Photo: Globe and Mail
As though Helena Guergis needed to give Stephen Harper any more reasons to dump her on her ear, the Minister’s aide has given him an embarrassing new one. The train wreck that has marked the Minister’s political career for the past month and a half has been nothing if not impressive for the political rubberneckers.
First she had a meltdown in a Prince Edward Island airport on her birthday when she missed her flight out in February. That incident led to a tabloid style feeding frenzy in the media that the Liberals took full advantage of. In fact a month after the incident, local Liberal MP Wayne Easter was still asking questions about it in the House of Commons.
Then there was the plea agreement for her husband Rahim Jaffer earlier this month. While the actions of one’s spouse certainly should not necessarily taint the other, it most certainly brought some unwanted negative attention to the Conservative couple, notably because Mr.Jaffer was a former Conservative MP in Alberta. Mr.Jaffer was caught speeding while under the influence of alcohol and in possession of cocaine in Palgrave, Ontario, on September 11, 2009.
The former MP received a fine of $500, while the judge reportedly said to him “I’m sure you can recognize a break when you see one.” The sentence spurred on a national outrage that dragged in Public Safety Minister Vic Toews in responding to Liberal MP Anita Neville’s question in the House of Commons as to whether the government approved of such a lenient sentence.
Today there’s fresh embarrassment for the Status of Women Minister, as her office assistant has admitted sending letters to local newspapers defending her boss.
The Collingwood Enterprise-Bulletin reported today that the Minister’s constituency assistant, Jessica Craven, admitted to writing letters to newspapers that were supportive of Helena Guergis. She had signed the letters “Jessica Morgan,” which is Ms. Craven’s married name.
Jessica Craven apologized today, saying that it was inappropriate, but she will not lose her job. It’s more embarrassing for Helena Guergis still, because her husband Rahim Jaffer had to apologize when he was a Conservative MP for allowing an aide to impersonate him during a Vancouver radio interview.
The Liberals were all over this today, with the usual suspect MP Wayne Easter leading the charge. He said it was “unfathomable” that Ms.Guergis didn’t know that her assistant had sent the letters out, and is accusing the Minister of lying.
This is reminiscent of the bad press that Lisa Raitt went through in 2009 when she was the Minister for Natural Resources. Her aide, Jasime MacDonnell, twice embarrassed her boss with huge gaffes. The first involved leaving a folder of confidential and secret ministerial briefing documents at the CTV News Ottawa office for a week. CTV eventually chose to reveal the contents of the folder when nobody bothered to show up to collect it.
The second mistake involved a digital audio recording involving Lisa Raitt that Jasmine Macdonnell had apparently left in the Ottawa press gallery. The Chronicle Herald released the contents to the public in which Ms.Raitt described the radio isotope shortage as “sexy”, possibly earning her demotion to the Ministry of Labour in January.
Though Helena Guergis has been a bit of a thorny issue of late, Stephen Harper has proven to be extremely loyal to those whom he believes has acted with loyalty to the party. I would expect that Ms.Guergis will be reassigned in the next cabinet shuffle, but that like a Rona Ambrose or a Lisa Raitt or a Maxime Bernier, she’ll be put in the background for a while, and reevaluated once the heat subsides.
“The Liberals were all over this today, with the usual suspect MP Wayne Easter leading the charge. He said it was “unfathomable” that Ms.Guergis didn’t know that her assistant had sent the letters out, and is accusing the Minister of lying.”
I hate to, but have to, agree with Easter,it’s pretty hard to believe an MP’s CA would act on an issue this explosive without the MP’s knowledge. The CA surely knows this is the kind of thing of which big time scandals are made.
Either Guergis knew, or she hired the most incompetent, corrupt CA in Canadian politics. Either way, it’s not very flattering to Guergis.
“Guergis was a constituency assistant and executive assistant to Progressive Conservative Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) Joe Tascona”.
Guergis is well schooled in politics,and especially the role of Constituency Assistant,no excuse for this.
Yeah, she’s a train wreck right now. We’ll see what Harper does with her over the long term. If he shuffles her to the sidelines, or relegates her to complete obscurity.
What a joke….good for the aide…..too bad we don’t have the FBI on all the LIBERALS who write in on behalf of the LIBERALS….Give your pathetic heads a shake.
OG,doesn’t matter who does it, it’s dishonest. Don’t be a Democrat, the “George W did it too” response doesn’t carry much weight. Weasels who pull the kind of crap Guergis’ staff did, deserve to be fired.
We have to hold our politicians and the staff for whom they are responsible to the very highest standards,like they expect of us,the people who pay their fat stipend.
I love it when cons are against free speech, just like their hero Harper. These aids had every right to write those letters.
Uh, yeah, if they identify themselves. Otherwise it’s known as sock-puppeting. Pretending to be somebody you’re not in order to win your own argument.
They signed their names
I’m going to go way out on a limb here and say that a large number of MPs of all parties probably use people to write favourable letters to newspapers and to phone-in phony comments to radio shows.No, I don’t have any specific proof, just some vague memories of people on call-in programs being outed. And during Nannygate, there was an incident when some Filipino lady wrote at Dalla’s request to say what a great person she was.
Does this make it right ? Absolutely not. On the other hand, it is even worse to make a fuss about this case as Easter is doing, when the paractice is pretty common.
The only surprising thing about this particular case is that it apparently took the newspaper several months to figure the scam out. I guess even small-town newspapers can afford to have investigative journaliists working away for months at a time to verify the identity of people who write to the paper just on the off-chance they might have some connection to the Conservatives.
I disagree,jad, make a BIG fuss every time this happens, then have the National Post pen an editorial on why young people are so cynical about politicians in general, and why so few of them vote.
They have the right to send their letters,YES, but they should sign it “Joe Blow, CA for Nikolai Bulganin,Communist Party”,or whoever their current employer is.
Anything less than full disclosure is indicative of a lack of moral character.
Remember the days that used to count for something?
So dmorris is that what you do? Who is your employer. Me I am retired,but working in China. Not young, 69, but very cynical about pols. Problem is these ladies are not pols not elected just the same as secretaries. Oh and no I didn’t vote in the last election and won’t as long as Harper is running the zoo.
By the way dmorris there are only 2 blogs on here that has mentioned this, and you have commented on both. Do you really think the Libs need your help to keep spewing all their BS about the cons?
I don’t think that this hurts anybody other than Guergis. Sure, Wayne Easter will try and smear the party, but it’s mainly a waste of breath.
NO,po,I don’t think the Libs need my help,but the Conservatives apparently do if they can’t see the harm Guergis and her two CA’s are doing to the Party’s credibility.
I generally support the Conservatives,mainly because our local MP is excellent, and I believe Harper’s the best of the Party Leaders to lead this Country at this moment.
BUT,I am NOT a “Party Faithful”, I am not a “good German”, willing to forgive anything my Party does or says, while screaming to the skies when the other guys screw up.
This is a matter of INTEGRITY,is that not clear, and there is NO room in the Conservative or any other Party for people who will cheat the system as these two did.
And YES,I know full well “they all do it”, and that doesn’t make it any better. If the CA’s weren’t so goddamned stupid,they could have asked one of their friends to send a letter of support to the media,like the other Parties do, and none of this would have ever come up.
My impression of the two CA’s is they have no integrity, and are unbelievably stupid as well.