Which Conservative name comes to mind when you hear "Swiss Bank Account"?

When I first heard of this I had an immediate thought. It seems Greg had the same one.

Corrupt, dirty and on the take...

“The conduct exhibited by Mr. Mulroney in accepting cash-stuffed envelopes from Mr. Schreiber on three separate occasions, failing to record the fact of the cash payments, failing to deposit the cash into a bank or other financial institution, and failing to disclose the fact of the cash payments when given the opportunity to do so goes a long way, in my view, to supporting my position that the financial dealings between Mr. Schreiber and Mr. Mulroney were inappropriate.”

Commissioner Jeffrey Oliphant

Commission of Inquiry into Certain Allegations
respecting Business and Financial Dealings
Between Karlheinz Schreiber and
the Right Honourable Brian Mulroney

Commissioner Oliphant added a few pointed words: (My emphasis)

“I am driven to conclude that it is virtually impossible that Mr. Mulroney committed the same significant error in judgment on three separate occasions. It seems to me that, given Mr. Mulroney’s education, background, experience, and business acumen, his every instinct would have been, and should have been, to document the transaction in some manner,” he said.

Mr. Oliphant went on to say: “I therefore conclude that the reason Mr. Schreiber made the payments in cash and Mr. Mulroney accepted them in cash was that they both wanted to conceal the fact that cash transactions had occurred between them,” Mr. Oliphant said.

Corrupt, dirty and on the take.

The Muldoon and the Oliphant

"The time has come," the Oliphant said,
"To talk of many things:
Of envelopes stuffed with wads of cash
And if they came with strings--
Perhaps you only beat the rap
Because the pigs were schwings*."

"But wait a bit," the Muldoon cried,
"Before we have our chat;
I have complaints to make," he said,
"Regarding Steve the Fat."
"No Hurry," said the Oliphant,
"There's always time for that...

But was that 'pasta' money used
To give Joe Clark the axe?
Is turning noodles into LAVs
A job for party hacks?
Did you stash that $300,000
To avoid a fulsome tax?"

"O weep for me," the Muldoon said:
"For all of it is lies."
With sobs and tears he socked away
His 2 million dollar prize,
And held his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.

* "After years of investigating Mulroney, the RCMP never found out about his job with Schreiber or the now infamous cash payments. However, the Mounties did chauffeur Mulroney to the hotel at Mirabel Airport where he picked up the first batch of thousand dollar bills."
We still had to fork over $2.1-mil.

Kady is live-blogging the Oliphant Inquiry.

With apologies to Lewis Carroll from Creekside

Mulroney Schreiber Inquiry. Led by a Mulroney appointee.

I suppose when asked Stephen Harper's response will be that he "missed" that part. From the Office of the Prime Minister:

JUSTICE JEFFREY JAMES OLIPHANT Justice Oliphant was appointed on August 22, 1985 as a Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench of Manitoba. On December 24, 1990 he was appointed as Associate Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench of Manitoba. He was appointed a Deputy Judge of the Nunavut Court of Justice in October 2002 and is a former Chair of the Judicial Inquiry Board of Manitoba. Justice Oliphant was born February 10, 1944. He graduated from the Faculty of Law from the University of Manitoba in May 1967 and was called to the bar on June 2, 1967. He worked for the law firm of Johnston & Company in Dauphin, Manitoba from 1967 – 1985.

On the surface all this looks pretty good. Justice Oliphant looks to be well qualified to inquire into the dealings of Brian Mulroney and Karlheinz Schreiber.

And then along comes Kady. She compared the dates of Justice Oliphant's appointments to the Court of Queen's Bench of Manitoba, (first as a Justice and later as Associate Chief Justice) and notices this: (emphasis mine)

Oliphant was appointed a Justice of the Court of Queen’s Bench of Manitoba, and later, Associate Chief Justice, by then-Prime Minister Brian Mulroney

Peachy! Is there a picture of them together? (No. I'm not asking a rhetorical question.) Perhaps Justice Oliphant could open the inquiry with, "Nice bells, Brian."

