[Ethics, March 11th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, let me just take a minute here and say that I agree with the deputy leader of the Liberal Party when he said on Mike Duffy Live last night, “The basic issue here” is “was a member of the Canadian Parliament offered a financial inducement to change his vote”. The answer to the question is no.

[Ethics, March 11th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I am not asking my colleague to believe me. It is the nature of question period; I can understand the adversarial nature of it. All we have asked is that the Liberals respect and believe the word of Chuck Cadman, who himself said that the only offer or anything that he had from anybody was the offer of an unopposed nomination. That is what Chuck Cadman himself said.

[Ethics, March 11th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Laval—Les Îles did not get the facts straight in her question. There were three parts to our offer to Mr. Cadman: first, to rejoin our caucus; second, to run as a Conservative candidate; and third, to receive our help in order to get re-elected as a Conservative candidate. There were three parts, and not just what the member presented in her question.

[Ethics, March 11th, 2008]

That is the same question, Mr. Speaker. The answer is no.

I was hoping the deputy leader of the Liberal Party would take the opportunity to correct the record of what he said yesterday in the House of Commons when he declared Chuck Cadman was not going to run again. Chuck Cadman himself said, and I quote from the Penticton Herald of May 20, 2005, “Despite his illness, Cadman says he's planning to run again”.

In the Edmonton Journal, “Chuck Cadman...who is being treated for cancer, but has said he will run again. 'Oh yes. Yes, I've already made that commitment, that I will run again...', said Chuck Cadman on CTV.... The MP, first elected as a Reformer in 1997, has consistently said he plans to run again”.

Why will the deputy leader of the Liberal Party not apologize, withdraw and admit that he misled this House?

[Ethics, March 11th, 2008]

The answer is no, Mr. Speaker.

The answer is no. There was no financial inducement made to Chuck Cadman. We have been clear about that. Chuck Cadman said there was no offer of any kind of financial inducement. Doug Finley and Tom Flanagan have both issued a statement to that effect.

I wish the Liberals would just simply read the statements and take the word of the three people who were themselves at the meeting. It is pretty clear.

[Ethics, March 11th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the answer is no. I did not have any awareness of the specifics of the meeting of May 19. I said that. I said that, in fact, in the very same column that the leader of the Liberal Party is now quoting.

Yesterday in an interview on CTV with Mike Duffy, the deputy leader of the Liberal Party said that “the basic issue here” is: “Was a member of the Canadian Parliament offered a financial inducement to change his vote?” The answer is no.

[Ethics, March 11th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I always tell the House the truth. Always. That is my job. Yes, it is true.

Moreover, everyone in this House knows that the offer made on May 19, 2005 was the only offer made to Mr. Cadman. It was the only offer.

As I said last week and repeated yesterday, the comment by Lawrence Martin, who said that I knew what had been discussed at the meeting of May 19, 2005, was not a true statement. Chuck Cadman himself said what he had been offered.

[Ethics, March 11th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals' story on this file keeps changing.

First the Liberals said there was a meeting on May 17, 2005. They were wrong. The Liberals said Chuck Cadman was not going to run again. They were wrong.

The Liberals said that we offered Chuck Cadman a $1 million life insurance policy. They were wrong. The Liberals asserted that I was somehow involved in organizing the meetings. They are wrong.

The Liberals claim outrage, but the fact is that they have had this story over a year so any outrage they demonstrate now is entirely synthetic.

[Ethics, March 10th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, is that all they have? What I said last week in the House was that the element in the column was false, and it was false. I had no knowledge at the time of what happened at the May 19 meeting. We now know what happened. That element in the column was false. I said so again today. I have said that consistently.

However, the Leader of the Opposition has falsely accused the Prime Minister of our country of a crime. He should withdraw his accusation. He should apologize to the House, and he should stop embarrassing himself and the Liberal Party with these ridiculous, false accusations.

[Ethics, March 10th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, there were discussions on May 19, as I have described in this House of Commons. I have said many times that those discussions took place and that they were regarding Chuck Cadman's reintegration into the Conservative Party and to run as a Conservative candidate. I have said that again and again and I will continue to do so.

I thank the member for York Centre for allowing me, for the 38th time, to say the exact same thing.