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Explaining Shawinigate

It is not difficult to discern what Canadians feel about the controversy referred to, variously, as “Shawinigate” or “The Grand-Mere Affair.”

One poll, conducted two weeks ago by Ipsos-Reid, indicated that a majority of Canadians - 54 per cent - wanted the Opposition to finally “drop the issue,” quote unquote. Another Ipsos-Reid survey, released just two days ago, found an even larger number of Canadians - nearly 80 per cent* - wanted the Opposition to “move on.”

Notwithstanding the clear wishes of Canadians, however, the Official Opposition - in this case, the National Post, aided and abetted by its Alliance supplicant, Stockwell Day - continues to fling filth in the direction of Prime Minister Jean Chretien. They do so because they do not care what Canadians regard as Parliamentary priorities. They do so because they have convinced themselves that Canadians, while disinterested in the details of their imagined scandal, may be interested in dirt.

Following so much “reporting” in the Post, following an abundance of manufactured Question Period outrage, Canadians are still left wondering what, exactly, is so very controversial. Let us, then, examine the principal allegations of the Post and its Parliamentary sycophants, and respond to each.

Did Jean Chretien sell his interest in the Grand-Mere Golf Club before he became Prime Minister? Yes. On November 1, 1993, according to the bill of sale, he sold his golf club shares - approximately 22 per cent, held by his family’s holding company - to Akimbo Development Corporation, for $300,000. The legal agreement was drawn up by Akimbo’s owner, Toronto businessman Jonas Prince, in his own hand. As any first-year law student would know, a contract happens when an offer is made by one person to another and an acceptance of that offer by the person to whom it is made. Mr. Prince offered to buy Mr. Chretien’s shares, for a set price, and the offer was accepted. That is a contract. Whether or not Mr. Prince subsequently paid all of the offering price, from an ethical perspective, is utterly immaterial: Mr. Chretien had done all that he could reasonably do to separate himself from the golf course. He ceased to be the owner of shares, or to have any control. (And, by the way, he lost a lot of money in the deal.)

Did Jean Chretien sell his interest in the Auberge Grand-Mere before he became Prime Minister? Yes. On April 16, 1993, a numbered company in which Mr. Chretien’s family had a one-quarter interest sold its shares in this Shawinigan hotel to Yvon Duhaime, a local businessman. Notwithstanding the names, notwithstanding the sophistry of the Post or the Alliance or the Tories, the Auberge Grand-Mere is not, legally or otherwise, the Grand-Mere Golf Club. They are separate legal entities. Mr. Chretien received full payment for his interest in the Auberge in the Summer of 1993, many weeks before he became Prime Minister. No fair person can argue that he had, at that point, any interest whatsoever in the Auberge Grand-Mere. His only subsequent “interest” in the hotel, in fact, was that of a Member of Parliament, seeking to help a local business achieve success.

Was Jean Chretien acting properly when he contacted a federal Crown Corporation, and asked it to provide financial assistance to the Auberge Grand-Mere? Yes. The federal Ethics Counsellor has twice determined that, in contacting the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) on behalf of a constituent seeking a loan - the above-noted Mr. Duhaime - he was doing what MPs are supposed to do: “In our constitutional system,” the Counsellor told Conservative leader Joe Clark, “one of the most important responsibilities that Members of Parliament have is to represent the interests of their constituents.” The RCMP determined the same thing, stating that there were no grounds, at all, for “pursuing a criminal investigation into this matter.” Messrs. Clark and Day do not like the RCMP’s conclusion, obviously, but one can be certain they will not protest too much. During their respective tenures in government, both regularly authorized their personal staff to contact (or they themselves contacted) Crown corporations on behalf of constituents. In this, they were like Mr. Chretien: they were merely doing their jobs, in a manner that the law permits.

Was there a conflict of interest when Jean Chretien urged BDC to help the Auberge when he had yet to be fully paid for his golf course shares? No, no and no. After two years of ordure being cast about without regard to anyone’s reputation, this is what this story comes down to: an unsubstantiated allegation that Mr. Chretien’s interventions on behalf of one business somehow benefited an unrelated business in which he allegedly had an interest. Mr. Justice W.D. Parker, who many journalists are quoting these days - and who presided at the judicial inquiry into conflicts of interest by one of Mr. Clark’s friends - places a key phrase at the centre of all of his attempts to define real, potential and apparent conflicts of interest. That phrase is “private economic interest.” Without such an interest, there can be no conflict. In Jean Chretien’s case - as the above facts hopefully make clear - he did not have any “private economic interest” in the Auberge Grand-Mere when he was Prime Minister. He had sold it, long before. In the case of the Grand-Mere Golf Course, too, Mr. Chretien had done all he could reasonably do to divest himself of his interest before he assumed office. The law of contract, and the facts, tell us that he had entered into a binding agreement to strip himself of his private economic interest.

Those are the facts. But if this matter had been about facts, the controversy would have been abandoned by the Opposition and the Post long ago. It is, instead, about political blood lust.

As one who has worked for Mr. Chretien, I know one thing, and believe another: I know the Prime Minister has been through far, far worse, and emerged stronger. And I believe that Messrs. Day and Clark will end up being the losers in this affair.

That, too, is the view of Bob Richardson, a senior vice-president at Ipsos-Reid. Mr. Richardson says that his agency’s polling means this: “Canadians think Joe Clark and Stockwell Day should head to the nineteenth hole. This is much ado about nothing.”

A final question, therefore, remains: will the National Post or Messrs. Day and Clark drop this matter, as Canadians want them to?

Of course not. To fair-minded people, “Shawinigate” has lost its legitimacy. But the partisans at the Post - and Messrs. Day and Clark - long ago stopped being fair. They are now something else entirely, something beyond words.

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