Grewal admits that Harper told him 'to end the taping process' (but he continued to tape)

Update: This post was based on the assumption that Harper was correct when he said that he told Grewal on the 17th to stop taping. This is probably wrong, it was the 18th. (See here).

At the bottom of this story in the Hill Times is a summary of what Grewal said about Harper's role and a quotation from Grewal's press release correcting his earlier statement. Grewal's press release is quoted in full:

"An interview published in this week's Surrey Leader concerning the taping of conversations between myself, Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh and Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister, Tim Murphy, regarding the attempt to purchase my Parliamentary support in the spring of 2005 contains a statement to the effect that Conservative leader Stephen Harper gave his permission for me to tape these conversations. Once I had begun taping I informed Mr. Harper that I was doing so. No approval was sought or given. Subsequently when I told Mr. Harper that I had an opportunity to meet with and tape the prime minister, Mr. Harper told me to end the taping process."

As I argued here here and proved here, this must have happened on the morning of the 17th.

That means that after he had been told to stop taping, Grewal made seven more recordings

• his conversation of 55 minutes with Dosanjh and Murphy beginning at 1 pm on the 17th
• two phone calls with Dosanjh on the 17th and 18th (c. 6 minutes)
• 26 minutes of his conversation with Tim Murphy on the 18th
• three phone calls with Murphy totalling c. 20 minutes on the 17th and 18th.

That's almost two hours of taping after he had been told to stop. Indeed, of the tapes that we have, only the Kalia tapes (which total about 8-and-a-half minutes) come before Harper told Grewal to stop taping.