Scars from PMO ‘smear campaign’ are deep and permanent, says Guergis

Former Tory MP Helena Guergis defiantly opened up a mid-campaign flank attack against Stephen Harper, accusing his office of orchestrating an unjust smear campaign against her even after Mounties had found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing.

Guergis, wearing a large crucifix and standing in front her Tory-blue campaign posters Friday, challenged Harper’s respect for democratic principles and sense of accountability — some of the issues being pumped by his opposition rivals.

“This of course is the worst kind of politics, the kind that Canadians abhor,” Guergis told a news conference in her Ontario riding of Simcoe-Grey, where she is running as an independent conservative.

“Not only was it made to seem that I was guilty of conduct that has never been disclosed to me, going against the very core of what our principles of justice are built on, the Prime Minister’s Office still made it seem as though I was guilty of something even after I had been proven innocent.”

Guergis was ousted from the Tory caucus and cabinet last April when Harper cryptically referred to serious allegations of a criminal nature. A party lawyer has said she was fully briefed about the allegations, but Guergis has insisted she was not.

She used the Privacy Act to request documents last summer about her case from several government departments, but has faced lengthy delays.

The RCMP used discretionary power under the Privacy Act to expedite her request. She received the documents a few days before the beginning of this campaign.

The documents revealed that Harper’s principal secretary had written to the Mounties detailing allegations of fraud, extortion, obtaining benefits by false pretences and involvement in prostitution. Party lawyer Arthur Hamilton had passed on the allegations from a private investigator, saying there “was apparently video of her snorting cocaine off the breasts of a prostitute.”

The investigator had been digging into the affairs of a Toronto businessman, with whom Guergis’s husband, former Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer, had been negotiating possible business deals.

Three months later, the RCMP found “no evidence to support a charge of criminal wrongdoing.”

“There is clearly a double-standard. I mean, even other colleagues in caucus who had serious problems in the past year or two are still there, but for some reason I’m not,” Guergis said in an interview.

Derrick Snowdy, the private investigator who first approached the party with allegations against Jaffer, told The Canadian Press, that he had only told Hamilton he couldn’t be sure somebody didn’t have video of Guergis “doing rails of blow off some hooker’s tit,” not that he had seen it himself.

Snowdy also said he had offered to write a statement saying he had no evidence against Guergis in the days following her ouster from caucus.

He said Guergis’s lawyer did not take him up on repeated offers for a meeting. The lawyer, Howard Rubel, said Snowdy didn’t specify why he wanted to meet.

Guergis, who later brought her four-month-old baby on stage with her at the press conference Friday, spoke about a joyless pregnancy spent fighting allegations.

“I don’t have to tell you all about the nightmare that my family endured over the past year, as a result of the treatment from those that I served so loyally to for years. The damage is real,” Guergis said, her voice faltering.

“It is deep, and it is permanent. Imagine waking up every day for months seeing headlines and stories that have no basis in reality, attacking your credibility and everything that you have worked so hard for, and having to face the public under this type of unfair scrutiny and pressure.”

Guergis went on to challenge Harper to take responsibility for what happened to her: “He has to answer. He ran on a campaign of being accountable to Canadians, and he has to be accountable for this behaviour.”

Harper told reporters at a campaign stop in Thornhill, Ont., that Guergis has not been let back into the caucus because of other issues.

“There were a range of political problems around this individual, they have been discussed among members of our caucus,” Harper said, never referring to Guergis by name.

“There is simply no desire to see the return of this individual to our caucus.”

The image of a teary-eyed Tory woman going after Harper proved irresistible to Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff. Winning over female voters is a key battle on the campaign trail.

“Any woman who’s at work thinks, ‘This is exactly what I worry about, that kind of boss.’ Then today when he’s asked about her, he can’t even use her name,” Ignatieff said during a stop in Sudbury, Ont.

“He says, ‘this individual,’ a kind of coldness there. And the unwillingness to admit a mistake: He tried to smear her. He discovered the allegations were baseless, and then he refuses to take responsibility. This is not strong leadership. This is weak leadership. It’s cowardly leadership.”

Harper didn’t specify the nature of those “political issues” that were keeping Guergis out of caucus, but unresolved questions remain around Jaffer.

He is still the subject of an investigation by the lobbying commissioner related to interactions he had with government officials while working for a consulting firm. A parliamentary committee is also arguing Jaffer breached their parliamentary privileges by delivering conflicting testimony during two appearances last year.

Guergis is still awaiting the details of a related investigation by the conflict of interest and ethics commissioner. She had written a letter to a municipal official in her riding supporting a local businessman. The executive had spoken with Jaffer at one point about a business proposition.

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