Interest in Mark fictitious: Liberals

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Published: May 12, 2005

As veteran Manitoba Conservative MP Inky Mark tells the story, northern Ontario Liberal Andy Mitchell may not have been prime minister Paul Martin’s first choice for agriculture minister last summer.

Mark said he received a surprising telephone call last year after the June election returned a minority Liberal government and resulted in the electoral defeat of former agriculture minister Bob Speller.

“It was a Liberal cabinet minister and we talked about a number of things and he wondered if I would be interested in being agriculture minister,” said Mark, the MP for Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette who was elected first as a Reform MP in 1997 and then re-elected in 2000 and 2004.

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“I kind of laughed. At the time, they were looking for numbers. They didn’t have many rural MPs. They thought they could lure me across the aisle (to become a Liberal).”

Mark said he took it as a serious offer but did not seriously consider it.

“I would not consider joining the Liberals,” he said. “But they know I was involved in some internal blood letting and must have thought I could be susceptible.”

Mark has a history of being involved in internal party strife.

He broke with the Canadian Alliance and briefly joined the Progressive Conservative caucus before the PCs and Alliance merged to form the Conservative party.

Mark also said that on April 29, he was called again by a cabinet minister who wondered if he would be interested in an appointment, maybe an ambassadorship.

Mark would not tell reporters which minister called either time. He said it was an obvious attempt by the Liberals to reduce Conservative caucus strength in advance of an expected House of Commons confidence vote that could bring down the government.

Treasury board president Reg Alcock, a Winnipeg Liberal, angrily rejected Mark’s version of events, insisting to reporters May 3 that any such offer would have to be approved either by himself or the prime minister and neither had heard of it.

He said Mark may have been having “fantasies” and suggested it was the Conservative MP who had been looking for a way to leave his party.

“It is widely known that he has been unhappy in the Conservative party for some time.”

Mark said he stands by his version of events.

“I have been here a long time,” he said. “I know better than to make something like this up.”

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