From:  The Party of One   -   by Michael Harris   
      
      
   A Tangled Web   
      
   On February 20, 2013, Senator Tkachuk called Wright with a solution to   
   everyone's problems that he and Senator Carolyn Stewart Olsen had devised:     
   Duffy would write to Deloitte requesting the amount of his inappropriate   
   expense, admit to an honest mistake, and pay back the money.  The Senate   
   Steering Committee would then stop the Deloitte audit.  Wright later told   
   Duffy that the PMO would assist    
   with the communications approach.  More importantly, Wright would also look   
   into potential financial sources to provide the cash.   
      
   Despite Wright's assurances, Duffy kept the pressure on in his own way.     
      
   On the day that Tkachuk communicated his proposal for a solution to the PMO,   
   Senator Duffy told Nigel Wright that he would be forwarding redacted copies of   
   his diaries for the past four years, along with other information that would   
   back up his claim    
   that he was a resident of PEI.  Wright in turn emailed the director of issues   
   management in the PMO, Chris Woodcock, the PM's legal counsel, Benjamin   
   Perrin; and others in the PMO, alerting them that documents from Duffy were on   
   the way.     
      
   Was there more to the Old Duff's decision to send his diaries to the PMO than   
   met the eye?  The diaries covered four years, and contained detailed notes of   
   the senator's travel, meetings, teleconferences, social events, holidays,   
   important current events,   
    speeches and political interactions.  Opposition leader Thomas Mulcair had   
   already accused Senator Pamela Wallin of running up huge travel bills, raising   
   money for the Conservative Party on the taxpayers' dime.  Would Duffy's   
   diaries confirm that she    
   wasn't the only one?  And just as important, had the senator from PEI done it   
   with instructions from on high?   
      
   Wright was cautious about using the diaries.  In an email to his PMO staff, he   
   wrote:  "Our team will have to look at that to see if there is anything in it   
   that we would not want his lawyer to send to the Senate steering committee.    
   Maybe it will    
   persuade us to let him take his chances with Deloitte's findings.  If not,   
   then I have told him I will be back on his case about repayment.  I have told   
   him that we have comms and issues management materials in preparation."   
      
   After reviewing the Duffy diaries, the PMO decided to meet the senator's   
   terms, but the also demanded that he meet theirs.  Wright called Duffy and   
   told him that the PMO had been working on lines and a scenario for Duffy to   
   use in the media and that all    
   of his other concerns, including cash for payment, would be met.  For his   
   part, Duffy would have to repay his debts with interest and stop talking about   
   the issue in the media.   
      
   But according to Duffy, Wright applied a little pressure of his own to   
   persuade him to accept the deal.  The senator remembered being told that the   
   steering committee of the Internal Economy Board was preparing to issue its   
   own report on the question of    
   his residency and they were not looking favourably on him.   
      
   At a news conference held October 21, 2013, the day before Duffy's passionate   
   speech in the Senate, his criminal lawyer, Donald Bayne, read from a memo   
   Duffy had written to his lawyer on February 20, 2013, after talking to Nigel   
   Wright.  Duffy wrote: '   
   Somewhere in the midst of this, he [Nigel] said that the steering committee of   
   the Internal Economy was preparing to issue their own report on the issue or   
   residency . . . they would trump Deloitte by saying that their analysis of my   
   file is going to say    
   that I was in violation of the rules and wasn't eligible to sit as a senator   
   from PEI.  I asked where does the committee get the power to pronounce on   
   these things?  No one gave them authority to make these findings on their   
   own.  He said David Tkachuk    
   and Carolyn Stewart Olsen were the majority on the steering committee - and   
   they wanted this.'   
      
   The way Duffy told it, it was either take the deal being proposed by the PMO   
   or lose his Senate seat.   
      
   Whatever the machinations, Duffy agreed to what he later called a "dirty   
   scheme".  Under the deal with the PMO, Duffy would repay his housing   
   allowances, admit he made a mistake, and stop defending his entitlements in   
   the media.  And he was not to tell    
   anyone about the special arrangement with the PMO.     
      
   In return, he would be reimbursed for the repayment, the steering committee   
   would not attack him in the media, and he would be withdrawn from the Deloitte   
   audit.   
      
   There was one last practical detail to establish:  who would actually pay   
   Duffy's improper expenses?   
      
   According to Nigel Wright, Senator Irving Gerstein had previously approached   
   the PM's chief of staff to ask if he could assist in any way.  On February 22,   
   Wright called the chair of the Conservative Party Fund and took him up on his   
   offer.   
      
   Gerstein agreed to pay $32,000 plus interest, in the matter of Duffy's   
   wrongful housing allowance expenses.  The justification for the Fund's   
   involvement would be that Duffy had made the claims in error.  Wright passed   
   on the good news to PMO staff that    
   the deal was all but done - a welcome turn of events for a group that had been   
   grappling with the Senate expenses scandal for months without much success.   
      
   After perusing Duffy's diaries and conferring many times with the embattled   
   senator, Wright also agreed that "a senior government source" would confirm in   
   a statement that Duffy was qualified to sit as a senator from PEI.  "The PM   
   will also give this    
   answer is [sic] asked, as will other authorized spokespeople for the   
   government," Wright noted.   
      
   Wright even agreed to Payne's request that Duffy be reimbursed for his legal   
   fees in additon to his expenses, as long as he kept his part of the bargain.    
   The party "would not inform anyone" of the payment, and Wright expected Duffy   
   to keep their secret    
   arrangement secret.  But he wasn't taking any chances . . .  he asked Benjamin   
   Perrin to go back to Duffy's lawyer and confirm that everything was   
   understood.     
   "I would like it be be explicit . . .  I do not want to speak to the PM before   
   everything is considered final."   
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