I have to admit, I chuckled when I read that the Liberals sent a letter to the Prime Minister today inquiring why the former Minister for the Status of Women was unceremoniously dumped from the Conservative caucus. After all, this was the party calling for Stephen Harper to send her packing after an airport worker didn’t take too kindly to her description of Charlottetown’s airport as a “hellhole”.

It was only in March that Wayne Easter did his best impression of “whack-a-mole” during Question Period, rising every day to alternately berate Ms.Guergis or Mr.Blackburn, before the House of Commons got on to the more serious business of smearing the Canadian mission with complicity in war crimes.

The Liberals acknowledge their prior calls to send Helena Guergis packing on numerous occasions. But suddenly the party has become extremely concerned about her dismissal, and demand to know what “serious” and “credible” evidence the government possesses that led to her untimely meeting with the bottom of a bus.

Last week the embattled Member for Simcoe-Grey appeared on the CBC. This week the Liberal Party is going to bat for her? I’m afraid that, barring the Garth Turner two-step across the Commons, her career is headed the way of the Kyoto Protocol.

Do not for a moment think that the Liberal Party feels any genuine sympathy for Helena Guergis. Much like Afghan detainees, this is about the “integrity of the government.” Well, that, and clinging to something they hope will make the government look bad.

It’s true that the Liberals aren’t the only ones in the dark about why Helena Guergis was booted from caucus. While there are plenty of bad optics about the entire case, nothing substantial has surfaced to indicate any serious wrong-doing on her part. Other than the fact that he may have used her office and parliamentary email account, there is nothing linking her to husband Rahim Jaffer’s activities.

The “credible allegations” from a third party source that led to Ms.Guergis’s removal were thought to have come from private investigator Derrick Snowdy, but he cleared her entirely in testimony before a House of Commons committee. Indeed, far from embarrassing Ms.Guergis, the shocker of the hearing occurred when Mr.Snowdy said that Liberal Party President Alfred Apps “drove the getaway car” for Toronto businessman Nazim Gillani by representing him as a lawyer in disputes over questionable business transactions.

The Liberal letter makes reference to statements made by Conservative MP Shelly Glover on CTV yesterday, in which she insisted there will be more information forthcoming soon.

Whatever the situation may be, rest assured that the Liberal Party is on the case to ensure that when the Conservatives remove Cabinet members, it is for a reason that meets with the approval of the Official Opposition.

Photo: CBC

Let’s face it. If you’re doing an interview on the CBC to talk about your political career, it’s probably because it’s already over. Whether that’s fair or not is debatable. I thought that Helena Guergis did quite a good job at trying to explain her side of things, though at times she sounded a little too meek and, dare I use the adjective, “mousy”.

Both sides came to the table with different objectives in the interview, and each tried to hold their own on that front. Ms.Guergis wanted to come across as the sympathetic and maligned victim of a political decision made by the Prime Minister. Peter Mansbridge was looking to provoke either an admission of wrong-doing, or else elicit an emotional response from her.

Late in the interview, it appears he succeeds, as Ms.Guergis turns from the camera and seems to break down. But when she turns to the camera again her eyes are dry. What to believe? I don’t wish to be cynical, or to doubt her sincerity, but people react most strongly to genuine emotion. If she was holding back, perhaps that was a mistake.

There’s definitely something sympathetic about Helena Guergis. Her voice is quiet, almost plaintive, while her body posture is hunched and submissive. She didn’t look defiant — she looked defeated. Was that the message she wanted to get across? That she had been defeated by vile gossip and innuendo and tweets about “busty hookers”?

In my mind, I am inclined to think that she has done nothing unethical with respect to her position as a sitting Member of Parliament, and genuinely feels betrayed by the Conservative Party, who felt they had no choice but to jettison her from the caucus. She alludes to personal problems in her life, and I would have been interested to know whether those problems precipitated the airport incident in Prince Edward Island.

