Guergis breaks silence on scandal
Helena Guergis broke her silence Monday, telling the CBC in an exclusive interview that a month after her highly publicized ouster from the Conservative caucus she still doesn't know anything about the "serious allegations" that prompted her dismissal.
"I don't even know what the allegations are," the former junior cabinet minister said in an interview with Peter Mansbridge, the CBC's chief correspondent. "Just put it on the table. Let me see it. Let me defend myself. Give me the opportunity to stand up for myself."
When Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Guergis's resignation on April 9, he cited only "serious allegations" from a credible source and said he'd forwarded them to the RCMP.
Guergis, who was travelling in the Dominican Republic at the time with her husband, Rahim Jaffer, recalls getting the phone call notifying her of the coming announcement. She greeted the news at first with silence, then with tears and a barrage of questions.
"What have I done?" she remembers asking during the five-minute call. "I don't understand what you're talking about. What are you talking about?"
P.O.V.:
Helena Guergis: Do you have more sympathy for her following the TV interview?
The MP for the Ontario riding of Simcoe-Grey, who now sits as an Independent Conservative, says both she and her lawyer have since contacted the RCMP multiple times, offering to assist in any way. The RCMP have yet to contact her, she says.
'Rule books out the window'
When she called the party lawyer shortly after speaking with the prime minister, Guergis says she was asked about a Toronto Star article published a day earlier. The article detailed the night last September when her husband, a former Conservative MP, was charged with impaired driving and cocaine possession. Jaffer later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of careless driving.
The lawyer, Guergis says, told her the allegations against her were "salacious." The Star article alleged that Jaffer, a former Alberta MP, boasted about his influence with Harper's inner circle and joined a Toronto businessman at a party with high-class escorts.
Since then, the couple have been embroiled in a media storm that includes allegations of offshore accounts, illegal lobbying and conflicts of interest.
Guergis has periodically released media statements during her ordeal, but the CBC interview marks the first time she's spoken to the news media. In the interview, she denies all the allegations against her and her husband.
The former minister for the status of women accuses the Conservative Party of treating her unfairly.
"I feel as though they've thrown the rule books out the window, that they're not respecting due process at all. I find it very undemocratic.
"I'm hurt by the prime minister. I am hurt because I did consider him to be a friend as well, so I find that very hard to deal with."
Charlottetown tantrum
It may have marked the beginning of the downward spiral for Helena Guergis's career: the day when the MP threw a fit at the Charlottetown Airport.
An anonymous letter accused the politician of having a tantrum, throwing her boots, swearing and denigrating Prince Edward Island as she tried to get through security on Feb. 19.
For the first time, the news media have been given access to security video of the incident. CBC's Peter Mansbridge accompanied Guergis to the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority's office in Ottawa to view the tapes shot from five different angles of the moments when Guergis went through security. CBC was not allowed to bring cameras into the building.
But Mansbridge described it as "pretty tame stuff." At no time does she throw her boots. Nor does she wave her arms around, he said.
"I can tell you I have seen a lot worse on most of my trips through Canadian airports of people being upset about what they were being put through," Mansbridge said.
Guergis did, however, admit to some of the alleged comments.
"I said 'Happy effing birthday' to myself under my breath and 'I’m stuck in this hellhole.' Now, I didn't recall saying that at all, but when I heard that I had said that I know that I said that about every airport. Airports in general are hellholes. I just want to go home."
Guergis also conceded she didn't have a pleasant conversation with an Air Canada representative upon arrival at the airport. The encounter was not included in the security footage.
Last week, the Conservative Party took the additional step of dropping Guergis as a future nominee in her Simcoe-Grey riding. She is fighting the decision.
"I feel as though I've gone through a trial, I have been convicted and now I'm been sentenced. And I still don't know what it is I'm supposed to have done."
Allegation 'laughable'
Guergis vehemently denies allegations she participated in a dinner with Toronto businessman Nazim Gillani that involved escorts and cocaine, calling it "absolutely false."
She called accusations the couple have offshore accounts "laughable" and denies her husband ever illegally lobbied the government.
"He promised that he would never do that and cause a conflict for me," she said.
Since last Sept. 11, when Rahim Jaffer was pulled over on a rural road in the southern Ontario community of Palgrave, northwest of Toronto, on allegations of cocaine possession and drunk driving, Guergis says she has felt "isolated" by her party.
Though she met with the prime minister and his staff shortly after Jaffer's arrest and agreed it wouldn't become an issue for her political career, Guergis says it has been "pretty clear" to her the prime minister dislikes her husband. She says she wonders if that dislike contributed to her turfing.
Guergis also denies Jaffer ever used her office for business purposes. The former MP only kept boxes there after his defeat in the Oct. 14, 2008, election after 12 years representing the Edmonton-Strathcona riding, she says.
"He didn't use my office for anything work related. ... He had to close down both of his offices, the one in Edmonton and the one on the Hill. He had to be out in two weeks."
Wants to continue in politics
Mansbridge also questioned Guergis about a letter she wrote last September to local officials in her Ontario riding, touting a division of a waste management firm that the company co-founded by her husband had pitched to the federal government as a "shovel-ready" project to be considered for green fund money.
"Now as I look at it, I wish I hadn't written the letter," she said. "But at the time, I assured myself, by asking my husband very clearly. He answered me with no, that there was nothing to worry about, nothing whatsoever."
Her husband, Jaffer, co-founded Green Power Generation, with Patrick Glémaud. One of the proposals signed by Glémaud names Green Rite Solutions Inc., the marketing arm of Wright Tech Systems Inc., which was the waste management firm touted by Guergis.
"As I look at it now, there was clearly a miscommunication between Rahim and Patrick in my mind, that they should have been communicating."
Guergis says the scandal has been devastating, not only for her but also for her family, active in politics for decades. She is determined to survive it.
"I'm not ready to give up my political career."
And she won't cave in to advice to dump her husband to save her career, she says.
"If people in your family make mistakes you don't turn your back on them," Guergis said, pausing to fight back tears. "You stick with them and you work through it and I am committed to my marriage."