The plot thickens a bit - seems a BC radio station has dug up bits of an interview they did with Mr. C in 2005. As much as I take MSM with a grain of salt, it appears we have the words of the man (or at least some of them) out there now - bit of a summary of the rest of the stuff to date as well. Shared with the usual disclaimer....
New evidence emerges in case of alleged financial offer to dying MP
Canadian Press, 29 Feb 08
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OTTAWA — The voice of a cancer-stricken MP who died months after a historic confidence vote came back to haunt the Conservatives on Friday after a three-year-old radio interview surfaced in which Chuck Cadman says party officials made him financial overtures.
In a June 12, 2005, interview on Vancouver radio station CKNW, Cadman said the Tories did, in fact, make him financial offers days before the crucial vote.
"There was certainly some, you know, some offers made and some things along those lines about not opposing me and helping out with the finances of the campaign and that sort of thing. But, again, you know, that's all part of the deal that goes on. It's what happens, especially in a minority situation," Cadman says.
The interview lent credence to claims from Cadman's family that the terminally ill Independent MP - on whose shoulders rested the fate of Paul Martin's Liberal government - told them Tory officials allegedly offered him a $1-million life insurance policy in exchange for his support.
Cadman's widow, Dona - a Conservative candidate - said her husband was livid at the alleged offer, which she said she considered a bribe.
Cadman's daughter, Jodi, also said her late father made a deathbed admission about the alleged $1-million life insurance policy offer and other enticements.
And on Friday afternoon, Holland Miller, Cadman's son-in-law, told CKNW the late MP told him about the alleged Conservative life insurance offer when he returned to British Columbia after the vote.
Author Tom Zytaruk taped an interview with Harper in September 2005 for his soon-to-be-released biography of Cadman. On the scratchy 2:37 recording, Harper confirms party officials made a financial appeal to Cadman.
"The offer to Chuck was that it was only to replace financial considerations he might lose due to an election," Harper says.
Harper said while he wasn't optimistic about their chances of persuading Cadman - a former Tory MP who had left the party to sit as an Independent MP - to vote with the Conservatives to bring down Martin's government, he urged two people "legitimately representing the party" to tread cautiously.
"I said 'Don't press him, I mean, you have this theory that it's, you know, financial insecurity, and you know, just, you know, if that's what you're saying make that case,' but I said, 'Don't press it'."
Not clear is what exactly the Conservative insiders offered Cadman. The Tories insist that Doug Finley and Harper mentor Tom Flanagan only offered to take Cadman back into the party fold.
Asked what financial considerations Harper was talking about on the tape, and what case did he tell the party emissaries to make, the prime minister's communications director ducked the questions.
In an e-mail to The Canadian Press, Sandra Buckler said the tape - which the publisher of the book was selling for $500 a copy - is an excerpt of a longer interview between the prime minister and Zytaruk.
"We are deeply concerned that an edited excerpt of a taped conversation between Mr. Harper and the book's author is being bootlegged for five hundred bucks a pop by the author. We call on the author to provide Canadians with a complete, unedited audio copy of the author's conversation - from start to finish - with Mr. Harper."
Buckler did not reply to a second e-mail asking her to respond to the two original questions.
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