Trading Seats?

Secret plot by the Tories and Liberals to rig key ridings in 2000 election?

Just when it seemed federal politics couldn’t get any sleazier, Sun Media has learned that a group of powerful Tory and Liberal backroom operatives secretly conspired to bolster the Grit national campaign and skew the results in a number of ridings in the last federal election. Two weeks before Jean Chretien called the country to the polls in October 2000, reliable sources say, a small group of top Tory officials cut a secret deal to help Chretien’s ultimately successful national campaign for a third majority government.
In return, the Liberals agreed to throw the vote in the Calgary Centre riding of then Tory leader Joe Clark.
In what may have been a series of similar deals, sources say the Tories also agreed to “stand down” to help Liberal Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan hang on to her Edmonton seat, which she won by only 733 votes.
…
Clark had entered the campaign with abysmal polling numbers pointing to an almost certain defeat.
Instead, the former Tory leader won by 4,304 votes after a bizarre campaign in which a group called “Liberals for Clark” suddenly popped up from nowhere to back him.

It might help explain that “devil we know” endorsement of Martin by Clark a few weeks ago.
hat tip – An American in TO