At times, her comments seemed passively petulant:

“I feel as though they’ve thrown the rule books out the window, that they’re not respecting due process at all. I find it very undemocratic.

“I’m hurt by the Prime Minister. I am hurt because I did consider him to be a friend as well, so I find that very hard to deal with.”

What this entire affair comes down to seems to be Ms.Guergis’s inability to cope with the political realities of being embroiled in a scandal which, while she is not directly responsible for, she is very much in the middle of.

“I’m not ready to give up my political career.

“If people in your family make mistakes you don’t turn your back on them,” Guergis said, pausing to fight back tears. “You stick with them and you work through it and I am committed to my marriage.”

I don’t blame her for sticking with her husband. Many people would stick with their significant other, whether they were accused of influence-peddling, or even much worse crimes. I admire the fact that she feels it is her duty to stick by Rahim Jaffer, despite the serious allegations that face him.

But to expect her career to escape unscathed from this is naive. The fact is that she had a choice to make between her husband and her career, and she tried to choose both. But Helena Guergis is a veteran of politics, and no longer some wide-eyed neophyte. Though we might feel sympathy for her predicament, I can’t imagine she didn’t calculate that this is the only way all of this could possibly have gone down.

Photo Credit: David Akin, Canwest News Service

Now that Helena Guergis has taken shelter in the obscurity of the back row in the House of Commons, a place that many a politician has spent years in hiding, the investigation into her alleged impropriety has hit a brick wall. That’s because despite the gnashing of teeth and wailing coming from the opposition, Ethics commissioner Mary Dawson has turned down Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s request to investigate Ms.Guergis.

Stephen Harper did the right thing by inviting the investigation into what appeared to be a potential violation of parliamentary ethics of the recently deposed Cabinet Minister, since an article that ran in the Toronto Star implicated her husband, Rahim Jaffer, in some unsavoury allegations.

But Mary Dawson, who investigates allegations of conflicts of interest for those who hold public office, said that based on the information she has been given, there is no reason to proceed with an inquiry at this time. This isn’t an outright exoneration of the politician, but it does mean that at this time there are no allegations that hold enough credibility to warrant an investigation into suspicions she may have abused the power of her parliamentary access to further the interests of herself or her husband.

Nor will the commissioner follow up on a partisan request to look into Helena Guergis’s purchase of an $880,000 home she acquired in the capital.

The only new information we have seen since the feeding frenzy all began is the statement by Stephen Harper that he had learned of “third party” information that caused him to change his mind about defending Ms.Guergis. The Conservatives have refused to say what this information is, or who it is from, citing the RCMP investigation.

Meanwhile, a friend of the couple who was with Mr.Jaffer on the night of his arrest, Patrick Glemaud, has come out in opposition to the media attacks on the two.

“This has becoming so crazy, they cannot believe something like that. Rahim did not take a penny of taxpayer dollars, Rahim did not make a penny from any of his past connections from the Conservatives.”

Nazim Gallani, the man accused of being at the strip club with Rahim Jaffer and “three busty hookers” in the Toronto Star article, had his lawyer tell the media that nothing untoward was being discussed about Mr.Jaffer’s relationship with the Conservative Party.

Brian Kilgore, lawyer and spokesman for Mr.Gallani, questioned why the Star article mentioned the presence of “busty hookers” on the evening Mr.Jaffer was arrested.

“We know there were women there, but they were not paid escorts, they were not hookers, they were not women of the evening,” Mr.Kilgore said.

Even if they were prostitutes, the Toronto Star has yet to explain why the oddly dated vernacular was used in conjunction with the description of their physical endowments. Since the term wasn’t put in quotations, we can only assume that the writer, Kevin Donovan, invented the term himself. This is inconsistent with the Star’s more usually politically correct designation for prostitutes as “sex-trade workers”, and although they do use the word “hookers” in some articles, this was the first time physical description was included.

