Airport Package Mystery Blamed on Stress

OTTAWA (CP) -- The Tory MP at the centre of a taping scandal is taking a stress leave after Air Canada launched an investigation of an incident at the Vancouver airport.

An anxious Gurmant Grewal was seen asking several passengers if they could carry an important package for him to Ottawa.

Conservative sources said Monday that Grewal was scrambling to send them full copies of the tapes that triggered a political controversy.

The MP had come under fire for releasing edited versions of recordings he surreptitiously made during recent backroom discussions with top Liberals.

''He won't be attending caucus for a while,'' said one Tory official. ''(But) we're not throwing Gurmant out. He's on a stress leave. He needs some time to relax and decompress.''

The British Columbia MP says Air Canada has wrong information.

''I'm going to deny the allegations with Air Canada and they have, unfortunately, wrong information in their hands,'' he told Global News on Monday.

A union official said Grewal went to an Air Canada ticket agent to ask if he could arrange for someone to carry a package to Ottawa aboard flight 166 on Saturday. He was told that was impossible because of security practices.

''The agent told him he couldn't do that. If he had a package to go on the flight, he would need to go on the flight.''

The official said Grewal then booked a seat and passed through security to a waiting area, where he asked other agents if they could give him a list of politicians travelling on the flight. He said he wanted one of them to carry a parcel for him.

After he was told that this was a security violation, he was overheard asking ''a number'' of passengers to carry the package, an airline official said.

The MP apparently found someone willing to take his envelope to Ottawa and went back to tell the agents in the lounge, the official said. Grewal flew to Ottawa the next day.

Grewal has been at the centre of a storm since releasing secretly taped conversations with senior Liberals attempting to win his vote and that of his wife, also a Tory MP, on the eve of the May 19 confidence vote. The minority Liberal government survived when the Speaker broke a tie.

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper issued a statement Monday evening saying Grewal informed him earlier in the day that he would temporarily step down from his position as co-chair of a standing joint committee in the House of Commons.

''Subsequently, I have spoken with Gurmant,'' Harper's statement said. ''I have been aware that for some days now he has been feeling significant personal pressure. As a result, he and I agreed that he should take a temporary stress leave from his parliamentary responsibilities.''

The Tories admitted last week that snippets had gone missing from CD copies of taped conversations between Grewal, Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh, and Prime Minister Paul Martin's chief of staff Tim Murphy.

Conservative officials say Grewal gave the full, original recordings to the RCMP but released an abridged version to the party and the general public. They say some parts went missing because of a transfer error.

Grewal was hurrying to ship the complete tapes but couldn't find a 24-hour courier service over the weekend, party sources said.

The airline was saying little about its probe.

''We can confirm that we are currently investigating an incident involving Mr. Grewal,'' said Air Canada spokeswoman Laura Cooke.

''I have no additional information to provide on this matter at this point.''

On the tapes, Grewal is overheard negotiating possible job opportunities with the Liberal party in exchange for his vote in a the crucial Commons vote.

The Tories say the Liberal tactic was a potentially criminal violation of the country's anti-corruption laws while the Liberals counter that Grewal approached them, looking for an inducement to cross the floor.

After announcing Grewal's political departure, Harper urged the prime minister to suspend Murphy and Dosanjh.

Martin earlier on Monday rejected a similar suggestion from the NDP and it's unlikely the Liberals will comply with Harper's request.

''To step down on the basis of falsified evidence would be grossly unfair and more than a bit bizarre,'' said Martin spokesman Scott Reid, adding ''where (Harper) finds the gall to demand the resignation of others is mystifying.''