PMO failed to protect PM, analysts say

Staff seen as having been too wrapped up in containing Duffy expense affair

The main unanswered question in the Mike Duffy affair is this: Why would Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office and the Conservative party tie themselves in such knots over $90,000 in expenses for one lone senator?

The court documents made public this week, outlining sweeping allegations and details about the machinations of the Prime Minister’s Office in the Duffy affair, offer only hints, such as:

❚ Duffy didn’t have the money and then-chief of staff Nigel Wright felt bad for him;

❚ Harper had said the money needed to be repaid, period;

❚ Duffy was refusing to give money back and becoming a political problem that had to go away; and

❚ Duffy had been good to the party and needed to be treated well in return.

What started out as a containable problem then spiralled out of control — including Duffy himself, according to the documents.

By the time Wright agreed to get Duffy the money for the repayment, the amount owed was three times what was expected, the Conservative Fund had backed away from footing the cash, promises had been made and Duffy’s lawyer was wondering where was the cash.

“By then they’re maybe in too deep to change course,” said Norman Spector, a former chief of staff to Brian Mulroney. “It’s very hard — you don’t always have the option of going down the different path. Sometimes you go down the wrong path too far to get back on the straight and narrow.”

On Feb. 11, Duffy visited Wright in the Langevin Block, home to the PMO. During that meeting, Duffy allegedly told Wright that he “spends most of his time in Ottawa,” including for health-care reasons.

He also had been on the road for the party, and the documents suggest an air of concern that information would become public.

Paying back the money and stopping the audit may have prevented that information from coming out.

“I think they were just thinking of making a headache for Stephen Harper go away,” said Kathy Brock, an expert on political parties from Queen’s University.

“I think the sense was within the Prime Minister’s Office that the prime minister did not want the type of tawdry scandal that caught the Liberals to catch him. People felt like this had to be dealt with.”

Duffy had been good to the party. He was known as a top fundraiser, and his oratory skills, honed through years as a broadcast journalist, helped him work a room, or deliver partisan barbs on Parliament Hill or in the media.

Duffy was a Harper Senate appointee, and the prime minister and party may have felt some residual loyalty to Duffy.

“If Hugh Segal had gotten into this trouble, I’m not sure that the Prime Minister’s Office would have gone to the same efforts,” Spector said.

“Duffy had a few special characteristics that would perhaps explain the potential for greater embarrassment.”

Duffy steadfastly refused to pay the money back and “argued that he was entitled to his entitlements,” according to the RCMP.

He demanded a public apology from the Senate committee reviewing his claims.

He allegedly demanded the PMO give him the money for repayment. A displeased Wright told Duffy “the government would not stand behind him.”

Then Duffy said he didn’t have the money; Wright said he would look into a way to cover the bill.

“You can’t just cut (people) loose,” Brock says of the problem Wright faced.

“Parties have helped people out; that’s what they’re there for. That’s part of the understanding. … That, in part, is what makes politics work.”

The PMO may not have trusted the Senate process to move fast enough to ensure the problem wasn’t around in two years when an election was expected to be held, Brock said.

Having it around in two years would have been damaging to Harper, who has styled himself a friend of the common man and a champion of Senate reform, Spector said.

So PMO staff dug themselves in deeper, trying to change the audit of Duffy. Wright wrote his personal, secret cheque.