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Transport Minister John Baird responds during Question Period in the House of Commons on April 12, 2010.FRED CHARTRAND/The Canadian Press

Liberal MPs are trying to tar current members of the federal Conservative government with the controversy swirling around former Tory MP Rahim Jaffer and demand to know why the Prime Minister called in the RCMP when he expelled Mr. Jaffer's wife from his cabinet.

On Monday, Transport Minister John Baird was handed the task of fielding opposition questions about Prime Minister Stephen Harper's decision to remove Helena Guergis from her job as Minister of State for the Status of Women, to boot her from the Conservative caucus, and to alert the Mounties.

Mr. Harper, who was in Washington, provided no details about the information that prompted his actions when he announced her fate last Friday.

"Let me be very clear," said Mr. Baird, "that the allegations that were brought forward by a third party do not involve any minister, any MP, any senator or, for that matter, any government employee."

But Liberal MPs still did their best to tie the scandal to other Conservative politicians, including Mr. Baird himself. It was alleged in a Toronto Star report last Thursday that Mr. Jaffer had told business associates he could help them access government funds.

Anita Neville, a Liberal MP from Winnipeg, pointed out that Mr. Baird is responsible for administering the government's $1-billion green infrastructure fund. "On Sept. 3, 2009, the minister met with Rahim Jaffer in Ottawa. What did they discuss and were those discussions reported to the Commissioner of Lobbying as required by law?" asked Ms. Neville.

Mr. Baird replied that Mr. Jaffer never made inquiries with respect to his business.

Marcel Proulx, a Liberal MP from Quebec, told the House that Mr. Jaffer had attended a reception for Christine Elliott on April 30, 2009, when Ms. Elliott was campaigning to be Ontario's Progressive Conservative leader.

Ms. Elliott's husband, federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, and Lisa Raitt, who is now the Labour Minister but was then minister of natural resources, were also at that reception, said Mr. Proulx. He demanded to know what discussions the ministers had with Mr. Jaffer and whether they reported them to the Commissioner of Lobbying.

Conservative MPs remained uncharacteristically quiet as all three federal opposition leaders pressed for the details of the allegations that Mr. Harper had passed along to the police.

"For six long weeks, the Prime Minister has got up and said [Ms. Guergis]is doing a great job, and then hey, presto, from Thursday night to Friday morning, he called in the RCMP. Why?" asked Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff.

The problems of Ms. Guergis began with reports that she had had a tantrum in the Charlottetown airport in February. They were exacerbated when two of her staff members acknowledged they had written letters to newspapers praising their boss - without mentioning that they were in her employ.

Then came the allegations against Mr. Jaffer, followed by the removal of Ms. Guergis from cabinet a day later.

"Today they confirmed in fact that Rahim Jaffer has met all kinds of people. And so they're claiming that he's not influence peddling. But it seems a claim that is extremely difficult to sustain," said Mr. Ignatieff. And "who's the third party? I mean they've simply got to come clean here with Canadians."

Joe Comartin, a New Democratic MP, said Mr. Harper is obligated to reveal what information forced him to call the RCMP. "He has accepted the allegations are serious enough to bounce her out under his standards and if that is the case, then the Canadian people have the right to know on what basis he accepted those allegations."

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