You'd think that the McCain camp was running the Harper operation in the Canadian election which will take place on Tuesday. And why'd I say that? Follow me into the sordid tale of bribery, the fate of governments, a dying man, and one of the single most funniest example of self-inflicted foot-shootings in recent memory.
The previous Liberal minority government under Paul Martin was in big trouble in 2005. The Sponsorship Scandal and subsequent public inquiry were in the news, he had a tightrope to walk with most legislation, and there was a budget vote coming up. Budget votes, in the Canadian Parliamentary system, are automatic confidence votes. If the government loses a confidence vote, unless the Governor-General refuses to call an election and tries to see if someone else in Parliament would be willing to form the government, it's election time again.
(Not that the G-G would do that these days: the last few times it was done in Canada and Australia, all political hell broke loose aimed at the G-G.)
Anyhoo, everyone knew that in the upcoming vote, one man would decide if the government would stand or fall: a member from British Columbia named Chuck Cadman. Cadman had been elected under the banner of the Alliance (formerly Reform) in 1997. In the 2004 election he'd been forced out as representative of his riding, and so instead of running as a Conservative ran as an independent and won.
Chuck Cadman was also dying.
In 2004 he'd been diagnosed with malignant skin cancer. By the time the vote came around he, and everyone else, knew he didn't have much time left. So, one day in 2005, some Conservatives approached Cadman and offered a deal: in exchange for bringing down the government, the Conservatives would pay for a $1 million life insurance policy, providing for his wife and kids when he died.
Why yes, that is highly unethical.
As it turned out, Cadman did not bring down the government and it would be a year before Harper got his election and his own minority government. But the story of the offer came out when a Vancouver journalist, writing Cadman's biography, claimed that in an interview with Harper, Harper admitted to knowing (and by implication, approving) the quid pro quo. Harper denied the allegation, suing the journalist for libel. But you see, there was this tape recording of the interview, and while parts of it had been taped over, a 1 minute and 47 second bit that contained Harper's admission remained intact.
Harper claimed the recording had been altered, removing a portion of his answer which had really been a denial he knew. Claimed it under cross-examination during his civil suit, as it happens. So the court ordered an expert to analyze the recording to see if there was evidence, and the expert chosen was a former FBI specialist who chosen (and paid) by Harper.
And here's where it gets fucking hilarious. The genre-savvy amongst you probably already know where this is going, but bear with me for the benefit of the more innocent.
The report on the recording analysis is completed, but Harper's team does something rather peculiar: they try to stop it from going into the court records until, oh, say sometime after the election. other interested parties, sensing so much blood in the water that it's practically opaque, files to have the report released immediately. The judge agrees.
And so, on a Friday afternoon, the last Friday afternoon before an election that might very well determine the future career of Steven Harper, the Canadian public finds out that Harper's own expert determined the recording was genuine and unaltered. Steven Harper had indeed admitted, on tape, that he'd known about an attempt to influence a parliamentary vote through bribery. Oh, and that he'd outright lied when he claimed that's not what happened.
Oops.