FAQ 3b. Did Grewal set up an the independent bonding system for visitors' visas?

In his private member's bill, C-283 (see here), Grewal proposes that the government create a bonding system for sponsoring overseas visitors. Sponsors of visitors will post bond which is refunded once the sponsored visitors return home.

In addition to proposing this legislation, Grewal set up his own system whereby those who wanted to sponsor such visitors would signal their willingness to make such a commitment. Grewal had potential sponsors agree "to place a bond against our guarantee in the sum of" a certain amount of money (see the form scanned here).

Grewal had revealed this practice during a meeting of the standing committee for Citizenship and Immigration, when he mentioned that "people have come to my office and signed papers for up to $100,000 bond." (here; archived here). These comments created a stir both in the committee in the media, and Minister of Immigration, Joe Volpe, referred the matter to the Ethics commissioner for investigation.


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FAQ 3a. What is Grewal's private members bill on visitors' visas?

One of Grewal's major initiatives in the last year has been his attempt to emend the Immigration Act to change the way in which foreign nationals who apply for temporary, visitor visas are sponsored. This was done through his private member's bill, C-283: An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations

This bill would essentially create a system by which Canadian citizens or permanent resident could sponsor overseas visitor by posting a bond or guarantee. The guarantee would be refunded once the visitor had indeed left the country.

For the debate at Second Reading, see here; it was passed for referal to committee


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Buckets' Greatest Hits

As a few have noticed (see here and here), I have been posting less here since late summer--other matters have been keeping me (very) busy.

I'm enjoying a brief pause from work right now, which has given me a few moments to reflect on the thrills and spills of last June and July. Someone has also pointed out to me that it is now time for nominations for the blogging awards. It strikes me that there are three categories under which I might well be nominated: best new blog; best series of posts; and best post. On the latter two, I'd be interested in how people judge the relative merits of these two series:

1. 'Edited out', which this post summarized
2. FAQ for the Grewal Affair

And of these three posts:

1. An infinite number of monkeys
2. It was all about Belinda
3. An introduction to Textual Criticism

Alternatively, does anyone think that there are any other series or posts that are more appropriate?

FAQ 2g. Who is Jim Holt?

Jim Holt is the President of the Conservative Riding Association of Newton-North Delta, Gurmant Grewal's seat. As such, he has been in the forefront of those defending Grewal. In this capacity, he wrote to members of the Conservative Party to defend Grewal in July 2005 (see his letter, here).

Holt was also involved in answering question about Grewal's campaign finance here


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FAQ 2e. Who is Dr. Gulzar Cheema and how is he involved?

One of the more obscure references in the Grewal tapes is to "Dr. Cheema". It occurred in the second phone call between Grewal and Sadesh Kalia.

The editor of this transcript has added Cheema's given name, Gulzar, to help identify him. Cheema is an Indo-Canadian physician, who has been a Liberal MLA both in Manitoba and in British Columbia, where he was also Minister of State for Immigration and Multicultural Services in Gordon Campbell's Liberal government. In the federal election of 2004, Cheema was a Liberal candidate in the riding of Fleetwood-Port Kells but lost to Grewal's wife Nina. (She had 14052 votes to his 11568.)

For the Wikipedia entry on him, see here.

Why Kalia mentioned Cheema is unclear. The translator/editor of the recording (which was in Punjabi) includes within parentheses explanations to help the reader, and here uses them to suggest that the Prime Minister had promised the consulate to Cheema in Chandigarh, India,. The phone call itself, however, is much less clear on this point and only says that 'he promised to Cheema'.

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FAQ 2d. Who was Sadesh Kalia and how was he involved?

Sadesh Kalia is a prominent member of the Indo-Canadian community in Surrey. A Liberal, he discussed with Grewal the possibility of defecting to the Liberals before Grewal spoke to Dosanjh and/or Murphy beginning on May 15th. A partial list of their calls was released with the Grewal tapes (here) shows they spoke at least a dozen times over these few days. Grewal released recordings of six of them on May 31st (archived here and here.)

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Fact-check of Grewal's public statements of the 18th

There has been a lot of back and forth over the months, with accusation and counter accusation.

