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The Liberals turned down an opportunity to meet with a private investigator who said he had information about Helena Guergis, before he relayed that same information to the Conservative party.

Private investigator Derek Snowdy told Â鶹ӰÊÓ that he first sought to talk to the Liberals, but he was turned down by Peter Donolo, the chief of staff for Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff.

"Mr. Snowdy told me yesterday that he had offered to meet with Mr. Ignatieff to brief him on the allegations that he ended up giving to the Conservative party lawyer," said CTV's Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife, speaking to Â鶹ӰÊÓ Channel from Ottawa on Thursday morning.

Snowdy attempted to set up a meeting with the Liberal leader's chief of staff, but "Mr. Donolo refused to meet with him," said Fife.

Instead, Snowdy ended up taking the information he had to the Conservative party, which eventually led to Guergis' departure from the Conservative cabinet.

Snowdy had been conducting a 19-month probe into the affairs of Nazim Gillani and his business partner, former CFL player Mike Mihelic, when he learned of purported illicit behaviour by Guergis and her husband, former Tory MP Rahim Jaffer.

Both Gillani and Mihelic are facing fraud charges on an unrelated matter.

Gilliani implied to Snowdy that he had cellphone photos of Guergis and Jaffer "partying" with cocaine and high-priced prostitutes, Snowdy said. That made Snowdy concerned about a possible blackmail attempt.

It has not been confirmed that Gillani said those comments or that he had the cellphone photos, but it was those allegations that caused Harper to act.

Meanwhile, news broke on Thursday that Snowdy filed for bankruptcy last year, citing a liability of $13 million, casting doubts on his claims.

A lawyer for Guergis says the former junior cabinet minister vigorously denies the claims being made by Snowdy and says Gillani was making boasts to the private investigator that were untrue.

Timeline of allegations

Harper announced last Friday that Guergis stepped down from the Conservative cabinet after his office had been informed of "serious allegations" about her conduct.

The prime minister said he had "referred the allegations to the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner and to the RCMP." But he did not say what the allegations were.

Declining to comment on the matter further, Harper said that "pending a resolution" Guergis would sit outside the Conservative party caucus in the House of Commons.

In the days that followed, opposition MPs sought to determine the nature of the allegations about Guergis, and it was confirmed that the RCMP was investigating the matter.

Earlier this week, however, Mary Dawson, the ethics commissioner, said she would not move forward on the matter because she was not in a position to proceed with an inquiry. And in an interview with CBC Radio, Dawson further said she had not been directly asked to investigate.

On Thursday, Dimitri Soudas released a statement clarifying the way Harper relayed the allegations about Guergis to the RCMP and the ethics commissioner last week.

"These authorities were left to make their own decisions about next steps," Soudas said in the statement released Thursday.

"The Prime Minister and PMO did not 'request' or 'direct' any specific action. These authorities are independent and will make their own determinations."

Soudas said Harper did not provide specific details of allegations and "made clear that the information was second-hand."

No info passed to ethics commissioner

Fife said the ethics commissioner was also unable to secure co-operation from Derek Snowdy -- the private investigator who brought forward the allegations about Guergis.

"He will only discuss the issue with an RCMP inspector who is in charge of commercial crime at the A Division in Ottawa here, Insp. John Kueper," Fife told Â鶹ӰÊÓ Channel on Thursday morning.

Fife said he spoke to Snowdy, who indicated that he feels the RCMP are in a much better position to investigate the allegations in comparison to the ethics commissioner.

"Ms. Dawson, on the basis of the fact that he would not co-operate, could hardly carry out an inquiry and that's why she says she will simply monitor the situation right now," said Fife.

Prior problems

Guergis and her husband have made headlines for months after a series of incidents that were widely covered in the Canadian media.

Last month, Jaffer pleaded guilty to careless driving in relation to an arrest the previous September, on a night when he was stopped by an OPP officer in Palgrave, Ont., and initially charged with cocaine possession and driving under the influence. His guilty plea raised questions about why the more serious charges were dropped.

A report in the Toronto Star last week said that Jaffer attended a business meeting with Gillani the same evening that he was arrested in Palgrave.

Following that meeting, Gillani sent out an email to business associates saying that Jaffer had "opened up the Prime Minister's office to us." When some of the details of that letter were revealed in the Toronto Star report, the Prime Minister's Office said Jaffer had no access to the Conservative government and any such claim to the contrary was "absurd." A Liberal MP has since asked the lobby commissioner to look into whether any of Jaffer's dealings may have violated the Lobbying Act.

In February, Guergis was criticized for allegedly throwing a temper tantrum at a Charlottetown airport. Following that incident, members of her staff wrote flattering letters to newspapers about Guergis, without identifying themselves as her staff members.

In recent weeks, a Liberal MP asked the ethics commissioner examine an $880,000 mortgage that Guergis was approved for, which she used to buy a home in an upscale Ottawa neighbourhood. Dawson has since said she will not be investigating that complaint.

With files from The Canadian Press