Although criminal allegations of Mr.Jaffer and Ms.Guergis are under investigation by the RCMP, and that remains the important focus of this issue, perhaps the ethics of the “busty hookers” term should be similarly investigated from a journalistic standpoint at some time in the near future.

Michael Ignatieff held a scrum with reporters today, in which he described the Helena Guergis resignation as an example of how the government “cannot level with the Canadian people”. He says that it raises the question of the Prime Minister’s judgment for keeping her in cabinet for as long as he did. In the audio, Terry Milewski asks a question of the Liberal leader [after being interrupted by a French reporter] that sets him back on his heels:

The truth is that the CBC reporter is correct, in that Stephen Harper is obliged to keep confidential unproven allegations made in a criminal investigation. After stumbling for a moment, Mr.Ignatieff goes back to the talking point about Rahim Jaffer, which has nothing to do with Terry’s question.

What I find interesting about Terry’s objection is that this was the same reporter who had no problem filing a CBC exclusive on Amir Attaran’s allegations about unproven claims of torture in Afghanistan.

Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press

You didn’t have to be a psychic to know that Status of Women Minister Helena Guergis was going to “offer her resignation” today. Perhaps what was surprising is that not only did Ms.Guergis leave her Cabinet position, but will sit outside of the party caucus as the RCMP investigates “serious allegations” about her conduct. In the end, it’s probably the best thing for the Conservative Party to distance itself from the train wreckage.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper explained the reasons for booting her from the caucus to the press gallery in Ottawa.

“Last night, my office became aware of serious allegations regarding the conduct of the Honourable Helena Guergis. These allegations relate to the conduct of Ms. Guergis and do not involve any other minister, MP, senator or federal government employee.

“I’ve referred the allegations to the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner and to the RCMP. Under the circumstances, I will not comment on them further.”

Coming back into the fold is former embattled environment minister Rona Ambrose, who had a tough go of it her first time around as a Cabinet Minister. She will take over the portfolio of Helena Guergis.

The fallout is based partially on a Toronto Star article that ran yesterday in which wild claims of impropriety were made about her husband, Rahim Jaffer, who bragged in an email that he reach into the PMO for his business contacts. This claim has been largely refuted by Conservatives over the past 24 hours.

The opposition has been nothing if not elated over these events, with NDP MP Pat Martin making the hyperbolic comparison to the sponsorship scandal.

The taint spilled over last night onto Helena Guergis when it was revealed that Mr.Jaffer has also used her parliamentary email address for his own personal business. The party also asked him to remove the party logo from his personal website, which up until yesterday had remained intact.

But perhaps the straw that broke the camel’s back is that a review of her election expenses show she tried to write off clothing purchases under the word “career”. Elections Canada limits specific and reasonable expenses to travel, living arrangements, and child care. This is where the ethics argument comes into play, particularly unreasonable coming from a conservative politician who expects taxpayers should foot the bill for her choice of purse.

All of these myriad reasons for booting her from caucus and forcing her to resign notwithstanding, it doesn’t mean that her career is over. The fact is that she had become too hot a political potato to touch, and the stink coming from Rahim Jaffer was getting all over the party. And let’s face it, none of this has anything to do with the Conservative Party.

The Toronto Star article which went viral yesterday, will likely also come under heavy scrutiny, not least for its interesting characterization of sex trade workers as “busty hookers”, a term entirely out of sorts with the usually politically correct newspaper. Because the term wasn’t put in quotation marks, it’s difficult to discern exactly who is characterizing the prostitutes in this way, and whether it’s done for political reasons.

As for Helena Guergis, if she is worthy, she can wait in the shadows like Rona Ambrose or Maxime Bernier, and reemerge at a later date. I’ve noticed that the Conservatives often bring up “prospects” too quickly, and just like a professional sports team, sometimes you have to send them back to the minors for a while. Then again, sometimes you need to cut from the team altogether. How it proceeds from here will be almost entirely up to Ms.Guergis.

