VANCOUVER — Jodi Cadman says her late father, Independent MP Chuck Cadman, told her on his deathbed about an alleged offer from the federal Conservatives to gain his pivotal budget vote and topple the government.
She says she doesn't know for sure why he publicly denied the offer prior to that, but she has a pretty good idea.
“It's speculation on my part,” Ms. Cadman said Friday in an interview with The Canadian Press.
“Part of it is, he was at the end of his life, so did he want it all encompassing to do with this? We sat down; we had family time.”
In a biography of Chuck Cadman, due out in two weeks, his wife Dona says he told her two Conservative representatives offered him a $1-million life-insurance policy and other inducements in exchange for his tie-breaking vote against the minority Liberal government's May, 2005 budget.
A vote with the his former Conservative colleagues against the Liberal budget would have triggered an election.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, leader of the Opposition at the time, has denied the allegation. The RCMP is investigating the claim at the request of Liberal Opposition Leader Stéphane Dion.
In a TV interview after the May 19 vote, Mr. Cadman said he was not offered anything for his vote.
“This is such a huge firestorm, and he knew it would be, I would assume,” said Jodi Cadman, a makeup artist and instructor. “I just don't know if he wanted to really deal with it, for one.
“And two, there is no evidence; there's no paper trail. There's nothing really to substantiate his claims.
“So, I think there was that feeling also that if you don't have concrete, hard proof, so to speak, I just don't think he would have come forward with it.”
Mr. Cadman was battling malignant melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. He flew back to Ottawa for the crucial vote, then returned home, where he died July 9, 2005.
Mr. Harper – along with the two senior Tories who met with Mr. Cadman in his Ottawa office – say he was offered help in returning to the party and regaining the Conservative nomination in his riding, and nothing else.
Cadman's wife, daughter and son-in-law have all said he told them of the alleged offer as he lay dying.
“I'd just go in and hang out in the room with him, because he's bed-ridden at that point, and we were just talking about the vote,” Jodi Cadman said. “I was completely shocked, and I was really upset.”
She said the offer of life insurance was all the worse for the cold choice it offered – sacrificing one's principles in exchange for a lifeline to the family of a dying man.
“I was very emotional about it because it really broke my heart to know he was put into a position in some ways to stand up for what you believe but also put an offer that would take care of your family, of your daughter, and you're dying, to be even presented with that,” she said.
Mr. Cadman was also still angry when he told her about it, she said, but he had already processed it.
“So he was calming me down in the sense of saying, ‘Don't let it get to you.' ”
They never discussed going public, and she doubts he told anyone else besides her, her mother and her husband, Holland Miller. Mr. Miller recounted a similar conversation with his father-in-law in an interview with a Vancouver radio station Friday.
“It's one of those things that's so big – and he was very upset by it – you've got to talk to someone and so he didn't go outside of the family,” Jodi Cadman said.
She said she wasn't aware until she saw news reports that her mother's account of the incident was recorded in journalist Tom Zytaruk's biography, Like a Rock: The Chuck Cadman Story.
She said her mother has been taken aback by the reaction.
“I think she was a bit shocked,” she said. “I wasn't surprised at all.”
Dona Cadman has been nominated by the Conservatives to run for her late husband's old seat.
Attempts to reach her Friday were unsuccessful and the party has not commented on the status of her candidacy.
But Jodi Cadman said her mother should not be surprised if there are consequences.
“To be fair, she could have gone in when she read the manuscript and said we need to take this out,” Jodi Cadman said.
Mr. Cadman said she told her mother it may have been naive to go public.
“I asked her why … and she said ‘because it's the truth.' And I understand that, but I don't know if it's as simple as that.”
