BERGEN OP ZOOM, Netherlands - Prime Minister Stephen Harper is dismissing comparisons between the allegations against former junior cabinet minister Helena Guergis and those linked to one of his backbench MPs.
Alberta MP Devinder Shory is one of dozens of people named in a Calgary lawsuit alleging at $70-million mortgage fraud against the Bank of Montreal. The RCMP have said they are in the preliminary stages of seeing whether a crime is involved.
Harper dumped Guergis from the Conservative caucus in March and asked the Mounties to look into unspecified concerns about her raised by a private eye. On Wednesday, the party also said she was no longer the nominated candidate in Simcoe-Grey.
In the Guergis matter, the RCMP has yet to say whether it has found grounds to launch a full investigation.
Harper said the two cases are different. Shory remains in the Conservative caucus.
"Mr. Shory, this is a civil action, it's not a criminal matter, it's a private matter," Harper told reporters at a commemoration of the liberation of Holland.
"Its origin is before he became a member of Parliament and it's before the court, so I'm not going to comment."
Both MPs have said the allegations against them are false.
Shory was elected to Parliament in 2008. He serves on the joint security and regulations committee, and the natural resources committee.
The Bank of Montreal says it has been scammed in several schemes in Western Canada that were first flagged in a security check four years ago. It alleges the defendants found undervalued houses in upscale neighbourhoods, then paid people a few thousand dollars to put their name on a mortgage application.
Documents were then forged to inflate the value of the property and to fool the bank into believing the buyer had the ability to pay. Once the mortgage was approved, the fraudsters pocketed the profit and the money was sent overseas, the bank alleges.
It says the mortgages were worth $69.5 million. After foreclosures, it expects the gross loss to be $30 million and hopes through the lawsuit and other means to reduce the loss even further.
According to the statement of claim, Shory was among a number of lawyers associated with a group of defendants that were allegedly identifying property to be used in the fraudulent schemes. The group would then find and pay so-called "strawbuyers" to apply for the mortgage, the sums ranging between $3,000 and $8,000.
Shory and the lawyers, says the statement of claim, also modified the strawbuyers' assets and income totals to make them more appealing candidates for the mortgage money from BMO.
The allegations have yet to be proven in court. There have been no charges laid in connection with the allegations.
Shory said in a statement Wednesday evening that he hasn't yet been served with the statement of claim.
"When I am, I will defend myself vigorously against these accusations,"he wrote. "I have done nothing wrong. As the matter is before the courts, I have no further comment at this time."
