Thu, March 4, 2004
Liberals get jitters

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/CalgarySun/News/2004/03/04/369444.html

By STEPHANIE RUBEC, OTTAWA BUREAU
 
OTTAWA -- Ontario Liberal MPs and senators expressed fears during a heated closed-door caucus meeting last week that they will lose their seats over the sponsorship scandal if a spring election is called. These remarks were inadvertently broadcast live on Feb. 25 over the parliamentary television network and an audiotape of that Ontario caucus meeting has been obtained by Sun Media.

The recording shows MPs, who publicly deny there's been any fallout from the Adscam, telling their colleagues they're scared for their jobs and fear they could lose half of their 98 seats in Ontario.

Beaches-East York MP Maria Minna told caucus that her own sister doubts whether she and other Grits didn't benefit from the sponsorships.

"When we lose our own families, when they're questioning us ... it is bad," Minna told MPs, adding she felt the Ontario caucus was the only safe place for her to vent.

"People out there are angry. The anger underneath is palpable."

Minna did not return calls yesterday.

Haliburton-Victoria-Brock MP John O'Reilly said beaver skinners at a February festival in his riding took direct aim at the Grits over the sponsorship scandal.

"They were skinning beavers, and every one of the beavers was a Liberal," O'Reilly told MPs.

"They couldn't find a Tory to skin, they said that ... they weren't very happy about a spring election.

"You figure it out. I got out of there alive."

O'Reilly said he's felt a sting from local Liberals over the sponsorship scandal.

"Our own people are madder than hell at how we're running this," he said. "I think there's a lot of people out there waiting to punish us and I think if we got to the polls in the spring we're crazy."

Yesterday O'Reilly told Sun Media he stands by his comments.

Bramalea-Gore MP Gurbax Singh Malhi told caucus that donations in his riding have dried up, thanks to the Adscam, adding voters who previously committed to boosting his warchest before an expected spring election have backed out "due to the circumstances of the sponsorship and advertising program."

"We should think about that," Malhi said. "The people are mad with us, they are angry, they will show this anger on election day."

Only one of the 13 MPs who spoke out at caucus was in favour of a spring election, arguing that if it was postponed it would appear the Grits are hiding from the scandal.

Many of the other MPs complained bitterly about having very little time to prepare for an election.

Burlington MP Paddy Torsney urged Grits to shut down talk on the sponsorship scandal and "get on with governing so that people have something else to talk about."

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CANDID COMMENTS

* Haliburton-Victoria-Brock MP John O'Reilly: "In Dorset they have a trappers association that has what they call Snowball Fest. I was the guest of honour. And my wife almost threw up in the snowbank when she saw them skinning a beaver. I mean that's how those nice coats are made by the way. They kill an animal, skin the beaver and so forth. So they had a beaver-skinning contest and every one of them was named after a Liberal. People are not happy. This isn't the general public, these are Liberals. They're not happy with us."

* London MP Joe Fontana: "And if you want to make sure we don't lose seats in Central Ontario and the GTA, especially to the NDP perhaps, it's because they're talking about jobs and we're not talking about jobs."

* Burlington MP Paddy Torsney: "I don't recall anybody saying in national caucus last week that they wanted heads of Crown corporations on a platter. Every day there's another friggin' leak about somebody else. I don't care when the election is, it's going to be hard slugging, but we'll do it. And we'll win it. The challenge is that we'll only win if somebody starts planting messages."

* Metro Toronto Senator Gerry Grafstein: "Advice to the cabinet, advice to the government: Change the subject. I don't think we should be talking about this anymore."

* Beaches MP Maria Minna: "I'm talking to people that are not just in my riding but across the city that I know, my sister ... and they're saying to me, 'you know Maria, maybe you're not taking money but I don't know about the rest of your government.' And they're putting a maybe on my name and that's my sister. This is not funny anymore."

* St. Catharines MP Walt Lastewka: "If (Canadian Autoworkers Union president) Buzz Hargrove pulls out on behalf of the NDP, we're really going to get slaughtered in the automotive areas. That's about 45 ridings in Ontario. Please understand that."

* York South MP Alan Tonks: "At the same time try to contain, through the process, as much as we can, what the Opposition are trying to do to us. They're taking us on a first march down a path we don't want to go. I think in the next two weeks, without saying we should have done this or we should have done that, we're trying to contain the issue."