The man at the centre of the Helena Guergis controversy plans to tell a House of Commons committee that he was being “over enthusiastic” when he told colleagues in an e-mail that Ms. Guergis’s husband, Rahim Jaffer, had “opened up the Prime Minister’s office to us.”
In a letter sent Tuesday to the clerk of a parliamentary committee looking into Mr. Jaffer’s alleged lobbying, Toronto businessman Nazim Gillani says he will aim to set the public record straight when he appears before the committee next week.
“Jaffer didn’t say those words,” the letter states, according to Mr. Gillani’s spokesman, Brian Kilgore. “Because the ‘opening doors’ comment is so widely circulated and so often misconstrued as coming from Mr. Jaffer and not its actual source, Mr. Gillani, we felt this was important to clarify before the start of the hearings.”
Mr. Jaffer, a former Alberta MP, is to stand before the committee Wednesday to answer questions about lobbying allegations and the nature of his relationship with Mr. Gillani. That relationship, first revealed by the Toronto Star, has enveloped both Mr. Jaffer and Ms. Guergis in a widening scandal. Prime Minister Stephen Harper removed Ms. Guergis from cabinet, and referred the matter to the parliamentary ethics commissioner and the RCMP.
The e-mail that sparked much of the controversy was sent by Mr. Gillani on Sept. 11, the day after a dinner in Toronto with Mr. Jaffer and a group of business colleagues. Mr. Jaffer was arrested on his way home from the dinner and charged with impaired driving, cocaine possession and speeding. Those charges were later dropped and Mr. Jaffer pleaded guilty to careless driving.
In the e-mail, Mr. Gillani said: “Mr. Jaffer has opened up the Prime Minister’s office to us.”
Mr. Gillani says in his letter to the committee clerk that Mr. Jaffer did not go nearly that far during the dinner. He only outlined some lobbying services, according to Mr. Kilgore.
“At the end of the dinner, Gillani believed that Jaffer had the ability to provide government-relations services that would help Gillani’s clients,” he said.
Mr. Jaffer is not registered as a lobbyist, and in the end he was never hired to do any work for Mr. Gillani or his clients, Mr. Kilgore added.
However, Mr. Kilgore said that Mr. Jaffer was among those who received the e-mail and he never called Mr. Gillani to correct the impression it left.
“Jaffer did receive a copy of that e-mail the next day, along with some other people, and nobody called Gillani to say, ‘Well that’s over the top, he’s not going to open doors to the Prime Minister’s office,’ ” Mr. Kilgore said.
It’s still not clear how Mr. Gillani and Mr. Jaffer met.
Mr. Kilgore said the two were introduced in 2009 by a mutual friend. Although they were not personally close, they met several times, according to Mr. Kilgore.
During his appearance before the committee, Mr. Gillani will discuss his relationship with Mr. Jaffer, including a dinner involving Mr. Jaffer and Ms. Guergis.
Mr. Gillani has insisted that dinner was social, according to Mr. Kilgore.
The committee is expected to grill Mr. Jaffer and his business partner at Green Power Generation Corp., Patrick Glémaud.
Liberal MP Mark Holland said the goal will be to explore whether the pair engaged in any lobbying activities as they sought federal green funds in recent months, and to find out whether Mr. Jaffer used some of Ms. Guergis’s parliamentary resources, such as a BlackBerry and e-mail address, for personal matters.
“The question that needs to be asked is: What was Mr. Jaffer up to? What proposals did he put in front of the government? Did he try to receive government cash, as has been alleged, for different projects?” Mr. Holland told reporters.
Mr. Holland said the committee needs to stay away from allegations related to personal conduct.
“The committee must make sure that its questions are focused, and it needs to stay away from the more salacious, torrid details,” Mr. Holland said.
Mr. Gillani is scheduled to appear in a Toronto-area courtroom Wednesday, facing charges of fraud in an unrelated case.
To watch the live blog of Mr. Jaffer's testimony click here, or watch in the panel below.
