It came half a day after another New
Democrat MP, Irene Mathyssen, was forced to apologize to Tory MP
James Moore. She had accused him of looking at “soft porn”
photos of a “scantily clad” woman on his laptop computer in
Parliament.
After speaking to Moore late Wednesday,
Ms. Mathyssen accepted his explanation that he'd been looking at
pictures of his girlfriend and apologized to him, said a party
spokesman.
Ms. Mathyssen was in her London riding
Thursday but is expected to make a formal apology to Mr. Moore
in the Commons on Monday.
Thursday's apology stems from
accusations levelled during the 2006 election by Jeffrey
Hansen-Carlson, the NDP candidate in Abbotsford, B.C. He accused
his Liberal rival, David Oliver, and Mr. Oliver's campaign
manager, Gordie Kahlon, of trying to bribe him to drop out of
the race and throw his support behind Mr. Oliver.
Former prime minister Paul Martin yanked
Mr. Oliver as the Liberal candidate in the riding hours after
the allegation surfaced, declaring that he had “zero tolerance
for that kind of thing.”
Mr. Oliver and Mr. Kahlon sued the NDP
and Ms. Davies acknowledged Thursday that the party has paid
damages to the pair to resolve the lawsuit.
“There were never any facts to support
an allegation of bribery or attempted bribery,” she told the
Commons.
“The NDP formally apologizes to them,
their friends, their families, political supporters and
particularly the voters of Abbotsford who cast their votes while
a candidate's character and conduct had been improperly put
under a cloud by our campaign team's actions.”
Ms. Davies admitted that the NDP erred
in arranging for Hansen-Carlson to repeat his accusations widely
in the media 10 days before the Jan. 26, 2006 election. And she
said it made “another serious error in judgment” in failing to
make public a letter from Canada's elections commissioner, three
days before the election, which cleared the two Liberals.
“Mr. Oliver and Mr. Kahlon remained
under a cloud of suspicion far longer than was appropriate. We
erred in not making that letter public immediately and we
acknowledge that.”
Ms. Davies said she personally is “not
satisfied with the manner in which this was handled.” She added
that the NDP has adopted to new procedures “to ensure all due
diligence in matters of fact and law” in future and promised
that “this kind of incident will not happen again.”