UPDATE

Perhaps it isn’t clear from my post, but Rona Ambrose isn’t getting a brand new Cabinet position. She’s already the Minister of Public Works.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Edmonton Sun – Perry Mah

No, that headline doesn’t make sense outside of the Twitterverse. But it could have grave implications for the future of Status of Women Minister Helena Guergis and the relationship she has with her boss, Stephen Harper.

That’s because the Toronto Star dropped a bombshell this morning about former MP Rahim Jaffer, and allegations that the night he was arrested for drunk driving, speeding, and possession of cocaine, he was in a business meeting with Nazim Gillani, four business associates, and three “busty hookers”.

According to the Star article, Rahim Jaffer has used his former connections with the Conservative Party to boast to business connections that he has strong influence inside the PMO. The Prime Minister is livid today, with his office vociferously denying the allegations as “absurd”.

On the night in question, Rahim Jaffer wasn’t drunk, although he was drinking heavily. He apparently has a big reputation as a heavy drinker, even when he was an MP. Cocaine is a notorious inhibitor to alcoholic intoxication.

The media have been all over this story today like feral animals, which means you can expect the opposition will be ravenous when the subject comes up tomorrow in Question Period. The Conservative Party will do all they can to deflect the questions, but there’s only so much you can do after your ship has been hit with an iceberg.

This morning the CBC were quick to note that Rahim Jaffer’s website still contained the Conservative Party logo next to his name, which has since been pulled. This would seem to support the allegations that Mr.Jaffer has been using his former status as an MP in order to sell “insider” status to business contacts. Whether he actually has that insider status is debatable.

It’s time to throw Helena Guergis under a bus of some kind. The taint from the Rahim Jaffer scandal is strong enough that there is no escaping it for the junior Minister. Worse yet, there’s something a little uncomfortable about the fact that her husband appears to be an alcoholic, coke-snorting purveyor of “busty hookers” in strip clubs, and that she hasn’t tried to distance herself from it, or denounce the behaviour, if only for the sake of her career.

I will be very surprised if the Conservatives don’t kick her out of caucus at the very least, although even stronger action might be warranted. Let’s face it: if Rahim Jaffer is telling people that he can get insider access to the Prime Minister, with Helena Guergis being as close to the Prime Minister as she is, it seriously compromises the integrity of the position she holds. The optics alone are mind-blowing.

Hence the fact that currently, the term #bustyhookers is spreading through Twitter like the ILOVEYOU virus. Like the song goes, you have to know when to hold em, know when to fold em, know when to walk away, and know when to run. With Jaffer and Guergis, it’s definitely time to throw in the hand as run as far from ground zero as you can possibly get.

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.

Rahim Jaffer when he was an MP in Alberta. Photograph by Shaughn Butts/Canwest News Service

Try as I might, I can’t quite wrap my head around this Jane Taber entry about Rahim Jaffer. I mean, on the surface it sounds absolutely dreadful, of course, but the headline doesn’t particularly fit the content, does it?

The headline reads: First a plea bargain, now a tax break for Rahim Jaffer

The article goes on to say that even after Rahim Jaffer got his little $500 break on what was, in actuality, a bust for drunk driving while speeding and in possession of cocaine, the former MP is eligible to write off his $500 charitable donation on his taxes.

But insofar as I can see from Taber’s article, nothing of the sort has been done. Yet.

What Mr.Jaffer did do is make a gesture of good faith by submitting a voluntary donation of $500 to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. So he was playing with the optics of trying to compensate for the negative public perception that he got off easy, by reaching a little deeper into his wallet. It was something he was, however, under no obligation to do.

Since the donation was voluntary, Taber writes, it means that Mr. Jaffer is eligible for a tax receipt.

Well, whoopee. Those are the rules of charitable donations. This is more a case of logical deduction than it is a piece of journalism.

