Leo Housakos, then a Conservative fundraiser, waits to testify before the Commons government operations committee on February 28, 2008.CHRIS WATTIE/Reuters
A once promising federal-provincial political tag team has split up.
The Action démocratique du Québec , a third-place provincial party, is severing ties with senior federal Conservatives, including a key fundraiser for Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
An ADQ spokesman said Tuesday that Senator Leo Housakos and other high-ranking Quebec Tories will no longer be allowed to hold positions of influence within the tiny provincial party.
The announcement comes as Mr. Housakos's name is being dragged into a mushrooming controversy that has rocked Quebec's political class and quickly spilled over into federal politics.
But the ADQ says it's cutting the cord for less sensational reasons.
Just one year ago the ADQ was on the cusp of power, the Tories were hoping for a majority with the help of its organizational muscle, and Mr. Harper's entourage and ADQ brass were seemingly inseparable.
But with the ADQ's fortunes having evaporated, and the party facing an uncertain future, new Leader Gilles Taillon wants his struggling formation to forge an independent, Tory-free identity.
"We want to put a line in the ground between the Conservatives and the ADQ to ensure we have political independence in Quebec," spokesman Sebastien Lepine said in an interview.
And he says that's why Mr. Housakos, now a Tory senator from Quebec who is currently embroiled in an ethics probe he himself requested, is no longer needed in the ADQ.
Personality politics might also have contributed to the move: Mr. Housakos did not back the leadership bid of Mr. Taillon, who has been ADQ leader less than two weeks.
Mr. Housakos is a senior Conservative organizer and was the ADQ's chief fundraiser before quitting the job in December after a debacle at the polls that saw the party reduced to seven seats.
Shortly thereafter, Mr. Housakos was named a senator by the prime minister.
In recent weeks, Mr. Housakos has made headlines in Ottawa and subsequently asked the Senate Ethics Officer to look into the matter of a $1.4-million stimulus contract going to a Montreal engineering firm where the senator worked.
BPR Inc. and a consortium will be studying possible repairs or reconstruction of the aging Champlain Bridge linking Montreal to suburbs south of the city.
The Canadian Press has reported that the same day the government signalled it would open bidding on the contract, Mr. Housakos organized a major Conservative fundraiser in Montreal.
Four executives from BPR and the winning consortium attended the partisan event, as did two officials from the federal agency that ultimately awarded the contract.
Mr. Housakos has denied he had anything to do with awarding the contract.
Questions continued swirling in the House of Commons on Tuesday, with both the Bloc Quebecois and the Liberals pounding away at the Conservatives with allegations of patronage.
But Mr. Lepine added that Mr. Taillon had already campaigned on the idea the ADQ would be its own distinct party, and the decision to shut out Tories had nothing to do with the burgeoning ethics controversy.
"Mr. Taillon wants a party that is autonomous on the provincial scene and an organization that is completely independent from the Conservatives," Mr. Lepine said.
Mr. Lepine said that while federal Tories are welcome to be card-carrying members of the party, they won't hold positions of power.
The two parties grew closer before and after a shocking 2007 election performance where the ADQ found itself within a handful of seats of replacing the province's Liberal government.
Tories across the country saw the party as an ally in Quebec and, by extension, as a potential catalyst in strengthening conservatism nationally.
But neither party has particularly benefited from an association with the other.
The Tories' move backfired, causing a feud with Premier Jean Charest that cost them dearly during the election when the premier took them to task for cuts to federal culture money.
The Conservatives stalled in Quebec, even with ADQ political operatives as central players on the Tories' federal election team last fall.
Weeks later, the ADQ was decimated at the polls in a provincial election.
The ADQ move to sever ties was first reported in an online news site run by locked-out journalists at Le Journal de Montreal. The story on Rue Frontenac suggested Mr. Housakos had become persona non grata within the ADQ.
Mr. Lepine suggested that headline might have been a little strong, but confirmed that the provincial party is trying to set itself apart.