Committee subpoenas Herle, O'Leary 
and Kinsella 
by Romeo St. Martin

[PoliticsWatch Updated 6:15 p.m. April 11, 2005]

OTTAWA  — Opposition MPs on the Commons public accounts committee have used their subpoena power to summons three Liberals before it next week. 
  
The committee decided to issue subpoenas after the three Liberals expressed reluctance to previous requests to appear before the committee on Wednesday. 

Terrie O'Leary, a former aide to Prime Minister Paul Martin when he was finance minister, David Herle, the current co-chair of the Liberal election campaign, and Warren Kinsella, a Liberal strategist for former prime minister Jean Chretien, have all communicated a reluctance to appear before the committee. 

The committee is holding a one-day hearing that will primarily focus on contracts awarded to the Ottawa consulting firm Earnscliffe, which Herle was a former partner in. 

O'Leary and Herle are considered among Martin's longest-serving loyalists and confidants. 

Kinsella wrote a letter to the committee outlining a number of reasons why he cannot appear Wednesday, including a request for the committee to pay the cost of his legal representation. In previous hearings related to the sponsorship program the committee agreed to pay the legal costs of public servants. 

Meanwhile, letters and e-mails from lawyers representing O'Leary and Herle wanted to know in advance the scope and nature of the questions MPs on the committee would be asking before they agreed to appear. 

Herle's lawyer said his client "has the right to know the matters and scope" of the situation he will be asked to comment on. 

O'Leary's lawyer also said his client would not participate in a "roundtable" hearing, "especially with noted adversaries," perhaps in reference to Kinsella. 

"I found it fairly amusing," said Bloc MP Benoit Sauvageau, who tabled the original motion to hear from the Liberal insiders. 

"They've probably got the country wrong or the time in history," he said of their requests to negotiate their appearances before the committee. 

Meanwhile, John Williams, the Conservative chair of the committee, said he was "perturbed" by the three witnesses' response to the committee.

"The Parliament of Canada is entitled to inquire into anything it wants and can summons anybody it wants."

Williams said the reasons offered by the three was "a bit of an affront."

The three witnesses along with the auditor general, a former finance official and a public works whistleblower will all be asked to appear before the committee next Monday. 

Earnscliffe has employed a large number of people who either worked on Martin's leadership bids, his transition team or the last federal election campaign.

Opposition MPs on the committee passed a motion in February to look into contracts awarded to Earnscliffe after the head of the public inquiry into the sponsorship program, Justice John Gomery, determined the firm was not within his mandate of probing advertising and sponsorship firms. 

Public opinion research, which is one Earnscliffe's specialties, was mentioned in parts of the auditor general's report into the sponsorship program. 

During the public accounts committee's hearings into Adscam last year, contracts awarded to Earnscliffe arose in testimony from Chuck Guite, who oversaw advertising and public opinion research at public works in the mid 1990s. Guite is the only government official to date facing criminal charges in relation to the sponsorship scandal.

Guite told the committee people in Martin's finance office tried influencing decisions to award contracts to Earnscliffe. 

O'Leary and the Prime Minister's Office have both denied Guite's allegations.

At the time this was going on, Kinsella was at public works, working as an aide to former public works minister David Dingwall. 

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