According to Canadian Taxpayers Federation federal director Kevin Gaudet, if Mr. Jaffer claims the $500 donation on his taxes, it should reduce his declared income by about $145.

But until we see evidence that Mr.Jaffer is claiming the donation on his taxes, this is nothing but an observation, and an assumption that he will engage in this future unethical act. Since he made the donation in order to symbolically acknowledge wrong-doing, it would, of course, not look so good to use that donation to get the tiny tax break for 2011. But unless Taber has a time machine, the only thing Mr.Jaffer is guilty of is being unpopular.

Photo: Globe and Mail

People across Canada were understandably angry yesterday when former Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer, caught speeding in Ontario last fall while under the influence and in possession of cocaine, was handed down a relatively lenient sentence of $500 by Judge Doug Maund. Immediate reaction ranged from disbelief, to accusations of Conservative influence peddling. Many actually attested to their belief that there are some rules for regular citizens, and then others for members of the Conservative Party.

The truth couldn’t farther from this fiction. The fact is that most Conservatives have been shrinking away from this unpleasantness, and disassociating themselves from Mr.Jaffer as much as they possibly can. If anything, many Conservatives have, if not publicly, then in private, expressed concerns of a political backlash over seeing Rahim Jaffer get away with what amounts to a rather serious charge.

The Conservatives were particularly irked yesterday, when in the House of Commons, Liberal MP Anita Neville stood and demanded to know what the party thought about the light sentence. Rather than respond to the question, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson demanded an apology, twice, before the floor moved on to other matters.

The controversy was compounded yesterday by a blog entry by journalist David Akin, who in responding to federal Conservative MP Vic Toews’ observation that it was a Liberal administration in Ontario responsible for the case, pointed out that the judge presiding over the case has Conservative roots. Mr.Akin later said that he hadn’t intended to cast aspersions on the judge; only that he was responding to Mr.Toews’ observation with one of his own.

Well, that may be so, but the fact of the matter is that Vic Toews wasn’t accusing the Liberals of having influence over the case. He was making a comment about the fact that the Conservatives not only do not have any influence on the case, but that the jurisdiction is a province governed by a Liberal party.

Would it have been best if he hadn’t said anything at all? Well, yes, it probably would. But that would hardly have stopped the accusations of Conservative influence over the decision, which have precipitated as a result of the “observation” of the judge’s conservative background anyway. In layman’s terms, we call these kinds of things “smears”. When you make an observation that is largely irrelevant to a proceeding, and then follow it up with a disclaimer ["I'm not suggesting that politics were a factor in the disposition of the case"], you can’t expect people not to infer the meaning anyway.

Vic Toews took exception to David Akin’s observation, reposted by Mr.Akin himself on the National Post today. Kady O’Malley calls his response an over-reaction [without a hint of self-irony]. She’s right in a way. It might have been better advised to simply let this matter die. But it would appear that, if anything, the story is gathering traction.

The fact is that a lot of conservatives are upset with the verdict. Tim powers writes in the the Globe today that an explanation is owed in order to pacify “perplexed and infuriated” observers. NDP MP for Windsor–Tecumseh, Joe Comartin, also demanded answers, but was quite clear that he wasn’t making this a partisan issue:

“I’m inclined to think that there is no reason to be suspicious that there was political interference or anything of that sort but I think it behooves the prosecutor … or Ontario’s Attorney-General to tell the Canadian people why this happened.”

Adam Rawanski may finally be the sole voice of reason. Saying he can’t quite believe he is defending a Conservative, from all people, Tim Powers, he suggests “it might be a good time for the rest of us – including former political opponents scoring cheap points – to move on. “

As everyone knows by now, former Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer pleaded guilty to careless driving this morning and was given a rather tiny fine of $500. The former Edmonton MP was charged in September with possession of cocaine and driving under the influence after being stopped for driving 93 km/h in a 50 zone.

