How much did he know?
Harper camp denies email suggestions that PM approved paying Duffy’s expenses from party coffers
PMO denies Harper was aware of payment scheme,
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office has flatly said he did not know of, or approve, a plan by his senior staff in February to have the Conservative party pay Sen. Mike Duffy’s housing expenses.
RCMP documents released Wednesday left open the suggestion he was aware of the scheme and gave the “goahead” to his then-chief of staff, Nigel Wright, to make it happen.
The plan, hatched over several days in February, fell through once it was learned Duffy’s expenses were $90,000, three times higher than once thought. In the end, Wright, not the party, personally picked up the tab.
Harper has steadfastly denied knowing about the Wright-Duffy payment, but the newly released documents raised questions about whether he had been in the loop on the earlier plan involving Conservative funds.
On Thursday, a spokesman for Harper said he knew nothing about the original plan.
“He didn’t know,” said director of communications Jason MacDonald. “Period.”
“Until May 15, the prime minister was of the understanding that Mike Duffy, himself, was going to repay his own expenses with his own money. On May 15, he found out like everybody else did that that was not the case.
“Had he known, he would have put a stop to it.”
It was on May 15, the morning after a TV news report on the matter, that Harper says he learned the facts and the PMO revealed publicly that Wright had written a $90,000 personal cheque for Duffy.
Harper, appearing at an event Thursday in LacMegantic, Que., pleaded ignorance of the actions that were occurring in his own office earlier this year. Moreover, he was critical of his former senior staff member, Wright, for withholding the truth from him.
“I said to Mr. Duffy right from the outset that Mr. Duffy should repay his own expenses,” the prime minister told reporters.
“I was told that that is what he agreed to do. I was told that is what he had done. When I learned that that was not the case, I took the appropriate action.
“Mr. Wright, as you know, who made the secret payment to Mr. Duffy, has not been in my employment for six months. Mr. Duffy has been sanctioned severely, removed from the payroll of the Senate of Canada due to the action of Conservative senators, with the opposition of Liberal senators to punishing him.”
In the House of Commons, opposition parties accused the Prime Minister’s Office of direct involvement in a plan to “whitewash” a Senate report in May on Duffy.
NDP Leader Tom Mulcair said the RCMP documents prove that when Harper had previously told the House he did not give any instructions in the repayment scheme, it was “the opposite of the truth.”
“Not only did Nigel Wright get instruction from the prime minister, he even got approval,” Mulcair said. “Based on
‘How could it be that all the key people around him are named in RCMP affidavits and the prime minister expects us to believe that he didn’t know anything?’
CHARLIE ANGUS
New Democratic Party MP
that alone, the prime minister has engaged in a coverup of crimes in his own office. Why the coverup if he did not do anything wrong?”
The Senate expense scandal was given fresh fuel with the release Wednesday of RCMP documents connected to their investigation of the affair.
The Mounties allege Wright and Duffy committed bribery, fraud and breach of trust through their repayment scheme — although no charges have yet been laid and none of the allegations has been proven in court.
Under the secret plan, Canadians were to be deceived into thinking that Duffy paid back the expenses himself, according to the RCMP. Although Duffy and Wright were at the heart of the deal, at least several others in the PMO were aware of it, as was one Conservative senator, the RCMP allege.
The documents include extensive emails that show how the payment scheme for Duffy was negotiated and how the Prime Minister’s Office allegedly tried to manipulate the Senate audit into Duffy’s expenses.
Among the most politically explosive emails were those written by Wright himself.
On Feb, 21, Duffy’s lawyer, Janice Payne, wrote to Harper’s legal counsel, Benjamin Perrin, listing five demands — including that Duffy not have to repay the expenses himself.
Wright was in discussion with Sen. Irving Gerstein, who controls the party’s funds and had indicated he might use that Conservative money to pay the expenses, which were then thought to be $32,000.
The next day, Wright emailed Perrin and others, saying “I now have the goahead,” but he wanted “to speak to the PM before everything is considered final.” Less than an hour later, he wrote back: “We are good to go from the PM.” That sentence in the email has sparked renewed questions from the prime minister’s critics.
“I think the prime minister is giving Canadians two very unsavoury options,” said New Democratic MP Charlie Angus. “How could it be that all the key people around him are named in RCMP affidavits and the prime minister expects us to believe that he didn’t know anything? And if he didn’t know anything, how was this behaviour allowed to go on?”