Buckets' Official List of Grewal news stories (in progress)

Since the emergence of Jim Holt's letter to local Conservatives defending Grewal (here), the Conservative strategy for the rehabilitation of Grewal has become clear: first, to create a canonical list of six scandals that have embroiled Grewal; second, to assert that these scandals were part of an organized Liberal smear; and third, to argue that those scandals have been resolved in Grewal's favour.

This basic communications strategy has been seen in several places, first in Holt's letter (here):

In essence, there have been six topics which have been at the centre of an attack on our MP over these past few weeks.

1. Immigration Bonding Accusations
2. Taping of Liberal attempts to have our MP cross the floor
3. An incident at the check-in counter at Air Canada
4. Old Allegations re Immigration Investment Issues
5. Release of "New Tapes" by Gurmant
6. Claims re Missing Donation Receipts

The same basic points are made in Nina's interview with the Surrey Now (here, with my notes here), then in Grewal's own interviews with the Surrey Now, the Surrey Leader, and most recently the Western Standard.

Part of this is misdirection. Limit the discussion to the six topics, which may result in other things being ignored. In fact, however, Holt's list has missed a few stories involving Grewal. I therefore offer you Buckets' Official List of Grewal news stories (this is in progress, I'll try to fill in links and dates as time passes):

1. Grewal's claim to have been an advisor to Liberian dictator, Sam Doe (here and here)
2. Grewal's claim to have been an honorary vice-consul for Liberia (here)
3. Stories about his disputes about a provincial nomination in 1996 and his taping of meetings (here)
4. Grewal's claim that his life was threatened following the the 1996 BC election in which he was a BC Reform candidate (here)
5. Grewal's decision to hire Rachel Marsden under a fake name to work in his constituency office, against the advice of Conservative central office (see here, here, here, etc.)
6. Stories about the way Grewal and his wife both filed nomination papers in two ridings in the lead-up to the 2004 election (here)
7. Grewal's independent system for temporary visa bonding (= Holt #1), on which see here
8. Stories from Grewal's accusation that the Liberals were trying to bribe him and revealed that he had tapes (=Holt #2)
9. Stories about the intermediary who said that Grewal had approached the Liberals through him (here, here, etc.)
10. Stories about NDP and Bloc calls for an RCMP investigation into the tapes (e.g., here, here)
11. Stories that the Conservatives had decided to surrender the tapes to the RCMP (May 24) (here, etc.)
12. Stories about whether the Conservatives would release all of the tapes to the public (e.g., here and here)
13. Stories about the release of the tapes on May 31st
14. Stories about whether the May 31st tapes had been altered (beginning June 1)
15. Stories deriving from the Conservatives' admission on June 2 that the tapes had been altered … accidentally (e.g., here)
16. The airport incident (=Holt #3) (June 4)
17. Grewal's taking of stress leave (June 7) (e.g., here)
18. Old Allegations concerning Grewal's own immigration under the Investment programme (June 9) (here) (=Holt #4)
19. Stories that the Conservatives' audio expert judged the recordings unedited (June 9) (here)
20. Stories that Conservative MP John Reynolds filed complaints against three Liberals with the Ontario and BC Law Societies (June 15) (e.g., here)
21. News that Grewal surrendered further tapes to the RCMP (July 9) (=Holt #5) (see here)
22. Stories about missing campaign donation receipts (July 12) (=Holt #6)
23. Stories about Conservative MPs denouncing Grewal (July 14) (e.g., here)
24. Grewal's claim that Harper knew and approved of the taping (July 29) (here with here) and then retraction of that claim (July 30) (here)
25. Stories that the Conservative party had unsuccessfully attempted to get one of their MPs to retract his criticisms of Grewal of July 14 (see above) (e.g., here)
26. Stories related to his announcement that he would not stand for re-election in his riding

[edited and rewritten several times with new links ]

The Western Standard asks Grewal about the cheques

Several of you sent me a heads up about the Western Standard having an 'interview' with Gurmant Grewal. Here is the first part of it. I insert my comments at the end.

Question Period: Gurmant Grewal
Duncan McMurdo - August 22, 2005

Born: December 21, 1957, Barundi, India. Member of Parliament for Newton–North Delta. Former real estate agent.

Western Standard: Why is the RCMP looking into accusations by some people who donated to your election campaign that they did not receive receipts?

Gurmant Grewal: Two of those people [who claim they wrote cheques but got no receipts], both these individuals, they are related to the Liberal party. One of them is on the riding executive of the Liberal party of [federal Health Minister] Ujjal Dosanjh. The other person, who wrote the $600 cheque, he also [was linked to] the party [and] Ujjal Dosanjh at that time.

WS: How well do you know the men involved in this? One of them has said he’s a friend of yours, even though he’s part of Mr. Dosanjh’s riding association.

GG: No, he’s not a friend, actually. These two individuals, they came to myself. They said, ‘Gurmant, you are doing a very good job for the community.’ They said they would like to support me, but they don’t support my party. So they didn’t want to be associated with the party at that time, therefore they chose not to write the cheque in the party’s name, but they wrote the cheques in my name. Therefore, no receipt was supposed to be issued to them, and no receipt was issued; no receipt was promised, no receipt was expected, either.

