TheStar.com | Canada | Harper tape in Cadman affair doctored, Tories say Harper tape in Cadman affair doctored, Tories say
Party seeks injunction against further use of audio clip by Liberals
Jun 04, 2008 01:27 PM
Tonda MacCharles
Ottawa Bureau
OTTAWA - The Conservative party claims a tape of Stephen Harper's conversation with a B.C. author about "financial considerations" offered a dying MP was "doctored" and is seeking a court order to block the Liberals from further use or reference to it.
"The (Tom) Zytaruk tape is completely discredited," said MP James Moore at a morning news conference.
The tape has been at the centre of politically explosive allegations that the Tories offered B.C. MP Chuck Cadman a life insurance policy in exchange for his support on a key vote in Parliament in 2005.
In the recording, a voice identified as Harper is heard telling Zytaruk, author of a book on Cadman, that an offer had been made to the Independent MP.
The Conservative party handed out binders containing affidavits by what it called two of North America's leading forensic audio experts.
Their analysis, said Moore, shows "the tape has been edited and doctored to misrepresent the event as it actually occurred."
He said the original conversation ran between five and seven or 10 minutes, but only about two minutes of tape was provided, and suggested that misrepresented the conversation from the get-go.
But Moore refused to say how exactly the original meaning of Harper's comments were distorted.
He said Harper's lawyers obtained a copy of the tape for their analysis from Zytaruk, but he refused to speculate who "doctored" the tape.
Moore said the prime minister is not suing the author, nor trying to get his book taken off the shelves, but he is pursuing libel action against the Liberals for making "false criminal allegations" against him.
Audio experts Alan Gough of Stratford, Ont., and Tom Owen of Colonia, N.J., separately examined copies of the tape and reached similar conclusions that the tape had been edited.
“The tape has been edited and doctored and does not represent the entire conversation that took place,” Owen said in a sworn statement.
“This is not a continuous recording of one conversation,” Gough said in his affidavit.
“The interruptions of words, changes of background ambience and changes of frequency response indicate that this may be three separate recordings.”
The tape sparked a furor when it was released in March. Dona Cadman, widow of the late MP, said the Tories had offered her dying husband a $1-million insurance policy in return for his vote against the Liberals at a critical juncture.
He rejected the offer angrily, she said. He went on to support the Liberals.
Tory officials and Harper denied the $1-million offer. The key phrase in the recording has Harper saying: “Of the . . . offer to Chuck was that is was only to replace financial considerations he might lose due to an election.”
The prime minister has said repeatedly since then that Cadman was only offered the chance to return to the Conservative party and financial help in his re-election bid.
The Liberals accused Harper of trying to bribe an MP, although the RCMP investigated and said they found no evidence of a crime.
Cadman was a popular B.C. MP who entered the Commons as a Reformer in 1997. He lost the Conservative nomination in the 2004 election and ran and won as an independent.
He died just months after the crucial vote.
With files from the Canadian Press
The Conservative Party of Canada is now  considering a 2005 recording of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper discussing "financial considerations" offered to the late Member of Parliament (MP) Chuck Cadman to have been "doctored".

The tape contains a conversation between Harper and Vancouver journalist Tom Zytaruk, whose book "Like a Rock: The Chuck Cadman Story" claims that Conservative party officials had offered a C$1 million life insurance policy to Cadman in exchange for a key swing vote against the Liberal Party, one of Canada's other main political parties. At the time of the alleged bribe, Cadman had already been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Conservative MP James Moore told reporters today that the tape had been altered, "including the insertion of a fabricated sound-bite." However, he would not comment on whether or not the edits had changed the meaning of Harper's words.

The Liberal party had submitted the recording as evidence that Harper was aware of the Cadman insurance offer. Cadman's widow, Dona Cadman, has confirmed that the offer was presented to her husband. Conservatives deny the allegation, but say that party representatives had offered him a loan for campaign expenses if the MP were to rejoin the party.

Harper has filed a lawsuit against the Liberal party, the Canadian government's official opposition.