Really. This is the stuff of books.

Thanks Kady.

They really aren't all that smart, are they?

Perhaps the insatiable lust for power is dulling the minds in the Mulroney Harper government.

The Harper government is telling Quebec that if the Conservatives win a majority in the next election, they will look to reopen the Constitution and give more meaning to their recognition of Quebeckers as a nation.

Emphasizing the Conservative receptiveness to “Quebec's historical demands,” Labour Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn raised the possibility of winning 30 to 40 seats in the province, up from the current 11.

“The recognition of the Quebec nation within Canada allows us to think that we can put some meat around it, and that a majority government is more able to do a number of things, while being respectful of all of the provinces,” Mr. Blackburn said in an interview.

The whole of which is an insult to Quebec voters.

First was Meech Lake, an exercise which did more to split the country than heal any part of it. Along with that abysmal failure came a strong warning: Canadians should never again trust a government which attempts constitutional amendments without going to referendum. But Mulroney, now generally considered an arrogant ass in most of Canada, couldn't leave well enough alone and tried it all over again. This time it went to referendum.

The results of the vote on the Charlottetown Accord spoke volumes. The highest voter turnouts were in Quebec and British Columbia, well exceeding the national average. Quebec rejected the accord by almost seven percent. BC however, issued the strongest statement with 68.3 percent voting NO, over eight percent higher than the results in Alberta.

Two other things emerged during the Mulroney attempts to alter the Constitution.

The Reform Party, which opposed both accords, engaged in a campaign which slagged the idea of Quebec having recognition as a distinct society. That was with Preston Manning in charge, who was actually willing to take a moderate stand. The real hardliner in the Reform Party was its policy chief: Stephen Harper, who felt that Manning was not expressing virulent enough opposition and was being too accommodating to Quebec.

The other item which emerged was the agonizing process of constitutional reform itself. At the end of each attempt the country was left riven. Canadians were now aware of the damage left behind by the acrimonious tone of the debates and the polarization of voters. Mulroney had gone so far as to state publicly that those who voted NO on the Charlottetown Accord were "enemies of Canada". Canadians, now armed with the experience of both constitutional amending processes, would not accept a gut-wrenching national internal squabble like that again unless there was a damned good reason.

That brings us back to the current insult to Quebec voters.

The Harperites are only suggesting this in an attempt to wrest seats out of Quebec and gain a majority in the next election. Unless they've gone completely brain-dead, the Conservatives know that they will never, ever get away with it. Thus, despite Blackburn's suggestions, we know it won't happen.

Quebec voters know that too. So to hold out the suggestion is nothing less than suggesting that Quebec voters are stupid.

Impolitical goes further and asks why Harper would even consider stirring up the separatist argument now when it is relatively dormant.

James Curran points out that such activity by Conservatives usually ends up with them being tossed off the edge of the political cliff. So, I agree with him. Let the Harperites fly with this one. It will give Mulroney and Harper one more thing in common - boot marks on their asses.

Stand off at The Woodshed continues...

The Rev. Paperboy is weakening. During the night (east of the International Dateline and west of Greenwich) The Rev. sneaked in a crew and put new vinyl siding on the blog. Yesterday, despite heavy negotiations, The Woodshed continued to be held hostage.

I think with enough pressure we can finish this today. Once we've got The Rev. suitably rummed-up, we can all return to current events... like Brian "With Bells On" Mulroney getting those bells rung for him and crawling back into the sewer system.

Of course, The Rev. is a real "Rev" (has his journeyman preacher ticket) and if he hadn't been holed-up trying to camouflage The Woodshed we could have used him on another mission. It seems Roger Moore dressed up as a conservative Christian minister (they have a uniform?!) and breached the "security" of Ben Stein's piece of "God dun it" drivel.

We need to get The Rev. back on the keyboard. Let's face it, we have Canadian finance minister, Jim "Would I Lie To You" Flaherty, handing out $25 million for the 2010 Olympic torch run. The up side of that is, thanks to Flaherty there will be lots of people with curbside seats. No... they won't have to arrive early to get a good spot. That's where they live.

