Documents show Jaffer used wife’s parliamentary resources to lobby government

OTTAWA – Canwest News Service has obtained new documents that show former MP Rahim Jaffer used the parliamentary resources provided to his wife, fired cabinet minister Helena Guergis, to lobby his former Conservative caucus colleagues and government officials in order to obtain hundreds of millions of dollars in federal government financing.

The documents also show that Jaffer’s requests were treated by bureaucrats "on a priority basis" in some cases.

Separately on Wednesday, a parliamentary committee received a copy of a contract signed by Jaffer’s firm, Green Power Generation (GPG), with Toronto financier Nazim Gillani that would have rewarded GPG with a "finder’s fee" for helping Gillani land financing for new business projects. That financing, Gillani told the committee, was expected to include federal government funds.

A week ago, in testimony to the same committee, Jaffer denied he had ever lobbied government officials or used his wife’s government-supplied office, BlackBerry or e-mail account for business while his business partner testified there was never any contract with Gillani to seek government funds.

"Rahim Jaffer lied his ass off to us," NDP MP Pat Martin told the House of Commons Government Operations and Estimates committee.

The documents obtained by Canwest News Service include copies of several e-mails sent from Guergis’s parliamentary e-mail account between July 2009 and March of this year that are signed "Rahim" or say "It’s Rahim here."

Meanwhile, Gillani gave the parliamentary committee several e-mails and other documents relating to his business dealings with Jaffer and Jaffer’s business partner, Patrick Glemaud. The evidence supplied by Gillani raises serious doubts about the credibility of both men.

Glemaud, a former Conservative candidate and a former Justice Department lawyer, testified at the House of Commons committee last week that while he and Gillani talked about establishing a business relationship, there was never a formal agreement. "We didn’t enter into any contracts with him whatsoever," Glemaud told MPs.

But Gillani produced a contract that Glemaud and Gillani had signed.

Neither Jaffer nor Glemaud responded to attempts by Canwest News Service for comment.

Gillani told the committee that Glemaud personally made revisions to the contract and called Gillani to speak about the wording of some sections.

The contract the two signed, said that Jaffer and Glemaud, through their company GPG, "represent that it is in ongoing dialogue with and has valuable connections to and with the government of Canada…for purposes of providing participatory and non-participatory government funding."

In the contract, Gillani agrees to pay GPG a "specific fee/profit sharing arrangements" on a project-by-project basis as well as a "finder/advisory fee, on any and all introductions for financings."

It is illegal for lobbyists to accept contingency fees or engage in a "pay-for-performance" contract where federal government financing is involved.

Neither Glemaud nor Jaffer are registered lobbyists.

Canwest News Service has learned that Parliament’s lobbying commissioner has been supplied with more than 50 pages of evidence that Jaffer had several meetings and communications with a wide variety of political and bureaucratic officials to further his business interests.

Gillani was aware of some of the projects referred to in the documents provided to the lobbying commissioner and unaware of others.

In any event, the government has said that none of the projects Jaffer was promoting ever received any government funds.

The documentary record provided to the lobbying commissioner includes copies of e-mails Jaffer sent from his wife’s parliamentary e-mail account seeking meetings and funding approval from several politicians and bureaucrats across several departments.

Last week, during his testimony, Jaffer was asked by Martin if he ever used Guergis’s e-mail account and her government-issued BlackBerry mobile device.

He said then: "The only reason I ever used the BlackBerry was to keep track of what my wife’s schedule was, and that was it. I have separate business accounts, separate business e-mail – everything."

But the documents obtained by Canwest News Service show:

“¢ A series of e-mails originating from Guergis’s account and signed "Rahim" that were sent to Conservative MP Brian Jean and his staff. Jaffer and his business Glemaud, his partner, were trying to get Jean, who is the parliamentary secretary to the minister of infrastructure, to sign off on as much as $135 million in federal funds for three projects they were promoting.

“¢ An e-mail originating from Guergis’s account, dated March 17, 2010 that begins "it’s Rahim here" that was sent to a senior aide in the office of Industry Minister Tony Clement. Jaffer was asking David Pierce, Clement’s director of parliamentary affairs, for information about the government’s plans to lift foreign ownership restrictions in the telecommunications sector.

“¢ E-mails from September 2009 originated from Guergis’s account and signed "Rahim" in which Jaffer asks a senior aide to MP Diane Ablonczy, who was then the minister of state for small business and tourism, for a meeting on behalf of a friend who once helped Jaffer with his political career. No meeting was ever arranged for Jaffer.

The lobbying commissioner has been provided with other e-mails originating from Jaffer’s personal or GPG accounts in which Jaffer asks the associate deputy minister at Western Economic Diversification, the federal government’s regional development agency for the West, for a $700,000 federal investment in a project he and Glemaud were working on.

Last week, Jaffer testified to MPs: "The extent of our business is to advise people, from experience that both Mr. Glemaud and I have had with government. By no means do we ever try to secure public funding."

And yet, the associated deputy minister, Doug Maley, instructed bureaucrats working for him to review Jaffer’s proposal "on a priority basis."

Jaffer also sought a series of meetings with officials from Public Works and Government Services Canada – Jaffer even specified that he wanted to meet with the deputy minister – about a proposal to put solar panels on the rooftops of government buildings.

E-mails provided to Canwest News Service show that the political staff to the then-public works minister Christian Paradis were concerned that it was taking too long to respond to Jaffer’s proposal for solar panels.

"This sector has had this for weeks. What’s the holdup?" Paradis’ aide Sebastien Togneri wrote in a Sept. 30 e-mail to a top bureaucrat in the department.

But as damning as the evidence appears to be for Jaffer on the issue of illegal or improper lobbying, Gillani provided testimony that may simultaneously help Jaffer’s wife Guergis clear her name while at the same time, raises new questions about Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s judgment.

On April 9, Harper fired Guergis from cabinet, kicked her out of the Conservative caucus, and called in the RCMP and ethics commissioner to investigate her conduct.

A private investigator, Derrick Snowdy, told the Prime Minister’s Office on April 8 that Gillani had boasted of cellphone photographs that showed Guergis and Jaffer in the presence of cocaine users and prostitutes. Snowdy, though, has said he had never seen the photographs.

Harper has called the information provided to him about Guergis "credible."

Snowdy had been investigating Gillani on behalf of a client who lost money on a business deal with the financier.

Gillani told the House of Commons government operations and estimates committee that no such photographs ever existed and that he had never seen Jaffer use cocaine.

Gillani also raised questions about Snowdy’s credibility, hinting Snowdy may have had an axe to grind with Gillani over a failed business deal in which Snowdy was a shareholder and Gillani was an investor.

Gillani’s credibility is also an issue for MPs probing the affair as he faces fraud charges on a separate matter.