Chuck Cadman's ethics

Mike Duffy says that, three years ago, Chuck Cadman led him to believe that he was voting to sustain the Liberals because it would be the best way to maximize his insurance benefits.

That sounds about right. Certainly, Cadman didn't vote with the Liberals out of conviction -- his raison d'etre was his opposition to the Young Offenders Act, a centrepiece of Liberal criminal justice policy.

Below is my column that I wrote at the time for the Calgary Sun. I didn't know what benefit Cadman could possibly get from the Liberals. But Duffy's private conversation with Cadman explains it -- he simply got to avoid an election, so his family did not have to go uninsured even for a five-week election campaign.

There has been a lot of talk these past days about ethics -- the Conservatives' ethics, the Liberals' ethics, even the media's ethics. But no-one has dared to question Cadman's own ethics. It's best not to speak ill of the dead, and Cadman was a good man who led a noble life, and suffered too much in too many ways. But his final political act, though it's unpleasant to mention it, was a betrayal of the principles he claimed to believe in, and all for a few weeks of extra insurance coverage. Of course Paul Martin blurbed the book.

I worked with Chuck Cadman for two years on Parliament Hill when he was first elected a Reform MP. As a politician, there are really only two things to know about the man: He was appalled by the soft Liberal approach to youth crime -- his son had been murdered, which is what spurred him to enter politics -- and he refused to learn Ottawa's vocabulary of B.S. and spin. He was blunt and honest and didn't practise the blacker political arts.

That second trait is why he lost his Conservative Party nomination to a local television personality last year, who bussed in hundreds of instant party members for the vote. And it's also why he won the general election anyways, beating that carpet-bagger and returning to Parliament as the only independent elected in 2004.

Tough on crime and plain spoken. Which is exactly not the Cadman we saw on TV voting to save the Liberals last week.

Sure, it looked like Cadman -- pony-tailed, chewing on gum as he voted, barely containing a smile as Liberals cheered for him. But nothing else clicked.

Why did Cadman, who has spent eight years scorching the Liberals on youth crime, suddenly save that same Liberal party and its policies -- instead of allowing the Conservatives a chance to implement the youth justice policy Cadman himself helped write?

But what about the other half of the man -- that no-baloney style? For weeks, Cadman had hummed and hawed over whether he'd vote for the Liberals.

He hinted and feinted, mugging for the cameras, talking about polls and feelings, sounding like a cross between a high school drama student overacting the part of Hamlet, and, well, a Liberal.

A Liberal named Tim Murphy, to be exact. Murphy is Paul Martin's chief of staff, the one caught on tape trying to get Conservative MP Gurmant Grewal to vote with the Liberals. Murphy told Grewal not to defect outright, like Belinda Stronach did, and not to make a fuss. He told Grewal not to admit to any deal. He told Grewal to explain a vote in support of the Liberals as something his "constituents" would have wanted, so as to avoid an election.

Those were the official excuses written by Murphy for Grewal. And they happened to be exactly what Cadman had been so unconvincingly muttering for a week.

Stronach admitted her treachery by crossing the floor -- she took the political hit for being a traitor, but she got her reward immediately by being appointed to cabinet.

Cadman followed Murphy's suggested talking points to Grewal -- don't cross the floor, stay calm, pretend it's about the voters back home -- as if voters in Surrey, B.C., don't desperately want to turf the Liberals.

But what else did Murphy say to Grewal? He said to wait -- further discussions would be held. Rewards could come later, once press scrutiny dies down a bit and the Liberals are no longer in such jeopardy.

I used to trust Cadman, when he was about a stricter young offenders act and straight talk. But now he's about supporting a criminal-coddling party and mouthing incredible pro-Liberal talking points.

I thought I could despise nothing more than Stronach's showy sell-out. Well, I can -- it's a man who doesn't have the honesty to admit to his party, his neighbours or the public that he sold out.

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