EX-TORY MP SHAKEN BY COCAINE ARREST

Drug and Drunk Driving Charges 'Devastating' For Rahim Jaffer and His
Cabinet Minister Wife

Rahim Jaffer, the former chair of the
Conservative caucus and husband of a Stephen Harper cabinet minister,
has been charged with drunk driving and possession of cocaine.

Jaffer, 37, was arrested shortly before 1 a.m. Friday after police say
they spotted a grey Ford Escape speeding north through Palgrave, a
village north of Brampton.

The former Alberta MP was charged with driving while over the legal
blood-alcohol limit and cocaine possession, and his licence was
suspended for 90 days.

He will appear in an Orangeville court Oct. 19.

Jaffer had been spending the summer an hour north in Angus, the
hometown of his wife, Simcoe-Grey Conservative MP Helena Guergis.
Guergis is federal minister of state for the status of women.

Police would not say where Jaffer had been before his
arrest.

Neither Jaffer nor Guergis could be reached for comment last
night.

A close friend and colleague said the charges were "absolutely
devastating" for Jaffer and his family.

"Being a public figure, the damage is already done. This is extremely
harsh for him, for his family," said Patrick Glemaud, CEO of Green
Power Generation Corp., an alternative energy company he co-founded
with Jaffer.

"I'm supporting him 100 per cent," said Glemaud, who met with Jaffer
in Ottawa yesterday. "The presumption of innocence must stand. I think
he's a great guy."

A woman at Guergis's Alliston office who identified herself as Valerie
said the office hadn't been made aware of the charges and declined to
comment.

Jay Hill, the government House leader, said yesterday he didn't expect
his Conservative colleagues to say much about the arrest.

"He's a private citizen," Hill said.

Last night, MPs of all stripes turned out at a party to celebrate the
20th anniversary of The Hill Times, Parliament's local newspaper. It's
the kind of event where Jaffer would be expected to turn up, but
neither he nor his wife was in attendance. The news, however, was the
hot topic of the gathering.

Jaffer became the first Muslim to be elected to the House of Commons
when he won the Edmonton-Strathcona seat at the age of 25 in 1997. He
held the riding until last year's federal election, when he lost to
NDP rival Linda Duncan.

Days before the vote, Jaffer's campaign approved radio ads chiding NDP
Leader Jack Layton for comments years earlier that Jaffer cast as
broad support for marijuana use.

The spots said, in part: "Edmontonians understand how difficult it is
to make sure our children make the right choices, especially on
serious issues like drug use. The Conservative Party supports
drug-free schools and getting tough with drug dealers who sell illegal
drugs to children. Don't let our schools go up in smoke. On Oct. 14
vote Conservative."

Jaffer was born in Kampala, Uganda, and immigrated to Edmonton with
his family as a boy to escape persecution under the iron-fist rule of
Idi Amin.

He offered an emotional apology in the House of Commons in 2001 after
one of his aides, Matthew Johnston, was caught impersonating him on a
radio show while Jaffer was busy elsewhere.

Jaffer was re-elected in 2006 and named Conservative caucus chairman
by Harper.

He was a fun-loving, gregarious MP, popular on the Ottawa party scene
before romance blossomed with Guergis.

Jaffer and Guergis were married in a spur of the moment ceremony the
day after his defeat in last year's election. Jaffer had attempted to
make a political comeback earlier this year, seeking the nomination in
his old riding of Edmonton-Strathcona.

But that attempt at a return came amid reports he wasn't welcome back
in the fold of Conservative candidates. Jaffer claimed he'd been kept
out of the loop about nomination deadlines, for instance.

He told The Canadian Press at the time he planned to settle down,
finish the MBA program he was taking, start a consulting business and
support his wife.

"Both Helena and I are seriously thinking that if we want to turn
attention to family, it's probably wiser that I sit this election out
and focus on ourselves once this MBA is done," he said in May.

"In the future, who knows? Maybe at a later time, once our kids are
grown up and can support us, I might go back to politics."