Jaffer queries got preferential treatment: MPs

Opposition parties have accused the Conservative government of giving preferential treatment to former MP Rahim Jaffer's email queries about potential federal funding for business projects.

The allegation comes after documents showed Jaffer used a parliamentary email account belonging to his wife, Helena Guergis, to communicate with at least two ministries about business on behalf of his friends and private companies.

Liberal MP Dominic LeBlanc called on the Conservatives to close what he deemed a "loophole" in the federal Lobbying Act that allows parliamentary secretaries to ministers to meet with lobbyists without filing monthly reports of their encounters.   

Government members have dismissed the importance of Jaffer's contact with his former colleagues, insisting he never received a penny of federal funding.

Speaking for the government, Transport and Infrastructure Minister John Baird defended the lobbying registry, which he said was the government's first action after the "robbery" of the federal sponsorship scandal under the Liberals.

"Mr. Jaffer got no grants, no money, Mr. Speaker, as a result of any of the meetings," Baird told the House. "Compare this to the previous Liberal government, when millions of dollars went missing and the Liberal Party had to return some of the kickbacks they received from taxpayers."

'Red flags should have gone up'

LeBlanc countered that the government had the audacity to keep dealing with Jaffer as recently as last month.

"Red flags should have gone up, but none did because these Conservatives knew exactly what they were trying to get away with," he told the House.

Baird also denied he placed his parliamentary secretary, Brian Jean, in charge of the billion-dollar Green Infrastructure Fund to circumvent any restrictions under the Lobbying Act.

"I am the minister responsible," he said.

The documents show that on one occasion last summer, Jaffer got an official to expedite his request for government money from the fund for an environmental project

NDP MP Thomas Mulcair suggested Jaffer was deliberately directing his questions to parliamentary secretaries, knowing it would end up on a minister's desk, knowing the parliamentary secretaries were not subject to the Lobbying Act.

"It would appear that is the case," Mulcair told reporters outside the House.

Jaffer, who never registered as a lobbyist, has consistently denied that his activities constituted lobbying, which the act defines as "for payment." He says he never received remuneration for his meetings and conversations with ministers and officials.

The documents show Jaffer sent the emails from an account assigned to Guergis, who at the time was the minister of state for the status of women.

Guergis was forced to resign from cabinet and was expelled from the Conservative caucus earlier this month after Prime Minister Stephen Harper learned of unspecified allegations over her conduct and forwarded them to the RCMP, as well as the federal ethics and lobbying commissioners.

The federal Lobbying Act requires that anyone who lobbies the government provide regular reports on their activities, including the officials they talked to and on whose behalf. Failure to comply can result in penalties of up to two years in jail and $200,000 in fines.