What To Do When You Are Caught Red Handed

Pretend that no one saw you. If you really believe it, it will become the truth.

Well maybe not, but that is certainly what the Liberal Party seems to think. In the days preceding the budget vote, Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh and the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff, Tim Murphy, were negotiating with Conservative MP Gurmant Grewal in order to get him and his wife (also a Conservative MP) to either abstain from the vote or defect to the Liberals. Grewal, who recorded the conversations, recently made his audio tapes public. (The audio and transcriptions can be downloaded from Gurmant Grewal's website.)

Having read through the transcriptions, all I can say is that no one involved comes off looking good. Dosanjh and Murphy are clearly coaching Grewal about how a deal can be made without it actually being a "deal". Tim Murphy explains the manner in which a deal can be made.
"The point I was making is, obviously the key is something like this happened, the first question people will ask you is, well what were you promised, did you seek it out or did they seek you, were you promised anything, did you ask for something. I think, we want answer to all those questions to be ‘no’. Then we can be honest about that, right. So that we can be able to say, actually that can be a better position for you to say that you will be principled. Then you can say that no, I took the principled position. No one bought me with anything, right.
...look what Scott Brison did, that is how it exactly happened with him, right. He was able to say no. that there is no promise made, obviously he hope to he can play an important role. And over time that is exactly what happened, right. I think we need to do on that basis."
In response to Grewal's bluntness over what exactly would be included in a deal, Dosanjh protests, "…I do not care to use deal as a language because when you are asked you do not want to say no there is no deal because I do not think it is good for either of us, but I think we all understand what we are talking about."

Grewal does not come off clean either. He certainly seems to have been in full-fledged negotiations. Throughout the transcriptions, it seems apparent that had the Liberals met his price with clear guarantees, he would have jumped the Conservative ship. I have only slightly more respect for him at this point than I do for Belinda Stronach.

Even still, The Liberals have a lot of explaining to do. Originally, their version of events was that Grewal approached them, and persistently attempted to get them to agree to a reward in exchange for him and his wife's defection. To these attempts they claim their response was unequivocally no. While the tapes do not shed any light about who approached who, the directly contraction the Liberals' assertion. Does this sound like no to you?
"...I don’t think that but for all the advance of that explicit discussions about senate, not senate, I don’t think are very helpful and I don’t think frankly can be had in advance of that abstention tomorrow. And then we will have much more detailed and finally new discussions after that with some freedom and I think what that allows is negotiating room for you either direction." -Tim Murphy

The Prime Minister also claims that while he knew there were discussions going on, he was not prepared to make any offers. Sadly, this is only plausible if both Dosanjh and Murphy compulsive liars, for they repeatedly mention speaking to the PM and that he would be ready to have a phone conversation with Grewal once a deal is in place.
"I talked to the PM moments ago. He said he is going to Regina right now and he said he will be happy to talk to you over the phone tonight or in person if you want to move. I think you should have through conversation with Tim. Tim is the Chief of Staff, its just like talking to PM." - Ujjal Dosanjh
"[Paul Martin] is going to get a plane to see the Queen but he is prepared to depending on how the conversation is unfolding but he will be prepared to talk to you directly both by phone and subsequently in person as we see it fit.
...I think, as you will see the PMwill say we are not offering and making no offers. And I think that is the narrative we have to stick to it. Or make the PM a liar. I don’t say that’s what we are doing. I think it is important that we are honest about it. But there also think that those people who take risk, are ought to be rewarded for the risk they take." - Tim Murphy

So, caught with their arms elbow-deep in the cookie jar, what are the Liberals doing? Preposterously, they have sent their colleagues to appear on television saying that nothing was offered, no deals were proposed, and that there is no evidence to support any such claim. Someone better get a fire extinguisher to put out all of those smoldering pants.



UPDATE! (June 14, 2005)
Audio experts have recently suggested that the Grewal tapes may have been edited, which confirms my earlier suspicion that Gurmant Grewal is just as sleazy as his negotiating partners. However, there is no way you could mangle the Grewal tapes to make either Ujjal Dossanjh or Tim Murphy look innocent. The sheer volume of incriminating sound bytes is too staggering.

In the wake of allegations of tampering with the recordings, Grewal has decided to take a "stress leave" from Parliament. I'm glad he's gone, but I'd be more pleased if Dossanjh and Murphy joined him.