WS: What do you think the motive behind the accusations is?

GG: Once I blew the whistle on [those in the] Prime Minister’s Office, who were attempting to bribe me for changing my vote along with a cabinet minister, . . . all hell broke loose after May 15. Many accusations have been proven that they were false; for example, the Air Canada incident [where Grewal was accused of trying to pass a package to passengers of a flight he was not travelling on]: I was cleared by the RCMP within 48 hours and it took nine days for Transport Canada to clear me, and the Air Canada to clear me. Similarly, my visitor visa bill [which requires that anyone receiving a visitor’s visa to Canada put up a monetary bond, refundable when they leave the country] . . . the immigration minister [Joe Volpe] didn’t want changes [to immigration policy] coming from Opposition MPs. Once it was passed, he took it personally, and he went on to attack me personally. He said I was profiteering from it. I did not. He said I was asking people to sign bonds in my office. I did not. People were asked to put it in writing, the pledge that the potential visitor from a foreign country, where the Canadian [host] was or my constituent was sponsoring, that they would go back. I am absolutely cleared of those allegations as well. The Liberals are trying to attack me on any front they can to hurt my credibility and my good reputation of nine years, simply to defend themselves on this incident where I caught them on tape, making those rewards and offers in lieu of my vote [on the May 19 confidence motion].

Several points. 1. Grewal doesn't really answer the question, which was why the RCMP were looking into the cheques.

2. Grewal only discusses two of the cheques in question here, the two $600 from Grewal's fund-raiser of 27 December 2003. There is also a $1800 for Nina from July 2004 (see here); a $1000 cheque from Imperial plumbing from March 2004 (see here and here), and a $500 cheque from Jan. 2003 marked 'fund-raiser' (here) that remain to be explained.

3. The RCMP and Transport Canada will have had their own, separate, investigations, and the fact that the RCMP took less time to determine that there was no criminality than it took Transport Canada to determine that there were not regulatory issues at issue is not in itself surprising.

4. Grewal explains the various controversies as Liberal conspiracies against him because of the taping, and includes the visa-bond issue among them. The visa-bond controversy predates the tapes by at least a month.

Harper wrong about when he learned about the Grewal tapes

Harper was wrong, it seems, when he said that he told Grewal on May 17th to stop taping.

As regular readers will know, there has been some contradictory statements in the last week or so about Harper's role in the tapes and their aftermath. This began when Grewal said in an interview that he Harper approved of his taping (here). This was quickly contradicted by Harper's office (here) and retracted by Grewal (see here).

This led to a story in the Globe & Mail (here), which pointed out that several of the tapes must have been made after Harper told Grewal to stop. This was based on Harper's press conference of June 1, where he backed Grewal and explained his involvement in the tapes (my archive of that event is here). Here are Harper's exact words

Gurmant approached me at our caucus meeting on Monday, May the 16th, and told me—it was just the end of the meeting--he had something important to tell me about his discussions with the Liberals. I didn’t have time to talk to him then because I was on the way to the airport. I said I’d call him the next morning [Buckets: that is, the 17th]. And at that point he told me that, uh, he had the option of meeting that evening with—he and Nina--of meeting that evening with the Prime Minister to discuss Liberal offers. Mr. Grewal, Gurmant, said to me in his conversation, when he told me that he taped these, uh, conversations, he said to me that, uh, he had the option of meeting that evening with the Prime Minister. … Gurmant did ask me if I wanted him to meet with the Prime Minister and I said no. Thanks.

Now Grewal says that Harper got this wrong (here and here): that he was told to stop taping on the 18th.

So, who do we believe? Unless I'm mistaken, Harper has to be wrong here. The caucus meeting that Harper mentions should be the emergency meeting held on the evening of Tuesday, May 17th (mentioned here); Harper says that he was on the way to the airport, which will have been to go to Regina for the Queen's visit, where we know he was on the 18th (see the three stories here).

Unless someone can show that there was also a caucus meeting on the 16th (a Monday; the Conservatives weekly caucus meeting normally takes place on Wednesday), and that Harper flew somewhere else on Monday, I think we have to accept Grewal's version of events. (There's a man-bites-dog story: Grewal telling the truth!)

I'll try to post what I think this means later.

Update. I missed a story from the Surrey Leader a few days ago which quotes William Stair:

William Stair, a spokesman for the Conservative party leader, appeared to contradict Grewal's claim that Harper was informed of the taping before the May 17 meeting.

"That isn't true," Stairs told The Leader on Friday. "They spoke (about the taping for the first time) on the 17th of May."

Stairs declined to discuss Grewal's apparent contravention of Harper's stop-taping order. "I don't know what sort of conclusion you can draw from that," Stairs said when asked about the May 18 recordings. "This is an issue between the two of them (Harper and Grewal)."

Stairs offered a muted defence of Grewal, saying the MP has "done nothing wrong that anyone has proven."

Stairs' version, however, contradicts Harper, not Grewal. It was Harper who had said that he had first learned of the tapes on the 16th.