So, one more day should do it. Save The Rev. from himself.

Oh, the drama!!

I have purposely skirted around most of the Schreiber-Mulroney circus. Most of what's said is being reported in the media and for a good grab on each appearance of each witness before the Commons Ethics Committee, Impolitical and Hope & Onions are staying right on top of things. There's no point duplicating their great efforts and you get some different scenery to back up a good read.

I will, however, comment on Mulroney's testimony today. You see, somebody is lying. I don't know who and it doesn't really matter, but it does underscore the need for a public inquiry into the whole affair. And Mulroney has another problem; one of his own making. He has no credibility with the Canadian public.

When Canadians generally choose to believe a smarmy little arms dealer over the person who once held the reins of government in Canada by a margin of three to one, there isn't much chance that, even if Mulroney is telling the truth, he'll receive anything close to public exoneration outside the precincts of a Commons committee room.

Mulroney's testimony today was an exercise in optics. Ever the self-admiring egotist, Mulroney demonstrated less interest in providing a clear accounting of his actions then he did in putting on a show.

An indignant Brian Mulroney insisted Thursday that he never received kickbacks from Karlheinz Schreiber or anyone else, but admitted that accepting $225,000 in cash from the German-Canadian arms dealer was "a serious error."

The former Conservative prime minister told the Commons ethics committee that his biggest mistake in life was ever agreeing to be introduced to Schreiber.

Mulroney flatly denied Schreiber's allegation that the pair agreed in July 1993 - while he was still prime minister - to a business relationship.

"Not a word was breathed at Harrington Lake about concluding any future business dealings with him," Mulroney insisted.

Indignation. The method of defence used by those who don't want anyone to take a closer look. "Geez. He's really angry. Maybe we're pulling the wrong chain," effect. Optically important for the cameras and the reporters; inconsequential in terms of examination and cross-examination.

Mulroney said his agreement with Schreiber occurred in August 1993 when he accepted $75,000 in cash as a retainer, followed by two more payments of equal amounts.

He said he was concerned about taking cash, but Schreiber said that was how he operated.

"When I look back on it today, I made a serious error in judgment ... even though it was decidedly not illegal to do so. I apologize and I accept full responsibility for it."

Let's work back through that. To whom is he apologizing? The committee? They don't give a red-rat's ass. If he wants to apologize to the Canadian public for the appearance of impropriety he's going to have to go a lot farther than that and demonstrate a lot more remorse. To apologize to anybody from the shelter of indignant outrage is less than genuine.

His concern about taking cash is a "tell" everyone has been ignoring. What it demonstrates is that he and Schreiber were pretty good buddies. Nobody takes that amount of cash from anybody unless they have already developed a relationship of trust with each other. Try walking into a car dealership and pay for a brand new vehicle with an envelope full of cash. Watch the suspicion levels rise. And there is the little issue of how Mulroney safeguarded all those bills - in safety deposit boxes rather than an interest bearing bank account - to avoid a written record. That isn't the behaviour of somebody engaged in legitimate transactions.

Mulroney's stated amount differs from that of Schreiber's and the dates vary. So, somebody is not telling the truth.

Mulroney entered a date and place in the record which just seems odd. When Mulroney handed over the job of prime minister to Kim Campbell on 25 June 1993, he did not move out of 24 Sussex Drive, the official residence of the Prime Minister. Campbell had to take up residence at Harrington Lake, the official summer retreat of the Prime Minister. By the time of the federal election on 25 October 1993, Mulroney had occupied 24 Sussex Drive so far beyond his retirement date that Campbell never ever did move into the official residence.

Mulroney is asserting that he met Schreiber at Harrington Lake two days before he left office in a residence which the new prime minister was having to move into because he wasn't departing the Ottawa residence.

Maybe that was the case. But it seems strange that he would still be using both residences when he knew Kim Campbell would require the one at which he supposedly met Schreiber less than 48 hours before Campbell had to move in.

