Lunch with Claude

I can find no few references to this story anywhere online, except the CBC, which buries it under Martin's boilerplate call for the election to be put off until after the Gomery inquiry has reported:

Some of that Gomery testimony became ammunition for the Opposition during Wednesday's question period in the House of Commons. Conservative Leader Stephen Harper started the attack. He noted that Prime Minister Paul Martin testified that he hardly knew Claude Boulay, the president of Groupe Everest, one of the Quebec advertising firms implicated in the sponsorship scandal. But in testimony before the same commission, Liberal fundraiser Alain Renaud said he observed the prime minister having lunch with Boulay during the Liberal convention. "Did the prime minister have lunch with Claude Boulay on any occasion?" Harper asked. "Any allegation that I misled the commission is a lie," Martin shot back. But he avoided answering the question directly. Instead, he accused the Tories of having a secret agenda for health care, referring to a report released Wednesday by the Fraser Institute that urges the federal government to get out of health care and allow more private involvement. Harper asked the question again – three more times. Each time the prime minister responded by talking about health care. "If this were not so serious I would say the prime minister is in danger of making himself a national joke," Harper told the House. Later, it was Diane Ablonczy's turn. The Alberta Conservative MP asked Martin if he had ever had lunch with Boulay. Martin sidestepped the question again. "Why does this prime minister have pathological aversion to telling the truth?" Ablonczy shouted.

This is the third day in a row that Harper has used Question Period to poke holes in Martin's story. UPDATE: No wait, here it is on the Globe's site:

The issue of sponsorship spending being diverted to Liberal-friendly firms dominated Question Period in Ottawa again Wednesday, in spite of Mr. Martin's repeated efforts to switch the debate to health care. In just one such exchange, Mr. Harper asked whether Mr. Martin had had lunch with a specific person related to sponsorship spending and Mr. Martin responded by accusing the Tory Leader of mistreating health care.

A specific person? Did the Globe reporter not catch the name? Couldn't find his notepad? Sort of a pertinent detail, wouldn't you say? UPPERDATE: Sorry, here's another -- CTV, which has lots of clips from QP:

Election fever was evident in question period when Prime Minister Paul Martin turned a question about lunch into a stirring defence of medicare. Conservative Leader Stephen Harper asked if Martin ever had lunch with Montreal ad executive Claude Boulay, a figure in the sponsorship scandal. "I will fight the Conservatives tooth and nail and we will protect the Canada Health Act," Martin answered...

UPPESTDATE: From Romeo St. Martin: "Ahem ... PoliticsWatch has been all over this for the past 2 days." Indeed he/it has, with all the damning details that the major media leave out:

On Monday at the Gomery inquiry, Alain Renaud, a lobbyist with the ad firm Groupaction, said he sat at a table adjacent to Martin and Claude Boulay, the head of Groupe Everest, at a Liberal party convention.  Renaud testified that Martin, Boulay and Diane Deslaurier, Boulay's wife and a Liberal party fundraiser, were discussing Attractions Canada, a government program that received more than $11 million in sponsorships that were handled by Everest.... At the Gomery inquiry when questioned about by counsel Neil Finkelstein about Boulay, Martin said the following.  "I do not know Mr. Boulay very well, nor do I know Ms. Deslauriers very well. But the fact of the matter is that they are active in the party, the Liberal Party. They do have a place in the country about an hour, an hour and a half from mine and I would be -- it would not surprise me at all if at various political or social occasions that I would have run into them. I can't remember those occasions but I would be very surprised if that didn't occur." "But the contacts would be such that they would be at a level that you don't recall?" asked Finkelstein. "That is right," said Martin.  "You are sure of that?" "Yes," the PM said. In the House, Harper repeatedly asked Martin if he had a lunch meeting with Boulay, but Martin never provided a Yes or No answer and only said he did not interfere in the handing out of contracts. Instead the PM used his response time to attack Harper for a report on medicare written by former Ontario premier Mike Harris and former Reform leader Preston Manning... Martin's refusal to answer the question even drew the ire of NDP MP Ed Broadbent, a veteran parliamentarian, who said Martin was making a "mockery" out of the House for refusing to answer Harper's questions.  After question period, Broadbent called the prime minister's performance "absurd." "For a man who's talking about moral authority it undermines his own moral authority," he said. "When you're heading a government you have to have respect for the institutions and part of that respect is to show that when you get a serious question, you give some kind of serious answer." Harper also made a rare appearance in the foyer after question period after a large number of reporters wanted to know if Harris and Manning's position paper was Conservative party policy. "This is the most transparent attempt possible to evade a very serious question about whether the prime minister perjured himself at the Gomery commission," said Harper.

Massive. But the press gallery want to know about Harper's views of two ex-politicians' views on health care. UPPESTDATER:

The prime minister was asked: Do you recall any meeting or get-together of any significance beyond a casual, 'How do you do?' "No, no," Martin replied.

CP catches up.