New Patronage Scandal envelopes Conservatives

The Canadian Press is reporting that the Ontario provincial police are probing a Conservative link to the city of Ottawa mayoralty investigation. My favourite part is the absolute flip-flop by Reynolds and his belief that a $550k inducement is not a lot of money:

Canadian Press
OTTAWA -- The Ontario Provincial Police have launched an investigation into a sworn affidavit that claims a senior Tory close to Prime Minister Stephen Harper was involved in an alleged bid to buy off an Ottawa mayoralty candidate.
The affidavit, sworn out by former mayoralty candidate Terry Kilrea, names John Reynolds, the co-chairman of the 2006 Conservative election campaign, as the federal contact in a purported Parole Board appointment offer by eventual winner Larry O'Brien. In return, Kilrea was to drop out of Ottawa's 2006 municipal race.
Such an arrangement, if true, is a possible breach of both the Criminal Code and the Ontario Municipal Elections Act.The Ontario Provincial Police, acting on the advice of the attorney general of Ontario has launched an investigation.
The job offer was allegedly made to Kilrea by incoming mayor O'Brien, a millionaire businessman who, like Kilrea, campaigned as a tough-on-crime, fiscal conservative in the crowded mayoralty field.
"It didn't happen, it's that simple,'' Reynolds said in an interview. "My point of view, I never put anything in for anybody. I don't do that kind of stuff.''Added Reynolds: "I've talked to Larry (O'Brien), and I said, 'Larry, did you ever ask me?' He said, 'Well, we may have talked about it, but he never asked me to do anything.''
Reynolds, a former Conservative MP, interim party leader and currently lobbyist who meets regularly with the prime minister, said he doesn't know Kilrea "from Adam,'' but he hesitated to call Kilrea's affidavit a fabrication.
"If Larry said to him, 'Hey, I can talk to John Reynolds and put your name in,' that would be a fair statement, a fair thing to do. But I never did (forward Kilrea's name), so I doubt that he asked me. I would have done it.''
The complaint is the latest twist in a municipal story that appears to have multiple connections to the federal Conservatives. Then-treasury board president John Baird's unusual, mid-campaign intervention on a federal transit grant dramatically altered the course of the campaign, and ultimately helped O'Brien win by a wide margin. Kilrea's claim that he was offered expense money by O'Brien if he would drop out was previously reported.
In Kilrea's affidavit, he alleges that during a meeting last summer with O'Brien on a coffee-shop patio, he was also offered a Parole Board job. "At approximately 2 p.m. later that day (July 5, 2006), O'Brien called to advise that my name had been put forward for an appointment to the National Parole Board,'' states the affidavit.
"When I asked how this was possible, he responded that he had spoken to John Reynolds. He then instructed me to call John Baird, President of the Treasury Board, and to tell him that my name `was in the queue' for an appointment to the board.''
Kilrea claims he then e-mailed Baird, a local MP whose federal nomination Kilrea had supported, but was told by the Treasury Board president that he knew nothing about the matter.
Kilrea claims that in a subsequent phone conversation with O'Brien on July 19 he was told "the offer 'would not be on the table forever' and that I needed to make a decision.''
Kilrea, a local bailiff who ran unsuccessfully for the Ottawa mayoralty in 2003, is sticking to his story. "Before I turned down the offer, (O'Brien) told me the Parole Board was a five-year appointment at $110,000 a year,'' Kilrea said in an interview.
"Did I consider it a bribe? Looking at it now, a lot of people are saying it is,'' said Kilrea. "It is an inducement. In the Municipal Act it's very clear that you're not allowed to offer a job or anything like that to somebody to get them out of the race. Under the Municipal Act, it looks like this is a violation.''
Reynolds maintains there's nothing sinister. He said he would be happy to put Kilrea's name forward, or any other person's, for a Parole Board appointment because not many people want the job. "They're looking for people to go on parole boards,'' said Reynolds. "Most guys don't want the jobs. They don't pay that much.''