HOW FAR WILL MPS GO TO TORPEDO A BILL?

If Canadian Alliance MPs had met with the deputy U.S. drug czar to enlist
his help in stopping the federal government from decriminalizing marijuana,
Liberal MPs would have criticized them as sneaky, if not disloyal.

So, news that a group of Liberal MPs may have done just that ought to
concern members of the Liberal caucus, now meeting in North Bay, Ont.

The backbenchers in question -- Roger Gallaway, Brenda Chamberlain, Dan
McTeague and a few others -- are frequent and often bitter critics of Prime
Minister Jean Chretien's government, an unofficial opposition that works
from within. Last month they met with Barry Crane, deputy director for
supply reduction at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

According to a memo written by a Canadian Foreign Affairs official who sat
in on that meeting, the rebel MPs were looking for help in defeating the
cannabis reform bill. Mr. McTeague denies this, and says the main goal of
the meeting was simply to exchange views.

The U.S. administration has already made its views known. When the bill was
introduced in May, John Walters, the White House director of drug-control
policy, quickly condemned Ottawa's plans to replace the current stiff
penalties for Canadians caught possessing small amounts of marijuana with
fines similar to those handed out for speeding. He called the proposed
legislation a threat to Americans, and said his government would take
stringent steps to keep Canadian cannabis from flowing south. The cost to
Canada could be high, he warned, in dramatically slower traffic at the
borders and lost trade for Canadian companies.

His deputy, Dr. Crane, came to Ottawa last month to discuss the contentious
issue with Canadian officials. During his visit, he also met with the group
of Liberal MPs on Parliament Hill. Two officials from Foreign Affairs
attended.

Mr. McTeague asked one official to leave, but according to the memo seemed
unaware that a second official remained in the room. That official took
detailed minutes of the encounter, noting that at least one of the MPs
suggested that to defeat the bill, senior members of the U.S. administration
needed to emphasize the damage it would do to cross-border trade.

The bureaucrat, whose name has not been made public, was apparently so
troubled by the MPs' behaviour that he or she passed the minutes of the
meeting to senior officials in the department. A source in government showed
the memo to reporter Brian Laghi of The Globe's Ottawa bureau.

Maybe the meeting was an innocent one, as the MPs contend. Maybe, as they
say, any suggestions about how to help defeat the bill were made in asides,
not directly to Dr. Crane. But given their vocal opposition to this bill and
many other government policies, it is more likely the backbenchers were
looking for help in the fight to keep a much tougher drug law in place.

Their conduct was highly inappropriate. True, they weren't telling Dr. Crane
anything he didn't already know, but MPs shouldn't be turning to the United
States for extraterritorial help in thwarting the Canadian government. It is
part of a pattern of increasingly reckless behaviour on the part of the
rebels, who are chafing under Mr. Chretien's rule.

The outgoing Prime Minister probably can't bring them into line, but the
censure of their fellow MPs may have some influence. They look like sneaks,
and deserve to be criticized.