Michael Ignatieff

[Ethics, March 12th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, after 10 days of this, a pattern of evasion is emerging in the government's answers on the Cadman affair.

Inside the House, Conservative spokesmen deny the allegations but outside the House, they duck and cover. This pattern of evasion is unworthy of a government that walks around claiming that it is clean.

I will try again with a key question in the affair. Was a financial inducement ever offered by one or more representatives of the Conservative Party to Chuck Cadman, yes or no?

[Ethics, March 11th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the minister needs to explain what the Prime Minister meant when he referred to financial considerations on the tape.

Ryan Sparrow, a Conservative Party spokesperson, has had six opportunities to tell the media that no financial inducement was ever offered, but he has refused to do so. As for the Prime Minister, he is in hibernation.

The question is simple: did someone in the Conservative Party ever offer Chuck Cadman a financial inducement?

[Ethics, March 11th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I wish we could believe that answer.

For nine days now, the government has failed to be straight with Canadians about the offer it made to Chuck Cadman. Sandra Buckler and Ryan Sparrow from the Conservatives have refused repeated offers by the media to go on record denying that any kind of financial inducement was ever offered to Mr. Cadman.

So I ask a perfectly simple question: did any Conservative official ever offer a financial inducement of any kind to Mr. Cadman, yes or no?

[Ethics, March 10th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, he did not need a Conservative nomination. He was not going to run. He did not need their help.

How long will they keep repeating these stories? No one believes them.

So I ask the member again, what financial considerations were offered to Mr. Cadman and his family?

[Ethics, March 10th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister himself is on tape confirming that an offer to Mr. Cadman dealt with financial considerations. Canadians have still not been told what were those considerations.

Mr. Cadman and his family had legitimate financial concerns about what would happen after his death. It just seems obvious that the Conservatives made an offer to address those concerns.

So again, and we will keep on until we get an answer, what specific financial offer was made to address the concerns of Mr. Cadman and his family?

[Canada-U.S. Relations, March 6th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, a disturbing pattern is becoming evident. The Conservatives cannot seem to stop tampering with elections: municipal, federal and now, God knows, even an American election.

There is evidence that the environment minister interfered in the municipal election in Ottawa. There is evidence that the Conservatives made a financial offer to trigger a federal election in Canada. We now find that their partisan games have gone international, with a clumsy attempt to skew the vote in Ohio.

The Ambassador calls this interference. When will this pattern of interference end?

[Canada-U.S. Relations, March 6th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, wonders never cease.

The Prime Minister said that he would find the person responsible for the NAFTA leak. He claims that it is all a big mystery. But it is no mystery.

He should pay a visit to his chief of staff.

Does the Prime Minister agree that he must dismiss his chief of staff, not only for having embarrassed his boss, but also for having shamed his country?

[Ethics, March 6th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, that is a ridiculous answer. Mr. Cadman won by a very comfortable margin as an independent. He did not need the Conservatives.

What is more, the Conservatives had already nominated their candidate, so they could not possibly have offered Mr. Cadman a Conservative nomination.

When will the Prime Minister admit, as he did on the tape, that the offer was for financial considerations?

[Ethics, March 6th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, in July 2005, the Prime Minister is quoted in the Calgary Herald as saying, “I visited Chuck”, Mr. Cadman, “at his home in April, and I knew then that he was far more sick than the public realized”.

So before the May 19 vote, the Prime Minister knew that Mr. Cadman could not possibly be running in another election. If so, how can he continue to pretend that the Conservative offer to Mr. Cadman was a Conservative--

[Ethics, March 5th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, that is simply not a credible answer. It is not credible to argue that a dying man would accept a nomination for an election in which he could not participate.

I ask this again. Is the Cadman family lying?