The rest of the report on Mulroney's testimony is pure theatre.

The former prime minister called the Airbus affair "the biggest calamity of my life" and "a near-death experience."

Oh please! What a goddamned drama queen.

He said he thought the Airbus affair was put behind him in 1997 when the Liberal government paid him $2.1 million in an out of court libel settlement.

"But here we are again, my family and I, 10 years later," he lamented.

Well since Mulroney did it by the numbers during his testimony, let's just do two:

One - The level of satisfaction achieved over the $2.1 million payout was not mutually satisfying. Most Canadians felt Mulroney was dirty at the time and "got away with it". Clearly most still do because, here he is - ten years later.

Two - "My family and I"? OK. He has the right to expect support, no matter what he may have done, from his family. By extension they will endure all this too. But in that committee room the only interest is in Mulroney's activities. His family is a part of the audience. Nice try though.

As Mulroney spoke, wife Mila and his four children sat stone-faced, dressed in black.

Dressed in black. Maybe they had a funeral to attend later in the day. More theatre.

Mulroney emerged from a black limousine at the front entrance of Parliament and was greeted by Tory MPs and other well-wishers who shook his hand and embraced him.

Good feelings all round! The "do not communicate with" command issued by Harper must have slipped. Apparently they're as thick as they always were.

Maybe they can all gather on the steps of the parliament buildings and give us a chorus of "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling".

Someone is lying.

Luc Lavoie resigns as Mulroney's spokesman... and leaves a little hint on the way out.

Ah yes, Impolitical pulls together another great summary. A part of that was the fact that Luc Lavoie, the voice of Brian Mulroney since Mulroney left parliament, (it would be erronious to suggest he left politics), has resigned his position as Mulroney's spokesman. It is interesting to note what he said, how he said it and what he didn't say.

The long-time spokesman who has resolutely defended Brian Mulroney throughout the controversy involving Karlheinz Schreiber says he can no longer speak for the former prime minister because he cannot devote the required time.

Luc Lavoie, the baritone-voiced former Mulroney communications director who has spoken on behalf of Mr. Mulroney since the latter retired from politics, said yesterday he gave up the duties about a week ago in full agreement with Mr. Mulroney.

“As this affair kept developing, it became very clear that I just could not dedicate the time to serve him well as I did in the 1990s,” Mr. Lavoie said in an interview. “As this became more and more demanding, I don't think he was well served.”

Alright. That's an honest enough statement. We have no idea what the arrangement is between Mulroney and Lavoie and Lavoie may be assessing what future demands will be put on him to deal with the media storm surrounding Mulroney. No matter who holds such a position, he/she would be in great demand to answer media questions.

Another matter, however, is that Lavoie was losing patience and last week erupted after being asked when Mulroney paid taxes on the cash that Karlheinz Schreiber gave him. It's possible that Lavoie saw himself being caught up in something from which there is no escape for Mulroney. In short, bail now before the real crap starts to get spread around.

“Mr. Mulroney is fighting for his integrity and the integrity of his family, and I'm fully sympathetic to what he's going through and I wish him the best, believe me, and I still consider him a dear friend and always will.”

Communications directors are smart enough to know how to craft phrases and that one says a lot. At no point does he defend Mulroney. He simply wishes him "the best". If Lavoie was possessed of the belief that Mulroney is innocent of allegations against him, why didn't he depart saying so?

Asked if he had ever felt personally uneasy about speaking on the Schreiber matter, Mr. Lavoie said he hadn't.

At one point in 1999, Mr. Lavoie said no money had ever changed hands between Mr. Schreiber and Mr. Mulroney. It was later revealed that Mr. Mulroney had received $300,000 from Mr. Schreiber.

Mr. Lavoie said his remarks at the time were with respect to the sale of Airbus planes to Air Canada.

“I was talking about Airbus,” he said. “No money changed hands. No money went to Brian Mulroney when it has to do with Airbus. I said that in 1999 and if I was still a spokesperson I would say the same thing. Now what happened after he left office is something else.”

KABOOM!! You can't put the pin back in that one.

