Helena Guergis Suing Stephen Harper For $1.3 Million Dollars

While it is fair to question whether or not Stephen Harper should have banished Helena Guergis from caucus over busty hooker allegations, it is ridiculous to suggest that he's guilty of intentional infliction of mental suffering. The Prime Minister was concerned about surviving in minority parliament and winning elections, not deliberately trying to hurt her feelings. What we do know for sure is that she was removed from caucus after the busty hooker story came out, and she was not reinstated when she was cleared of wrong doing in that case. The truth is that there was more to her expulsion than just Magnum PI's cocaine and prostitute story. Her husband Rahim Jaffer created his own business and was using her office, even her e-mail account, to lobby Conservative MPs for government contracts. They even had a website that suggested Jaffer had special access to the government, unnerving considering he was married to a Cabinet Minister.

People seem to forget that there was more to Guergis-gate than just hookers and blow. There was the airport meltdown that prompted Mark Holland to accuse her on national television of "assaulting airport security", though I don't see his name included in the defamation lawsuit. Anitta Neville accused her of being a drug dealer, but she's not getting sued either. While Guergis may have been cleared of trafficking drugs, her husband was still picked up driving dangerously while in possession of cocaine. I always believed that Helena's permanent expulsion from caucus had as much to do with the indiscretions of her husband than anything she had been accused of. It had everything to do with winning the next election in a minority parliament with a rabid media and opposition, not the intentional infliction of pain and suffering on Helena Geurgis.

The less covered story is that Guergis had several family members involved in local politics in her riding, and they were all wiped out in municipal elections in 2010. The family brand had become toxic in that area because of their support for a very unpopular development project. Why was the riding association in Simcoe so quick to let her go?

"Tony Guergis received a letter from Helena Guergis, his cousin, touting a green technology company to Simcoe County officials while her husband, Rahim Jaffer, and businessman Nazim Gillani were involved in a plan to take the firm public in a $1 billion deal.


Meanwhile, David Guergis became famous for wanting to dissolve the Nottawasaga Conservation Authority. He drew criticism when it emerged that his wife owned potential development property on a local flood plain."

It was the Prime Minister's right to remove the candidate if he felt they damaged the electoral prospects of the party. The illegal lobbying and her husband's indiscretions caused more harm to her political career than Stephen Harper removing her from caucus. She still ran in the 2011 election and lost. Her constituents did not want her to be their MP any longer.