Blogging Tory calls for Grewal's head

Over at Colbert's comments, Brent Colbert has finally had enough (here):

The National Post is today reporting that CPC MP Gurmant Grewal handed over additional tapes to the RCMP within the last 2 weeks. This was after he indicated that all evidence in the vote buying scandal had been turned over.

If this is true and he held back any information to an ongoing police investigation then he should immediatly be expeled from the CPC Caucus. Mr. Harper must take a principaled stand on this quickly. The Liberals and the media have turned what seemed to be a vote buying scandal into quesitons of the legality of taping a conversation and if the tapes were editied. Now if Mr. Grewal held back evidence for whatever reason he will have lost all credibility. We need to put this issue in the past and move on, preferably without Mr. Grewal.

The important point here, I think, is that Grewal's actions have hurt everyone that he's been associated and he has violated the trust of everyone involved in this sorry affair. Let us leave aside the question of whether taping the conversations betrayed the trust that Murphy and Dosanjh had placed in him--not everyone will agree that he owes them anything. But he was also entrusted by his party to play fairly with them. Mr Colbert points out that Grewal clearly did not give all his tapes to Harper’s office—something that the Conservatives clearly believed when they issued the press release of June 2 (the so-called suicide note) that asserted that "Mr. Grewal provided the Office of the Leader of the Opposition with all of the tapes he had". Grewal clearly lied to them. They had trusted him and repeated his lie. That makes them look bad.

Grewal was also entrusted with the important job of preparing his tapes for release (as I demonstrate here). He did this, however, in a way that was so dishonest and incompetent that he created a firestorm, most of which was directed at himself, but one that also hurt his party. Harper's office is, of course, ultimately responsible for the editing of the tapes (they take responsibility in the June 2 press release). But it seems that they trusted Grewal to do it. And he betrayed that trust.

I whole-heartedly agree with Colbert here, and it is something that has long puzzled me. It is members of the CPC who should be most offended at Grewal's actions. That is finally sinking through to them.