It would have been more than entertaining to listen to conversations between Mulroney and Lavoie as the week developed. Lavoie was willing to speak for and in defense of Brian Mulroney as long as it was about Airbus, but anything else is too much of a minefield. In short, put the way Lavoie put it, he would feel uncomfortable speaking to Mulroney's activities beyond the Airbus deal.

Shouldn't somebody ask Pete?

Impolitical has a comprehensive summary of the aftermath of the Mulroney/Schreiber hearing. So, go there and then pop on back. We'll wait.

Done? I know. It's a lot to absorb. There was so much happened around this whole affair yesterday that it's difficult to keep track of who's who. But several things occurred in rapid fire succession which might otherwise seem unrelated.

First is Justice Minister Rob Nicholson exercising power he previously said he didn't possess. While the Liberals have been pounding on him to explain, this would appear to be a poll-driven decision. This despite the fact that Harper has made a point of telling us he would not be driven to govern by polls.

On the eve of Schreiber's much-anticipated Thursday appearance before the parliamentary ethics committee, the Justice Department seemed to change its tune, according to the Liberals.

The department consented on Wednesday night to a judicial stay of surrender to give Schreiber time to appeal his case to the Supreme Court of Canada.

An agreement not to challenge the judicial stay of extradition suggested the Justice Department has "offered to use a power it claimed it doesn't have," Dion said Thursday.

"Obviously the department wouldn't even make such an offer if the minister didn't have the power to do so," he said.

Yes, well, if the Harperites were true to their word they would simply extradite Schreiber and let the German government have at him. To the peril of the Conservatives however. Public opinion is bent the other way. Canadians would like to hear what Schreiber knows and if there is indeed any link between Mulroney's dealings and the present crop of Conservatives. Booting Schreiber out would, in the eyes of those polled, present the appearance of a quasi-cover-up. So, despite Harper's words to the contrary, it would appear polls are the major influence in CPoC decision-making. Governance by knee-jerk.

One of the big surprizes though, was Norman Spector, former Mulroney chief of staff. From the sidelines of yesterday's circus Spector made a point of tossing Mulroney directly under a moving bus, tying the former prime minister into an even shadier deal involving Karlheinz Schreiber and linking them with then Nova Scotia MP Elmer MacKay. (Pete's dad).

I wouldn't begin to speculate as to Spector's motivation, however much of what he offered in yesterday's interview supports Schreiber's sparse testimony before the committee.

In 1990, Norman Spector says, the prime minister handed him a tiny white paper and told him to move ahead with a plan to build military vehicles in Nova Scotia.

The directive flew in the face of opposition from bureaucrats in the Department of National Defence, from military brass and from the most senior bureaucrat in the country, Spector told The Canadian Press in an interview.

They each had their own concerns about a proposal from German arms maker Thyssen Industries to open a plant in exchange for a federal grant and a contract to build light-armoured vehicles.

"There was tremendous opposition in the system," Spector said.

He says arms lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber was embroiled in a bitter dispute with senior military officers, who were pleased with similar vehicles already being built by GM in southern Ontario.

Perhaps Spector isn't throwing Mulroney under the bus so much as he's tossing him into the wheels of a Thyssen-built LAV. Back in the day there was more than a little talk about the Thyssen attempt to build a plant in Nova Scotia and the fact that DND was, shall we say, violently opposed to the entire plan. Anywhere one went in the wardrooms and messes of the Canadian Forces there was a conversation about how the whole deal had the stench of someone in the Mulroney government getting rich.

There was also the question of use. Who would they be built for? The Canadian army was already in a deal with GM and the Thyssen LAV was hardly a necessary addition to the Canadian inventory. In fact, there was a strong rumour moving through the bazaars that any Thyssen Henschel LAVs would be delivered as a "Use once, mothball, sell" vehicle, the eventual end user being somewhere "over there". (Across the Atlantic, south of the Equator).

As I said, I don't know Spector's motivation for granting an interview like this on the same day as Schreiber's testimony, but it may have been an attempt to put all the dirt on Mulroney while dry-cleaning Steve Harper.

