Opposition MPs again demanded answers from Prime Minister Stephen Harper Wednesday in connection with taped comments he made to an author about a 2005 offer to the late MP Chuck Cadman involving "financial considerations."

"What did the prime minister mean on the tape when he talked about financial considerations?" Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion repeatedly asked during question period.

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion asks a question in the House on Wednesday.
(Tom Hanson/Canadian Press)

Harper told the House that he was looking forward to his day in court, saying that Dion and his party had libelled him by saying publicly he offered Cadman a bribe. On Monday, he threatened to sue the Liberals over the Cadman allegations and demanded an immediate apology and removal of two articles from the party's website, which haven't materialized.

"We will hear this whole story before a court and the leader of the Opposition and his party will have to withdraw those words," Harper said Wednesday.

Vancouver journalist Tom Zytaruk recorded his interview with Harper in 2005 for a biography on Cadman, a portion of which was made public last week. In it, Harper said he was aware of discussions about an offer from Conservative party representatives to Cadman but that "it was only to replace financial considerations he might lose due to an election."

On Wednesday, the Prime Minister's Office categorically denied anyone from the Conservative party, or with Tory ties, offered Cadman a lucrative life-insurance policy.

"Yes, I categorically deny it," Harper's communications director Sandra Buckler said in an e-mail to the Canadian Press.

Her e-mail marks the first time the PMO or the Tories have explicitly denied that two Harper advisers, Tom Flanagan and Doug Finley, made the offer in May 2005 to Cadman, a B.C. member of Parliament, who was sitting as an independent at the time.

Butler's comment also goes slightly further than one she made in an e-mail to the CBC's Keith Boag a week ago.

Harper "at no time directed any party official to make any kind of financial arrangement with Chuck Cadman," Butler wrote.

He looked into the matter with party officials after hearing about it in September 2005 from Dona Cadman but "could find no confirmation," she wrote.

On May 19, 2005, the governing Liberals were facing a crucial vote on a budget amendment. The minority Liberals needed Cadman's vote to stay in power while the Conservatives, led by Harper, needed Cadman's support to force an election.

Cadman sided with the Liberals, ensuring Canadians would not have to head to the polls for a summer election.

Cadman's widow Dona alleged in Zytaruk's upcoming book, Like A Rock: The Chuck Cadman Story, that two Tory operatives offered her dying husband a $1-million life insurance policy on May 17, 2005, two days before the crucial vote. This week the book's publisher removed the specifics of the time reference to say only that it took place before the vote, the Globe and Mail reported.

But the Conservatives said the only offer made to the cancer-stricken MP was an invitation to rejoin his former party, and they cite television interviews Cadman himself gave in which he said the same thing.

Those remarks were met with skepticism during Wednesday's question period. Deputy Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff said it's not credible to argue that a dying man would accept a nomination for an election that he wouldn't participate in.

Cadman died in July 2005.

With files from the Canadian Press