After early trepidation, how the talks unfolded

OT TAWA • For weeks leading up to Monday’s surprise announcement, Justin Trudeau’s top advisers held fast to a sensational secret: they were in clandestine negotiations to bring Conservative MP Eve Adams into the Liberal camp.

Talks about crossing the floor, initiated by a third party on Ms. Adams’ behalf, were conducted as the high-profile Toronto-area MP continued to speak for the government in her role as parliamentary secretary to the health minister.

That initial contact by her envoy led to a private meeting in January between Ms. Adams and Mr. Trudeau, in an office in the Confederation Building on Parliament Hill, where both MPs have offices. The meeting was followed up in conversations with Liberal campaign cochair Katie Telford.

With the discussion under way, Ms. Adams, 41, continued to play the loyal Conservative in the House of Commons, standing during Question Period to give responses on the health file and voting along party lines nine times in February alone.

Her fiancé, former Conservative party director and one-time Harper adviser Dimitri Soudas, wasn’t directly involved in the early meetings, but his presence certainly hovered over them.

For the Liberals, Ms. Adams’ ties to Mr. Soudas carried an important question in the early stages of the discussions: Were they being punked? Was Ms. Adams’ outreach a legitimate attempt from a disillusioned politician to switch parties? Or was it a clever plot to entrap the Trudeau camp in a potentially embarrassing negotiation, not unlike the courtship of former Tory Gurmant-Grewal, who surreptitiously recorded his conversations with Prime Minister Paul Martin’s chief of staff before the 2005 budget vote?

That fear eventually faded, but only in the final days before Monday’s announcement were Mr. Trudeau’s aides certain Ms. Adams would follow through and leave the Tories.

Early Monday morning, Ms. Adams sent a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, telling him she was leaving.

Then a little after 9 a.m., she took at seat on stage next to Mr. Trudeau and delivered an ex---

coriating review of her former party. The Conservative leadership was “mean-spirited,” she said, alluding to “fear-mongers and bullies.” She also took aim at the government’s incomesplitting tax plan, repeatedly citing the doubts former finance minister Jim Flaherty expressed about it before he died last year.

“There’s a social conservatism to it but, moreover, it’s profoundly unfair,” she said.

And Ms. Adams, 41, credited Mr. Trudeau’s commitment to protecting women’s right to choose an abortion as another reason for joining his party.

The Conservatives responded almost immediately, first with a cabinet shuffle that stole some share of the political news coverage. Then came a message from Conservative party president John Walsh stating he had previously barred Ms. Adams from running for the party again.

“I informed her in writing on January 29th that she would not be permitted to run for our party in the next election due to the misconduct from the Oakville North-Burlington nomination race,” said Mr. Walsh.

The nomination race had been marred by allegations of dirty tricks flying back and forth between the Adams campaign and that of rival Natalia Lishchyna. Mr. Soudas lost his job as executive director of the federal Conservatives over claims he had interfered on Ms. Adams’ behalf. Citing health reasons related to a concussion, Ms. Adams withdrew.

Later Monday, Mr. Harper at an Ottawa news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, said Ms. Adams left for one reason: to win a seat.

“The national council of our party is responsible for an honest, clean nomination process. It informed MP Adams some 10 days ago that she could not be a candidate for the party for reasons that I think everybody understands,” Mr. Harper said.

“That’s obviously the reality of the situation and that’s the sole reason we obviously have the development we have today.”

For Ms. Adams, the move gives her a chance to resurrect a political career. She says she’ll run for the Liberals in a Toronto-area riding that she will name once she has consulted with the community. Huffington Post, citing sources, said the riding is Finance Minister Joe Oliver’s.