That won't work in any case because there is some linkage that needs to be brought into the light.

In the whorehouse that is the Conservative Cabinet it would do well to approach the bartender and the piano player. While they claim never to know what's going on upstairs, they have much more knowledge of this than they are willing to let on.

One was very close to the coal-face of the Thyssen attempt and while he may well have been bitterly opposed to the manipulations of Schreiber, he would have information pertinent to the events. I'll leave it to you to work out who that was because, for the time being, we're going to ignore him. The other one, however, needs to be put under a spotlight.

Given the machinations made public by Spector yesterday, Defence Minister Peter MacKay should be wondering when he is going to be hauled before a committee to testify.

The timeline offered by Spector (and Schreiber) suggests that things got hot around the Thyssen deal around 1990 and that it fizzled around 1991. Elmer MacKay had been very much involved and had organized meetings with Karlheinz Schreiber and Spector. Spector claims that his successor, Hugh Segal, still had an active file on the Thyssen Henschel proposal as late as 1992 or 1993, an attempt still being facilitated by Karlheinz Schreiber.

Let's see.... what was young Petey MacKay doing at that time?

You don't say! He was working for Thyssen Henschel company in Kassell, Germany. Right about the time Karlheinz Schreiber is working furiously for the same company trying to get an armoured vehicle plant built in Cape Breton, a deal that Mulroney has removed from the hands of the bureaucracy and handed over to his political staff. Schreiber, also at about that time is alleged to have payed-off Walther Leisler Kiep, the treasurer of the German Christian Democratic Party with 1 million Deutch Marks after a Thyssen deal to sell tanks to Saudi Arabia - an arms sale that was approved by then Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

So, maybe somebody should walk into the whorehouse and grab Petey. Ask him how it is that a brand new lawyer from Dalhousie Law School steps into an overseas job with the same firm trying to wangle a deal from a government in which his father (Elmer MacKay) is a cabinet minister, who, by the way, gave up his safe parliamentary seat temporarily in 1983 to make sure Brian Mulroney could enter parliament.

Harper wanted to capitalize on the Progressive Conservative legacy. There it is, and it's looking a little dirty.

The Brian Mulroney Defence.

If you haven't read CathiefromCanada's summary of Mulroney's building defence, you should do it now.

His Master's Voice

Brian Mulroney demands a full inquiry; Steve Harper makes it so.

Now we know who's running the show.

Oh yeah, this. The RCMP inquiries will, of course, result in, "I cannot comment on a case currently being investigated by the RCMP."

If you didn't see this coming you need to get out from under that rock.

Trouble in the Conservative sandbox

In comments I was asked what my views were Harper's appointment of an independent review of L'Affair Mulroney. I pretty much share Dana's view that it will be a whitewash. In mulling that over however, I came across this new piece by Jennifer Ditchburn at CP. She has some interesting points, not the least of which is a reminder that the Conservative Party of Canada is actually a coalition of former Progressive Conservatives and Reformers.

Brian Mulroney's stint in reputation rehab could be at an end in Canada's conservative circles.

He deftly shed the label of one of the most unpopular outgoing prime ministers in Canadian history, adopting instead the mantle of the wise, elder statesman. In the process, he caught a second wind in Tory politics.

But Mulroney's past just refused to stay in the old Tory closet, and ultimately Harper couldn't afford the liability. As he announced Friday that he would commission an independent probe into allegations of Mulroney's business dealings with controversial businessman Karlheinz Schreiber, Harper also severed ties with his former mentor.

That can't bode well with a lot of Mulroney sycophants. Harper is considered "junior" by many of them and they were more than happy to have Mulroney tossing hints in from the sidelines.

The new Conservative party is an intricate mixture of Canadian Alliance members and Progressive Conservatives, perhaps not completely cohesive after only four years of co-habitation.

