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Francoise Ducros shown in Ottawa last year. (CP Picture Archive/Fred Chartrand)
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PRAGUE (CP) - Prime Minister Jean Chretien said Friday he has refused the resignation of his embattled communications director, Francoise Ducros, over her alleged remark that U.S. President George W. Bush is a "moron."
Chretien said Ducros had apologized to him for the furore caused by a conversation she had with a journalist at the NATO summit in Prague. "She was graceful enough to offer me her resignation," the prime minister said. "I have not accepted that."
Ducros, who did not appear at the news conference in Prague, told Chretien she couldn't recall whether she made the remark but acknowledged she frequently uses the word "moron," Chretien added.
"I know her very well," the prime minister told reporters. "She may have used that word against me a few times and I am sure she used it against you many times. It's a word she uses regularly."
Chretien said there have been no official complaints from American officials at the NATO summit, which closed Friday. He said U.S.-Canadian relations had not been damaged. Chretien said Ducros has been a frequent defender of Bush in front of the media, and took aim at reporters for making much of what he called a "private conversation."
"She defended many, many times the president of the United States - I heard her, many times," he said.
"And she reflected the position of Canada many times, that we have good relations. So she has apologized to me for the problem it's causing ... but we don't live in as civilized a world as we used to, where private conversations are private."
Chretien dismissed reminders that he himself - during a storm over his former solicitor general Lawrence MacAulay a few weeks ago - said he accepts resignations as a matter of policy when they are offered.
"I said that to cabinet ministers because a cabinet minister can use a resignation to try to push you," he said. "It's not a question of her trying to press me. She offered her resignation and I said that I don't think that under the circumstances, unless other things occur (that I should accept it)."
Chretien noted that White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, for example, was in hot water recently over comments suggesting Washington could solve problems with Iraq by killing Saddam Hussein with "one bullet."
Speaking in Prague Thursday, Fleischer said the reported comment by Ducros was not taken as the official position of Canadian government.