Alan Riddell saga ends not with a bang, but with a whimper; questions remain however

And so, in all likelihood, ends the saga of the Conservative Party and Alan Riddell, which I’ve chronicled at length since the last election:

The Conservative party has reached an out-of-court settlement with Alan Riddell in the Ottawa lawyer's libel suit against Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the party's president, a party statement says.

The one-paragraph statement says nothing about the terms of the settlement and does not name Mr. Harper or party president Don Plett.

"The Conservative Party of Canada and Alan Riddell announce that they have mutually settled all legal proceedings brought by Mr. Riddell against the Conservative Party of Canada and Conservative Party officials," says the statement, sent to a reporter yesterday by the communications director Ryan Sparrow.

I’ll leave you to the Citizen story and the past posts to get all the background and nitty-gritty details. It would appear this is likely the end of the story though, certainly from a legal and most likely from a media point of view as well.

It certainly should not be though as there is one remaining unanswered question. It’s a very important question, its one Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party needs to answer and its one Canadians deserve an answer to.

I’ve asked this question before, and not having seen an answer yet, I’ll ask again. With the settlement, while they initially denied it it’s now abundantly clear the CPC had a deal with Riddell. Which begs the question why, during the last election campaign, did Harper make this statement:

"The party does not have an agreement to pay Mr. Riddell these expenses, and Mr. Riddell has not been paid anything to date," he said, explaining that the party's national council had decided Riddell was not an "acceptable'' candidate.

And yet, as we now know, they sure did have a deal. When the legal process began they admitted that, their only point of contention was not the existence of a deal, but whether or not Riddell’s going public negated the deal.

With the Cons running sponsorship whistleblower Allan Cutler in Ottawa-South, admitting they’d bought-off Riddell wouldn’t have exactly fit with their cleaning-up government messaging at that point of the campaign.

Harper may have settled with Riddell, but he hasn’t settled with Canadians. Given his election statement, and what his party has now admitted in court, Harper and the CPC need to come clean with Canadians. Did Stephen Harper lie about the existence of a deal with Riddell, when asked point-blank, in order to win an election campaign, or did party officials deliberately keep their leader in the dark and send him out onto the podium to mislead Canadians?

Neither scenario is particularly palatable. It’s time, however, for answers.

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The headline says “Conservative Party back in court over deal with candidate”

It’s too bad they couldn’t have saved this headline for Accountability Week, isn’t it? Well, maybe we can make it an Accountability Month or something. But indeed the Conservative Party is back in court.

You may be thinking of the CalgaryWest nomination court case. But actually I’m talking about another Conservative nomination related court case (hard to keep track of them, I know). But I’m actually referring to the court case involving the Conservative nomination for Ottawa-South.

I’ve blogged extensively on the Alan Riddell case before. The CPC offered to buy Riddell off so sponsorship whistleblower Alan Cutler could run. Riddell stepped aside, and Cutler went on to lose to Liberal David McGuinty.

The deal was the party would cover Riddell’s expenses in running for the nomination, which he estimated in the neighborhood of $50,000. Rumours of a deal surfaced during the campaign but Harper flatly denied there was any such deal. Either Harper was lying or he wasn’t told, because once Riddell sued for the money the party admitted there was indeed a deal, but by going public Riddell negated it. You see, the buyoff was to be kept secret. Because that’s accountability, Conservative style.

A judge disagreed with the Cons though and ruled for Riddell to get the money, a ruling which the CPC apparently plans to appeal. Riddell also has defamation suits pending against Harper and CPC president Don Plett, both of whom denied in the media there was a deal to play Riddell. Something which the CPC’s own court fillings show to be untrue.

To the latest news though. The CPC is being dragged back to court over the confidentiality issue:

A political party asking a candidate to step aside to make way for a bigger name is nothing particularly new - but should those negotiations and the possible money they involve be considered secret?

That issue will be debated in an Ottawa courtroom this week in the second chapter of the Conservative party's ongoing legal battle with former party member Alan Riddell.

Because when you said accountability, you totally weren’t talking about yourselves, right CPC lawyer?

"Am I going to ask that the matter be postponed? Yes, the principle reason being it is under appeal and shouldn't go forward right now," said party lawyer Robert Houston. "There is absolutely no urgency in this matter proceeding at this time."

At least until after the next election, right Rob. For his part, Riddell’s lawyer finds the penchant for secrecy from the “accountability party” to be puzzling:

Riddell's lawyer Tom Conway says the party is likely reluctant to start going through the details of other deals it has made with candidates. For example, British Columbia MP Jim Hart's agreement to step aside for Canadian Alliance Leader Stockwell Day, or candidate Ezra Levant's departure to make way for Day's successor Stephen Harper in Calgary Southwest.

"It doesn't make sense for them when this party has insisted on transparency and accountability, and here they are saying an agreement they made with a candidate should be secret," Conway said Monday. "There's no reason to keep that kind of agreement secret."

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