Late Friday, some Conservatives were privately wondering what the reaction would be from Tory Senate Leader Marjory LeBreton, who has been a passionate defender of Mulroney's as a former aide and as a friend. Defence Minister Peter MacKay is another Mulroney booster. Other senior Conservatives, including Justice Minister Rob Nicholson and Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon's Chief of Staff, Paul Therrien, also hailed from the Mulroney era.

Harper's pointman on his transition to power in January 2006 was led by Derek Burney, a former Mulroney chief of staff.

The decision to cut Mulroney loose could not have been an easy one for Harper, said some insiders, who said Harper owes much to the elder Tory.

It's that "owing" that creates the problem. Harper, while in opposition and while campaigning made loud noises about cleaning up government despite the fact that his actions have fallen considerably short of his promises.

In one sense, it is a reprise of Mulroney's campaign attack on John Turner when he chewed him up (quite justifiably) for making an unashamed string of political patronage appointments just before an election. Mulroney also campaigned on cleaning up government only to be accused of dirt being hidden in every corner. When it came to government postings, instead of cleaning up the process, Mulroney engaged in an orgy of patronage appointments.

Not that any of that matters much. Mulroney lied, Harper lied and that is standard political fare. But the "owing" part creates a problem for Harper. Mulroney and his brand of conservatives will expect to collect a few markers on this issue and that means a level of protection which they will expect Harper to provide.

Mulroney was instrumental in helping smooth the way for a merger between the Progressive Conservatives and the Canadian Alliance, and in the process became a confidante of Harper's. This was no small feat for a man whose negative image split small c-conservatives in the first place, giving rise to both the Reform Party and the Bloc Quebecois.

Stephen Harper alluded to the rehabilitation of Mulroney in a glowing public speech last April.

"I am delighted to be here with you this evening to pay tribute to a man who is increasingly recognized for all his achievement as prime minister," Harper said, later mentioning Mulroney in the same breath as Pope John Paul II and Ronald Reagan for his efforts to end communism.

Which is an indication the Mulroney conservatives were hard at work in an attempt to change the persona of one of the most hated prime ministers in Canadian history. The cost to Harpers reformers for conservative loyalty was to have Harper reupholster Brian Mulroney.

"There will be no love lost for most Reformers, and most of them would even say it serves to remind our new brothers and sisters in arms what kind of trouble Mulroney was," said [Faron] Ellis, of Alberta's Lethbridge College. "You people were with him, so watch your step."

The Reformers can say what they want. They went into this coalition with their eyes wide open. They simply weren't electable in their Reform/Alliance mode. The "merger" between them and the Progressive Conservatives provided cover and gave them an air of respectability. The taking of the name "Conservative" was camouflage. It was essential to present a picture that the new Conservative Party of Canada was pretty much the same thing as the old Progressive Conservative Party with a sprinkle of Reform added for increased flavour.

The fact is, the inverse was true. To hide that fact, besides the name, sidling up to Mulroney while making an effort to power polish off the oxidized paint Mulroney left behind was a way to portray the new Conservative Party as "safe". The public closeness was a deliberate move to gather in all those former PC supporters and swing voters who wouldn't have voted Reform/Alliance if you held a gun to their heads.

Now the Harperites are paying for that little performance. Suspicion has always surrounded Mulroney. They were willing to hide it to get the benefit of appearing to be more PC than Reform. The result is that they are now directly associated with a former prime minister who was almost universally loathed and is now suspected of having committed a possible breach of trust.

Harper's insistence that all communications with Mulroney be severed is going to be difficult, and it won't change that there was a buddy-buddy relationship of which the Harper took full advantage. Now it looks like Harper may well have manipulated himself into a position of wearing Mulroney's stain.

"The Conservative Party that Mr. Harper has built with former Progressive Conservatives like Peter MacKay and (Industry Minister) Jim Prentice is very, very strong and very respectful of the strengths that both sides bring to the table. That won't be at all at risk," said Geoff Norquay, a former Mulroney staffer and ex-communications director for Harper.

Just the fact that Norquay had to come out and say it suggests things aren't all that rosy. And look at what Norquay said: "... that both sides bring to the table."

This is not cohesive union.