Did Harper Eat the Cookie?

On Friday Prime Minister Stephen Harper attended the funeral of former Governer General Romeo LeBlanc. He accepted communion when it was offered. The video footage seems to show that he did not immediatley eat the wafer. It is possible he ate it immediatly after the camera panned away. In this case the correct course of action was to immediatly eat the wafer.

Some Catholics have expressed concern that Harper has slighted Catholicism. Treating the host inappropriatly is a major issue. During the Middle Ages, Jews would be found guilty on trumpped up charges of Desecration of the Host. The penalty for cookie torture was death and would sometimes extend to the community at large and not just the accused. Keeping the wafer instead of eating it is a major insult. A spokesperson for Harper said that he did swallow the wafer.

As a Protestant he would normally not be allowed to take Communion. However as he is the Head of State there may be an exception to this rule. There is an accepted custom of crossing arms to indicate to the priest that one will not accept Communion. It stands to reason that people would have been just as offended by that decision sighting the exception to the rule. As a Protestant Harper would be more used to the idea that everyone eats the wafer at the same time. He could very easily have noticed right after the camera panned away that nobody else was waiting.

It took 5 days for the story to break. Despite the number of people standing around him, there doesn't seem to be any eye witnesses. Both are more indicative of a slow news day than a major story. Harper is scheduled to meet with the Pope this week. He should simply ask the Pope what the correct protical should be to avoid such silly problems in the future.

Update: Senate Speaker Honourable Noel A. Kinsella has confirmed he witnessed Harper consuming the host.

Where does Harper buy life insurance?

The latest scandal to hit Stephen Harper's government is an accusation that his party tried to bribe Independent MP Chuck Cadman to bring down the Paul Martin government in May 2005. Supposedly the Conservatives offered Cadman, who was dieing of late stages of cancer a million dollar life insurance policy for his vote. Cadman died two months after the vote.

The story broke when parts of a biography on Cadman set to be released later this month were released to the media. The RCMP have already opened a criminal investigation after receiving a complaint from the Liberals. If the story is proven to be true the opposition parties should waste no time in toppling the government.

There are a number of important unanswered questions regarding this story. Where would the Conservatives obtain such a life insurance policy? Numerous actuaries, insurance agents and anecdotal evidence has been presented in the media to confirm that life insurance for someone dieing with 4th stage cancer simply does not exist. Cadman's wife who has confirmed that officials made an offer to her husband his the Conservative candidate in her late husband's riding. Chuck Cadman never made the accusation that he had been bribed.

The author of the story claims to have known about the allege bribe in September 2005. If he believed there was any wrong doing should he not have reported the incident to the RCMP, instead of waiting 2.5 years for his book to be complete? Is there any reason that the preview information on the book was released shortly before a vote on the budget, that many believed was going to trigger an election.

An election presented an extra risk to Cadman. If he lost he would be entitled to reduced benefits package from what he would receive as an MP. A minimal offset of this concern to allow Cadman to make a decision based on the interests of his constituents instead of his own financial gain would not have been a breach of ethics. It would be difficult for the Libeals to argue that such an offer was any worse than Belinda Stronach crossing the floor and taking a cabinet position.

There are far too many questions to make a fair judgement call on this scandal. Hopefully the RCMP and ethics committee will be able to get to the truth on this scandal.