It might be worth remembering precisely what the original statements were--before we had any tapes at all. As many of you remember, just hours before a crucial non-confidence vote in the house on May 18th, Gurmant Grewal appeared before a press scrum and delivered his block-buster--he had taped four hours of secret negotiations with the Liberals. The video of his statement is still available at this CTV story, it is behind the link 'CTV Newsnet Live: Conservative MP Gurmant Grewal 5:46' on the right. A transcript is here. In light of the delay in the release of the tapes, I think it would be useful to review the statements of the principles in these first few days and judge them in light of what we know from the tapes themselves. I have inserted numbers into the text which correspond to commentary below.

Grewal: As you have already heard, (Reading a prepared statement) [1a] I was approached early this week by Ujjal Dosanjh [1b] and asked to abstain or vote with the government on the budget vote. [2] In exchange, I was given an understanding that I would be rewarded in some fashion. [3] Some of the options discussed were different diplomatic appointments, or a future senate seat for Nina. [4a] Yesterday I met with both Tim Murphy and Ujjal Dosanjh at their request. In Mr. Dosanjh's office and later on in my office. [4b] In that meeting, I was offered the opportunity to later talk with the Prime Minister by telephone, or to meet with him at 24 Sussex Drive about these possibilities. [5] Today, Tim Murphy came to my office,to meet me, where we discussed this further. [6] He told me that the Liberals were talking to three or four other Conservative MPs. [7] I told Mr. Murphy that if any offer was being made, I needed certainty about what it was and the timeframe involved. [8] Mr. Murphy told me he would get back to me. [9] At no time did I have any intention of accepting these offers. [10] I responded to Mr. Dosanjh's invitation and entered these discussions to determine the level to which the Liberal party and Paul Martin were willing to sink to save their government. Do you have any quick questions?

[1] 'I was approached early this week by Ujjal Dosanjh.' The tapes do not show who approached whom (see here), but the balance of evidence leans towards Grewal having made the intitial approach (see here). Grewal here glosses over Sadesh Kalia, who acted as middle-man to bring Grewal and Dosanjh together.

[1b] '… by Ujjal Dosanjh and asked to abstain or vote with the government on the budget vote.' Nowhere in the surviving tapes does Grewal discuss abstaining on the confidence-vote with Dosanjh. That discussion was with Murphy on the 18th (the morning of this news conference). The discussions in which Dosanjh was involved are about whether Grewal would cross the floor immediately and whether an apology from Volpe could be arranged.

[2] 'In exchange, I was given an understanding that I would be rewarded in some fashion.' This is half-correct. Both Dosanjh and Murphy clearly imply that there will be a future reward for crossing the floor. In this context, however, Grewal seems to imply that rewards were offered for abstaining or voting with the government in the confidence motion, which is not something that appears in any of the conversations in which Dosanjh was involved and is nowhere clearly proposed in the other tapes.

[3] "Some of the options discussed were different diplomatic appointments, or a future senate seat for Nina." This is highly misleading. Nowhere in the tapes are diplomatic appointments mentioned. According to Kalia (the middle-man), Grewal had asked that Nina be made ambassador to the UN, but this is nowhere in the tapes that we have them--except perhaps if there is an allusion to this when Murphy tell Grewal (Dosanjh-Murphy-Grewal, p. 6) that the Prime Minister did not think a reward 'outside politics' was the 'right thing to do'. (This got edited out of the first edition of the tapes.)

A senate seat does come up in the conversation. But it is Grewal asking for the senate seat (Dosanjh-Murphy-Grewal, p. 2 and ibid., p. 13 and ) and and both Dosanjh (ibid. p. 2) later Murphy (ibid., p. 14) explaining that this was not possible.

[4a] Yesterday I met with both Tim Murphy and Ujjal Dosanjh at their request. In Mr. Dosanjh's office and later on in my office.… Not quite correct. He met with Murphy and Dosanjh in Dosanjh's office 'yesterday' (i.e., May 17th) and with Murphy alone in Grewal's office on the 18th.

