RCMP will not investigate Grewal tapes
RCMP will not investigate Grewal
Friday, August 12, 2005 Updated at 5:48 PM EDT
Canadian Press
Ottawa — The RCMP will not launch a criminal investigation into the Germant Grewal affair.
The Mounties say they have reviewed complaints of criminal wrongdoing with respect to audio recordings the Conservative member of Parliament made of conversations with Liberal officials last spring.
The RCMP say they listened to the tapes and interviewed the principals involved and determined no criminal investigation is warranted.
Mr. Grewal claimed that Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh and Tim Murphy, Prime Minister Paul Martin's chief of staff, had offered him and his wife Nina, also an MP, patronage positions if they joined the Liberals just before an important budget vote May 19.
Mr. Grewal made headlines again in June when he was spotted at a Vancouver airport trying to get someone to take an envelope full of audio tapes to Ottawa. He later went on stress leave.
Update. See now also the National Post story and CBC story
posted by buckets at 8/12/2005 06:19:00 PM
2 Comments:
There is 'vote buying' that is illegal ('$100 to vote x') and there is 'vote buying' that is not ('vote x and we'll give you a membership in the Liberal party'). I suspect that insofar as there was any vote buying, the RCMP decided it was the second sort.
"If Gurmant wasn't telling the truth, I would have expected an investigation into Gurmant's actions in smearing the Libs."
The law usually leaves this sort of thing up to the civil courts. If Dosanjh and Murphy want redress, they might sue Grewal. (Looking through the original stories a few days ago I noticed how most of Grewal's most provocative statements were made within the Parliament buildings where he would have immunity. Clever lad, our Gurmie.)
Now, you watch and see all the CPC supporters that backed Grewal say this clears him and his tapes of any editing issues. The CPC and its supporters are almost certainly going to conflate the RCMP investigation of the contents and integrity of the recordings handed over to them with the entirely different issue of the CPC released recordings to the general public with the edited version on May 31 05 and the subsequent proof of editing and no actual basis for accusing the Liberals of Senate seat selling. I have already started to see signs of this in the conservative section of the blogosphere. I think it's time I wrote another blog entry to point out just how dishonest that is as well. Thanks Buckets for providing such a valuable resource with this blog with which I can do so.
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