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Harper Libel Suit Could Be Costly to Taxpayers If House Pays Liberal Legal Fees

Posted on: Tuesday, 4 March 2008, 21:00 CST

By Tim Naumetz, THE CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA - Taxpayers may be on the hook for over $1 million in legal fees if Prime Minister Stephen Harper forges ahead with his threat to sue Liberal Leader Stephane Dion and two other Liberals for libel.

A Liberal official said Tuesday the official Opposition is looking into the possibility of asking the House of Commons to pay legal fees for the three MPs, as the House has done in the past for a range of legal battles, including libel cases.

The Conservative party will be paying Harper's legal fees, spokesman Ryan Sparrow said. But even then, considering that federal parties are now heavily funded by taxpayers through quarterly allowances, the public arguably foots a substantial part of the cost.

Harper served a libel notice this week against Dion, deputy leader Michael Ignatieff and House leader Ralph Goodale. The prime minister's concerns centre on allegations the Liberal party posted about his role in Conservative attempts to convince the late Independent MP Chuck Cadman to vote down the Liberal minority government in May 2005.

Liberal MP Ken Boshcoff said the party can rightfully ask the Commons to pay legal fees for the three MPs, partly to protect all parliamentarians from intimidation through costly law suits.

"I believe members of Parliament from all parties should be protected from frivolous lawsuits," he said. "Otherwise, how are we going to do our jobs?"

Liberal Derek Lee, a Toronto MP and lawyer who said he'd prefer a negotiated resolution, predicted the costs would soar if the high-profile libel battle goes to court.

"The lawyers the various parties would be retaining would be charging from $250 to $500 an hour," said Lee. "It doesn't take long, with three or four parties, you're very quickly going to get to $1 million."

Green party Leader Elizabeth May agreed the House should pay the Liberal legal bills, saying Harper has set a dangerous precedent by threatening to sue the MPs for statements their party made about the Cadman controversy.

"It's an appalling and dangerous precedent to have the prime minister sue other members of the House," she said.

But Conservative MP Tom Lukiwski argued against public financing for Liberal legal fees, citing his own precedent.

Lukiwski revealed that the Commons board of internal economy, which governs all House legal finances in secret, refused to pay his legal bills after former Liberal Treasury Board president Reg Alcock sued him for libel.

Lukiwski disclosed that he had wrongly claimed that Alcock gave his former campaign manager a job with the Canadian Wheat Board, when the agency's board of directors had actually awarded the post.

"We settled out of court," said Lukiwski. "I had asked the board of internal economy, 'Are you paying my legal costs?' Because that's what I assumed. They said it was the first case of one MP suing another and - since they were both MPs - they couldn't pick sides."

The Commons board of internal economy has paid legal fees for 12 unidentified MPs since April 2006, records of its minutes show. In each case, the board agreed to pay the legal costs "subject to the matter being resolved in the member's favour."

No other details, including names of the MPs or the amounts involved, are disclosed when the board agrees to pay the legal fees.

Source: Canadian Press

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