XPost: can.politics, bc.politics, ont.politics   
   XPost: ab.politics   
   From: ConsRCons@govt.cda   
      
   CBC News Posted: Nov 22, 2013   
      
   Nigel Wright-Mike Duffy affair tests Harper's 'new era of accountability'   
      
   New RCMP documents raise more questions than answers about Mike Duffy   
   payment   
      
      
      
   For his single-minded devotion to business as usual, you have to hand it   
   to Stephen Harper. Really.   
      
   There he was Thursday in Lac Megantic, far away from Parliament Hill,   
   committing $95 million to the critical work of decontaminating the site   
   of one of the worst rail disasters in Canadian history.   
      
   Harper is frequently the face of his government when it comes to big   
   spending announcements. Good news like that is good for the PM's image.   
      
   But when it comes to the $90,000 doled out by his former top adviser to   
   solve a political problem largely of Harper's own making, well, then the   
   responsibility rests squarely with others.   
      
   For months now, Harper has ducked, weaved and laid the blame on Nigel   
   Wright for having the poor sense of paying off Senator Mike Duffy's   
   improperly claimed living expenses; and also on Mike Duffy for lying   
   about having used his own money when he hadn't.   
      
   The prime minister's lines have changed each time the scandal deepened:   
   from first praising Wright's intentions to later condemning them, from   
   saying Wright ''acted alone'' to suggesting he told ''very few.''  He   
   has also morphed from saying Wright resigned, to insisting his former   
   chief of staff was dismissed.   
      
   This week, new RCMP court documents related to their investigation of   
   the Wright-Duffy affair, made it clear that many more people knew of   
   Wright's decision than the ''very few'' he referred to.   
      
   They include a half-dozen of the most senior people inside his own   
   office, as well as at least one senator and two officials with the   
   Conservative Party.   
      
   None of those people have paid a price for helping keep what Harper now   
   describes as Wright's ''deception.''   
      
   Nor does it appear any of them will.   
      
      
   A higher accountability   
      
   "It's important to note that the inappropriate action taken here was by   
   Mr. Wright at his own initiative and obviously [by] Mr. Duffy, who   
   deliberately lied to the public about those things,'' Harper said in Lac   
   Megantic when reporters pressed him on the matter at a brief news   
   conference.   
      
   As for his own responsibility for the actions of people in his office,   
   Harper was mute. This buck is for passing.   
      
   That stance is, of course, entirely at odds with the standards Harper   
   promised when he first came to power in 2006.   
      
   In those days, a Conservative win meant a new era of accountability in   
   Ottawa.  He vowed Conservative ministers and political staff would be   
   held to a higher standard of conduct than the Liberal government that   
   preceded them.   
      
   Canadians were told he would brook no aberrant behaviour, no case in   
   which anyone in his government would profit from his or her position.   
      
   The promise became an important selling point in Harper's win, and was   
   built on voter fatigue with the Liberal sponsorship scandal.   
      
   Living up to those standards today in the midst of the Wright-Duffy   
   scandal may well determine the Conservative hold on office two years   
   from now.   
      
   Harper is now the leader under siege over what he knew, and when he knew it.   
      
   He's being pressed to explain why staff in his office seemed to work   
   harder on the cover-up, keeping the issue under wraps, than on saving   
   taxpayers' money from being spent on Mike Duffy's expenses.   
      
   Perhaps most troubling, he's being pressed to explain why his   
   confidantes went to such lengths to meet the conditions Duffy imposed on   
   their dealings, including one ''to keep him whole on the repayment'' —   
   something the RCMP documents released this week make clear Wright   
   reported to Harper way back on Feb. 22.   
      
   "I want to speak to the PM before everything is considered final,''   
   Wright sent to others in the office. An hour later he sent another email   
   indicating ''we are good to go from the PM.''   
      
      
   The larger question   
      
   Harper insists the ''good to go'' meant he was good with Duffy repaying   
   the $90,000. Not, as the RCMP investigator writes in the documents, "I   
   believe the term keep him whole means that Senator Duffy would not be   
   financially out of pocket.''   
      
   NDP leader Thomas Mulcair seized on this point Thursday in question period.   
      
   "Since when does the prime minister of Canada have to approve a senator   
   repaying his own expenses,'' Mulcair thundered.   
      
   Harper, of course, wasn't there to hear it. He was in Lac-Mégantic. The   
   answer fell to his parliamentary secretary, Paul Calandra.   
      
   "As I've said on a number of occasions,'' Calandra solemnly intoned as   
   though his words carry the same weight as those of his boss, ''and as   
   the prime minister has said, the standard that we expect on this side of   
   the House is that if you have some expenses you did not incur you should   
   not be accepting those expenses, Mr. Speaker.''   
      
   That might pass as an answer explaining why the government wanted Duffy   
   to be held accountable, but it doesn't begin to address the larger question.   
      
   Harper's been even less clear on what Wright meant in another email sent   
   May 14 — the day before the PM says he learned Wright had paid for   
   Duffy's expenses.   
      
   In that email, Wright says this: "The PM knows, in broad terms only,   
   that I personally assisted Duffy when I was getting him to repay the   
   expenses.''   
      
   There's been no explanation of when the PM knew this, or what Wright   
   means by ''broad terms only.''   
      
   It doesn't appear the RCMP are focused on getting answers to those   
   questions either. As Harper says, only Wright and Duffy are under   
   investigation.   
      
   "After months of interviews and review of documents,'' Harper read from   
   the RCMP production order made public this week, ''the investigator says   
   he is not aware of any evidence that the prime minister was involved in   
   the repayment or reimbursement of any money to Mr. Duffy. The RCMP could   
   not be clearer.''   
      
   And that's the message the prime minister wants Canadians to remember.   
   In the Wright-Duffy affair, the man who would be the face of the   
   government was left in the dark.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)