Ottawa Centre MP Mac Harb is persisting in his claim that he and the Liberals were victims of an Alliance conspiracy last week.
It began when Auditor General Denis Desautels released a report exposing the Liberals’ mismanagement of federal finances.
The public accounts committee, run by the opposition, was scheduled to hold a meeting involving the nine Liberal membersand the auditor general.
But the meeting didn’t happen.
Nine Liberals, including Harb, didn’t show up. Without the Liberal there could be no hearing, and the meeting was cancelled.
According to Harb, committee chair and Alliance MP John Williams changed the room at the last minute. Harb says he wasn’t informed about the change in rooms, so it was a deliberate attempt to exclude the Liberals from he debate.
When he arrived at the empty room, Harb says he assumed the meeting was cancelled.
Harb denied the Liberals skipped the meeting to avoid a messy debate before the election was called two days later, saying he has seen worse auditor general’s reports in his three years on the committee.
“Why did they (the Alliance) change the room? Why did they change the room?” he said in a raised voice.
Although there was an e-mail sent out to notify people about the room change, Harb says his office receives over 300 e-mails every day.
The other federal election candidates in Ottawa Centre are cynical about his explanation.
“It’s not hard to find meetings in Parliament,” says David Brown of the Alliance.
He adds it was careless and insensitive for Harb to miss the meeting.
Brown adds he hasn’t heard of any Alliance conspiracy.
“This will stick to Mac Harb,” he says.
On the other side of the spectrum, NDP candidate Heather-jane Robertson says it “strains credulity” that Harb could not get to the meeting on time.
She also says the conspiracy theory is equally unbelievable. “It’s another one of Mac Harb’s foolish statements,” she says.
Meanwhile, rookie Conservative candidate David Longbottom had no comment on the matter, saying he didn’t want to involve himself in this issue.
The meeting was eventually held last Friday. But being absent from the public accounts committee on the eve of an election is nothing new to the Liberals.
On April 23, 1997, the public accounts committee cancelled a meeting because the Liberals didn’t show up. On April 25, the Liberal whip issued an apology to the auditor general.
A week ago, the government whip Bob Kilger wrote an apology to Desautels, two days after the Liberals didn’t show up for this year’s meeting.
On April 27, 1997, an election was called. This year, two days after Kilger’s apology, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien called an election for Nov. 27.