Private Eye Sheds Light On Jaffer-Guergis Affair

So just what are the serious allegations that brought down Helena Guergis, the ones that the former junior cabinet minister says she was never informed of by Prime Minister Stephen Harper?

Derrick Snowdy, the private investigator who came to the Conservatives with information about Guergis and husband Rahim Jaffer, said it all boils down to compromising relationships — nothing more complicated than that.

Snowdy is scheduled to appear Wednesday at a parliamentary committee studying a separate but related matter — alleged unregistered lobbying by former MP Jaffer and his business partner Patrick Glemaud.

In an interview with The Canadian Press, Snowdy says he wanted the Conservatives to know the type of person Guergis and Jaffer had been associating and doing business with.

Nazim Gillani, a man facing fraud charges in Ontario, has left behind him some angry investors — at least one of whom hired Snowdy to dig up information.

“I see (Guergis) as a woman married to the guy who was Gillani’s business partner,” Snowdy said.

Gillani has said he is simply a business man, and denies any impropriety.

Snowdy, 38, doesn’t quite know what all the fuss is about and wishes there was less attention paid to him.

But his is an interesting story itself — one that has connections to both the Liberal and Conservative parties and has crossed paths with Helena Guergis in the past.

Snowdy was an army brat, born in Germany, and then moving across Canada. He considers both Calgary and Summerside, P.E.I. home.

At one point, at the end of his high school days, Snowdy actually lived in Alliston, Ont. and went to school with Guergis’ sister Christine. Later, he and Helena Guergis actually traversed the same hallways at Barrie’s Georgian College, although he doubts that she would remember him.

Snowdy at one point had his own private investigation outfit, but was forced to declare bankruptcy.

Fast forward to last year, and Snowdy was helping out a friend who alleges Gillani caused his own business to go bankrupt.

As Snowdy dug into Gillani’s web of business contacts and past dealings, he says he discovered that Gillani had a business arrangement with Jaffer — one that Jaffer has denied, but that Gillani said did exist.

Snowdy says Gillani intimated he had photos of Jaffer in his cellphone.

Snowdy says he had seen another photo of another business contact of Gillani’s in a compromising position.

The private eye also says that Gillani showed him and eight other people papers that pointed to offshore accounts that were purportedly being held for Jaffer and Guergis.

But Snowdy sniffs at those two points — offshore accounts being generally legal, and the photos not really critical.

“If he did or didn’t say he had pictures…that’s just sensational fluff, he was a boaster,” said Snowdy.

“What it really goes to is that it was used to support his claim that he was in a business relationship (with Jaffer). Do we know they were in a business relationship? Yes we do.”

When the story of Gillani’s relationship with Jaffer finally blew up in a front-page story in the Toronto Star on April 8th, some of Snowdy’s four telephones began ringing off the hook. He says he was not the source of the story, but lots of people thought he was.

His friend who had hired him to investigate Gillani told him that he should just go ahead and take his information to people of authority.

Yet another friend of Snowdy’s, executive and longtime Liberal party activist Mark Kealey, had also had a negative business experience with Gillani, and also urged Snowdy to go public.

Snowdy went to the Liberals, placing a call to Leader Michael Ignatieff’s chief of staff Peter Donolo.

Then he went to the office of his Member of Parliament, Conservative Lisa Raitt, leaving a message there. Snowdy actually had a connection to Raitt, as they had both worked at the Toronto Port Authority.

Raitt’s office passed along the information to party laywer Arthur Hamilton, who repeatedly tried to get a hold of Snowdy that evening. Finally, Snowdy relayed to Hamiton what he knew about the connection between Jaffer and Gillani, and the fact that Guergis had been seen in the company of the men.

Of Guergis, Gillani says she is “collateral” damage in the story that is principally about Gillani but also involves Jaffer.

But he is unimpressed by Guergis’ claims in a television interviews Monday night that she did not know what her husband was engaged in through his environmental consulting business.

And he takes issue with the opposition for calling on Harper to go into more detail about what he heard about Jaffer and Guergis — information that could compromise a police investigation.

“I happen to know, the guy was telling the truth,” Snowdy said of Harper. “He handled it the way any CEO would.”

Jaffer and Guergis have denied they had ever been photographed in a compromising situation and that they had offshore accounts. Jaffer has also denied being engaged in illegal lobbying activities.

Gillani himself has dismissed any claims he had compromising cellphone photos of Jaffer and Guergis.

Any bridges that were left between Guergis and the Conservatives were burned to ashes following her teary interview with the CBC.

Some Tories reacted angrily Tuesday to the former junior cabinet minister’s first major interview since being booted from the party caucus, suggesting she twisted the truth.

Guergis told the CBC that neither Prime Minister Stephen Harper nor the party have told her exactly what the allegations are against her, besides vague references to “criminal behaviour” and drugs.

“I feel as though I have been charged, I feel as though I’ve gone through a trial, I have been convicted and now I’m being sentenced,” Guergis said. “And I still don’t know what it is I’m supposed to have done.”

But Transport Minister John Baird told the House of Commons that Harper “ensured that the member was made aware” of the “serious allegations” that faced her.

PMO spokesman Dimitri Soudas went further, insisting that the Conservative party lawyer fully briefed Guergis on the allegations.