Ablonczy backs down on PM probe
Sun Media--January 02, 2001
CALGARY (CP) -- Canadian Alliance MP Diane Ablonczy backpedalled Tuesday on her earlier stand that a criminal investigation is unwarranted into the prime minister's efforts to help secure a federal loan for a constituent.
The Calgary lawyer and high-profile Alliance MP said police should continue pursuing an investigation into a $650,000 loan Jean Chretien helped get for a constituent.
"I think he's far from off the hook on this," Ablonczy said of the prime minister.
"He has actually brought forward no evidence that his actions were completely above question." Ablonczy, one of the harshest critics of federal schemes to help business, recently told the National Post that Chretien's actions don't warrant a criminal investigation. "I don't think it is a criminal matter," she said.
Alliance leader Stockwell Day said he talked to Ablonczy on Tuesday about her comments. "We're absolutely on the same page on this," said Day before boarding a flight from Calgary to his Penticton, B.C., riding. Day said the newspaper torqued the story. "I think it's a case maybe of some exuberant reporter trying to do a little ankle biting," he said. But Ablonczy said the reporter, who is the Post's Ottawa bureau chief, didn't misunderstand her comments. She would only say that, "newspaper stories don't always get all the nuances, especially in a complex matter like this."
Speaking from her Calgary home Tuesday, Ablonczy said she didn't believe there was sufficient evidence to charge Chretien under the Business Development Bank Act. But police should continue to pursue a criminal investigation under the Criminal Code, she said.
During the election campaign, Progressive Conservative Leader Joe Clark and Day both hinted at potential criminal wrongdoing in Chretien's efforts to secure a mortgage from the federal bank in 1997 for Yvon Duhaime, owner of the Auberge Grand-Mere hotel in Shawinigan, Que., where Chretien's riding is located. At Clark's request, the RCMP is investigating to determine whether to launch a criminal probe and plans to meet with him later this month to discuss his request. Ablonczy said she backs the two party leaders.
"Whether in a broader sense, the Criminal code was violated, Clark and Day feel there is," she said. "If they feel it needs to be investigated, then I clearly support that."
But she worried that the reputations of opposition parties may be tarnished if the RCMP find nothing wrong with Chretien's actions.
"People always say to take politicians with a grain of salt," she said. "So I always like to have as much evidence backing up serious charges as I possibly can."
Chretien has admitted that he lobbied the president of the federally-owned bank to approve the loan for Duhaime, who purchased the hotel from a company partly owned by Chretien before he became prime minister.
The federal ethics counsellor has ruled that Chretien's involvement did not violate any rule. |