But the cocaine and drunk driving charges were withdrawn before the charges were ever brought to court. According to the prosecution, there was no reasonable possibility of conviction on the serious charges, citing “significant legal issues” impeding the case.

Whatever that means. I mean, if you can’t nail a guy caught red-handed with coke while driving drunk and speeding, then there’s not much point to the legal system, is there?

But as for blaming the judge, or accusing him of being a Tory, which is exactly what journalist David Akin does, it seems a little misguided. Since the coke and drunk driving charges were tossed out, the charge was reduced to “careless driving”. Not exactly your crime of the century here.

When put in context of driving drunk with cocaine in the car and speeding, it sounds bad. But Judge Doug Maund was forced to look at the facts before him, not the cocaine or the alcohol, and certainly not Helena Guergis’s airport meltdown in Prince Edward Island, which I’m sure is contributing to some of the public backlash in the ruling. And the facts were that this was a first-time offender with a record of public service and no criminal background.

As for Rahim Jaffer, he only addressed the careless driving conviction outside of the court.

“I should have been more careful. I’m sorry. I know this is a serious matter,” he said. “Once again I apologize for that and I take full responsibility for my careless driving.”

It would have been better if he hadn’t spoken at all. Nobody really cares that he was caught speeding. We’ve all been there. No, the press was there to get an apology for taking cocaine and driving drunk. But since he got those charges tossed, the best thing to say would have been “no comment”. Saying “I should have been more careful” almost implies he should have taken the back roads during his drunk coked up joy ride.

The Liberal Party, fully trying to make the poor choices of Mr.Jaffer’s private life a public embarrassment to the Conservative Party, saw fit that Winnipeg MP Anita Neville, rather inappropriately, got up in the House of Commons today and said the following:

“Mr. Speaker, members of the government are always quick to comment on any court judgment that does not align with their ‘get tough on crime’ rhetoric. They always say, ‘You do the crime, you do the time’. What then is the government’s comment on a dangerous driver, in possession of illicit drugs who gets off with no record and a $500 slap on the wrist?”

Naturally, the floor went into an uproar as the Conservatives called shame on the Liberal Member. After quite some time, the Speaker, Peter Milliken, restored order. Minister of Justice Rob Nicholson, responding to the charge, seemed genuinely surprised by the smear. He began to answer, but the murmurs continued to drown him out.

“I almost do not know where to begin to comment on such an irresponsible question, Mr. Speaker. The government initiated the Director of Public Prosecutions for the very reason to make sure there would never be any political interference of any prosecution in this country. That should have the support of the hon. member, and she should get up, withdraw and apologize for that comment.”

Anita Neville was given a choice to apologize, though I don’t think anyone expected she would, as the House of Commons continued to rumble with the sounds of backbenchers yelling at one another from across the great hall.

“Mr. Speaker, what a hypocritical answer this minister gives. The government tries to pass the buck and the Conservatives are conspicuously silent, only when the law is being flouted by one of their own. Even the judge thought this was a ‘break’. Why the double standard? Nothing stopped them from commenting before. Does the government really believe that the punishment fits the crime?”

The return jab, being more predictable this time, elicited a lesser response of outrage. With the Minister of Justice being more composed, he returned the volley and repeated his demand for an apology from the Winnipeg Member for Parliament.

“Mr. Speaker, that is about as low as one can go, in my opinion. This hon. member is talking about a provincial prosecution in front of a provincial judge within the appeal period, and she is asking us to comment. That is completely irresponsible and she should apologize to this House.”

In the hours succeeding this answer, some people have inferred that Mr.Nicholson was taking a shot at the Liberal McGuinty government by pointing out, quite correctly, that the Jaffer case was a provincial matter before the Ontario courts.

Whatever the case, it is amazing how much animus has been drawn from all sides over the actions of a private individual no longer working with the federal Conservative government. And while we may all find his lenient sentencing distasteful, it is even more unbecoming that the Liberal Party tried to use this issue to smear the Conservative government in Question Period today.