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OTTAWA - (Web posted April 15, 2002 @ 5:30
p.m.) - Prime Minister Jean Chretien
said guidelines are coming to help federal cabinet ministers decide how they
should act if they are interested in
becoming party leader someday.
 "There
will be guidelines," Chretien said in the House of Commons on Monday.
"When the guidelines are ready I will be happy to make them public."
There are a handful of Liberal cabinet
ministers, most notably Finance Minister Paul Martin, who have been preparing
their leadership campaign teams for the day Chretien decides to resign for
years.
The issue of how those campaigns are
financed has been bubbling for weeks as Opposition MPs struggled to shine the
spotlight on alleged abuses, or conflict of interests, among potential
leadership candidates.
They were given something to work with in
March when it was revealed Calgary lawyer Jim Palmer collected money for Martin,
while working for the Department of Finance.
Palmer subsequently resigned from both jobs,
and the $25,000 donation he obtained from an Alberta energy company was
returned.
But the issue is not going away.
 A
copy of some proposed new rules from Ethics Commissioner Howard Wilson on how
ministers, who want to run for the party's leadership, should behave landed on
the prime minister's desk on Saturday.
As well, words Martin uttered in 1990 have
been dredged up by Opposition MPs eager to embarrass the finance minister.
"Will he return to the standard he set
12 years ago?" asked Canadian Alliance MP James Moore, citing comments made
by Martin in 1990 that reflected his attempts to conduct an open leadership
campaign.
"Why won't the minister live up to the
ethical standard he set."
As he did last week, Martin said the matter
has been dealt with by the ethics counsellor. Wilson ruled that Palmer's
fundraising and work for the department did represent and ethical problem, but
that it arose innocently.
 On
Monday, Chretien also tried to deflect the Opposition and media's attention from
his ministers by accusing the candidates in this year's Canadian Alliance
leadership race of failing to disclose the sources of their campaign financing.
"They (the Canadian Alliance) are just
coming from their convention," the prime minister said. " We have not
heard anything about all the money that was raised from anybody, so they should
not attack us for that."
Outside the House, Moore said that's a
different issue.
"What we're talking about here is not
the transparency between donors and parties, or donors and the candidates, but
taxpayers dollars to the donors who then give to the parties," he said.
"The government is in a position to receive
that money; The government should be in a position to expose themselves to full
openness and accountability."
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