Harper’s lawyers attack defamation suit from former cabinet minister Guergis
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...rmer-cabinet-minister-guergis/article4425014/
A lawyer for Prime Minister Stephen Harper delivered a withering assessment Wednesday of a defamation case brought by former cabinet minister Helena Guergis, calling parts of her claim “gibberish” and “a fiction.”
Ms. Guergis has filed a $1.3-million lawsuit against Mr. Harper, the Conservative party and several figures inside the Tory government alleging defamation, conspiracy, “misfeasance in public office,” infliction of mental suffering and negligence.
Former Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer sought military secrets: court filings | Canadian Politics | Canada | News | National Post
Former Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer sought secret information about Canadian military satellite technology after meeting with state-owned Chinese technology companies in China in 2010, according to a document filed in an Ottawa courthouse Tuesday by private investigator Derrick Snowdy.
Snowdy is being sued by Jaffer’s wife, Helena Guergis, for defamation, along with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the Conservative Party of Canada and a number of senior officials who were involved with Guergis’s expulsion from the Conservative caucus in April 2010 in the “busty hookers” scandal.
Guergis resigned from cabinet and was expelled from the Conservative caucus the day after the Toronto Star reported that Jaffer and business associates had partied with escorts at a pricey Toronto restaurant the night that Jaffer was charged with cocaine possession.
On his return, Jaffer wrote to David Pierce, then the director of parliamentary affairs to then industry minister Tony Clement, with detailed questions about the Canadian government’s “long-term space policy” regarding Radarsat Constellation, a high-technology earth-observation satellite being developed by MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates with more than $500 million in federal funding.
On March 16, 2010, Jaffer, using an email address belonging to Guergis’s MP account, wrote that he had “a few questions on behalf of some constituents who are friends of Helena and I.”
He then asks, in the email, about the government’s plans for the satellite program, including its sensitive “automatic identification system,” a military system used to identify vessels in Canadian waters.
“I know these are very technical questions and I have pretty much copied and pasted their request directly to you,” Jaffer wrote in the email to Pierce.
In a letter to ethics commissioner Mary Dawson on April 16, 2010, after Guergis left the government, Pierce wrote that he also spoke to Jaffer on March 17 but did not pass on any information about Canada’s space program.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...rmer-cabinet-minister-guergis/article4425014/
A lawyer for Prime Minister Stephen Harper delivered a withering assessment Wednesday of a defamation case brought by former cabinet minister Helena Guergis, calling parts of her claim “gibberish” and “a fiction.”
Ms. Guergis has filed a $1.3-million lawsuit against Mr. Harper, the Conservative party and several figures inside the Tory government alleging defamation, conspiracy, “misfeasance in public office,” infliction of mental suffering and negligence.
Former Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer sought military secrets: court filings | Canadian Politics | Canada | News | National Post
Former Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer sought secret information about Canadian military satellite technology after meeting with state-owned Chinese technology companies in China in 2010, according to a document filed in an Ottawa courthouse Tuesday by private investigator Derrick Snowdy.
Snowdy is being sued by Jaffer’s wife, Helena Guergis, for defamation, along with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the Conservative Party of Canada and a number of senior officials who were involved with Guergis’s expulsion from the Conservative caucus in April 2010 in the “busty hookers” scandal.
Guergis resigned from cabinet and was expelled from the Conservative caucus the day after the Toronto Star reported that Jaffer and business associates had partied with escorts at a pricey Toronto restaurant the night that Jaffer was charged with cocaine possession.
On his return, Jaffer wrote to David Pierce, then the director of parliamentary affairs to then industry minister Tony Clement, with detailed questions about the Canadian government’s “long-term space policy” regarding Radarsat Constellation, a high-technology earth-observation satellite being developed by MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates with more than $500 million in federal funding.
On March 16, 2010, Jaffer, using an email address belonging to Guergis’s MP account, wrote that he had “a few questions on behalf of some constituents who are friends of Helena and I.”
He then asks, in the email, about the government’s plans for the satellite program, including its sensitive “automatic identification system,” a military system used to identify vessels in Canadian waters.
“I know these are very technical questions and I have pretty much copied and pasted their request directly to you,” Jaffer wrote in the email to Pierce.
In a letter to ethics commissioner Mary Dawson on April 16, 2010, after Guergis left the government, Pierce wrote that he also spoke to Jaffer on March 17 but did not pass on any information about Canada’s space program.