[4b] In that meeting, I was offered the opportunity to later talk with the Prime Minister by telephone, or to meet with him at 24 Sussex Drive about these possibilities. Again this is not quite accurate. Dosanjh does say at 2'37 of the Dosanjh-Murphy-Grewal tape that Martin would speak to Grewal (p. 2 of the transcript). Again at about 4'00 (p. 5 of the transcript) Murphy points out that a meeting with Martin is possible 'depending on how the conversations go'. (I've pulled together several other places where these comments are made here.)

[5] "Today, Tim Murphy came to my office,to meet me, where we discussed this further." Correct. We have a recording of this conversation.

[6] "He told me that the Liberals were talking to three or four other Conservative MPs." Murphy mentions that there were 'other members of your current caucus who are facing the same dilemna that you face' (p. 4 of the Murphy-Grewal transcript). As far as I can see no specific number was ever mentioned.

[7] "I told Mr. Murphy that if any offer was being made, I needed certainty about what it was and the timeframe involved." True. See p. 3 of the transcript: "Happy I will be when I know, not exactly but some sort of nature of what kind of things will happen after that -- what the time frame, what will happen, those kind of things you know."

[8] "Mr. Murphy told me he would get back to me." I can't find anywhere in the tapes where Murphy made such a commitment to a request for a firm offer. There are several places where Murphy offers to keep the lines of communication open.

[9-10] "At no time did I have any intention of accepting these offers. I responded to Mr. Dosanjh's invitation and entered these discussions to determine the level to which the Liberal party and Paul Martin were willing to sink to save their government." We have only Grewal's word for what his true intentions were. Where we can check his version of events against the tapes, he does not seem entirely truthful. Given that, I am inclined to doubt his word here.

Another point needs to be made. At the point of this news conference, Grewal and the Conservatives had not yet decided to release the tapes to the public. Grewal probably never expected that his version of events could be checked. As you can see, he took full advantage.

Grew(Ding)wal(l) and the dynamics of scandal

Several bloggers have made a linkage between the Grewal affair and the recent Dingwall fufurah, some left, some right, some middle: Waking up on planet x, Bound by Gravity (in comments), Rational Reasons.

There is a vague similarity. In both cases, Conservative allegations of corruption were shown to be either wholly unfounded or greatly exaggerated. Especially criticized in this regard is Brian Pallister, MP for Portage-Lisgar and Conservative critic for National Revenue, Canada Post and the Royal Canadian Mint. In light of two independent audits of Dingwall's expenses (see, for example, here), Palliser's statements were clearly excessive.

Some have gone so far as to compare Palliser with Grewal (see, e.g.here). This is, I submit, not very helpful.

Yes, Palliser has egg on his face, and in retrospect he should have been less vigorous. But I think that we should have some sympathy for his position. He did not know the true facts and had based his attacks on what had been reported in the media combined with the innuendo and hyperbole that are typical of parliament.

This is quite in contrast to the Grewal tapes, which the Conservatives had had in their possession for two weeks, from May 18th to May 31st, during which they had ample to time to learn what was really in the tapes. During this period they misled the public about the contents of the tapes and doctored them to fit their story.

In the Dingwall matter, Palliser and the Conseratives are guilty of overenthusiastic partisanship and poor judgement; with the Grewal tapes, it was fraud, pure and simple.

FAQ 2f. Who is Joe Volpe and how is he involved?

Joe Volpe is the Liberal MP for the Toronto area riding of Eglington-Lawrence and Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. His involvement in the Grewal affair began when he criticized Grewal for introducing an independent bonding scheme for visitors visas and referring the matter to the RCMP and Ethics Commissioner. (On the bonding scheme, see .)

In his taped conversations with Murphy and Dosanjh, Grewal mentions Volpe several times, demanding that Volpe apologize as a way of opening the door to further negotiations.

Suggestions that Murphy had promised to get Volpe to interfere in the RCMP investigation are based on tampered tapes.

Wikipedia entry for Joe Volpe

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Harper jokes about Grewal's editing skills

Over at CFRA radio is a story about last night's Press Gallery Dinner, an annual event at which politicians and press get together to roast one another. (See the video here.)

Stephen Harper had what looks like the evening's best line:

Harper added that the reason why Tory MP Gurmant Grewal missed the gala was because he was "at home taping the hockey game for his boss" and "editing it to make sure his team won."