By Friday, Feb. 22 — the day of a fateful conferral between Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his trusted chief of staff Nigel Wright over the headache of Mike Duffy’s Senate expenses — a brief midwinter Commons recess was ending.
The ethical storm now engulfing the prime minister hadn’t yet broken. Yet were warning signs missed in a PMO where a hands-on chief had taken personal charge of a political controversy?
Just the Friday before, Harper had accepted the resignation of his Indian affairs minister for improperly writing a tax court judge. Monday, the PM received a memo that PMO was working with Duffy “on a plan for him to return the money that he incorrectly collected.”
Harper had spent part of the week in the GTA and Saskatoon doing economic roundtables, announcing an office of religious freedom, and putting defibrillators in hockey rinks. The stuff of “retail politics.”
Now, this Friday began — unusually — with a cabinet shuffle. A minor one. But it had furtive air.
A new aboriginal affairs minister and three other shuffled Conservatives were sworn in at a private ceremony at Rideau Hall. It was all over by the time reporters got word in a press release at 10 a.m.
By then, Nigel Wright would have been at work for more than four hours. Driven, hardworking, he tended to run daily half-marathon distances, arrive at the office before 6 a.m. and stay until after the prime minister went home around 7 or 8 at night.
If by chance the morning marathoner had checked his horoscope in that day’s paper, he’d have seen a warning:
“Not everyone is as careful and conscientious as you and there is a real possibility that a mistake has been made. It may not be a serious one, but it could affect you in some way, so check other people’s work,” it read.
It’s an open question whether the actions of Wright to pay $90,000 to defray Duffy’s inappropriate expenses will form the basis of criminal charges, or whether anyone else might be charged. But there’s no question it spawned the biggest political crisis ever faced by Harper.
How it might have ever unfolded in the first place, under the watchful eye, let alone the direction of, a Conservative star like Wright remains one of the biggest mysteries.
Conversations with several sources who spoke on condition of strict anonymity suggest it is a question that Stephen Harper has yet to answer to his own satisfaction, which is why it remains a source of deep angst in his office, rattling Harper and others to the core.
If this kind of political damage can occur on the watch of someone so trusted, acting apparently for the good of the prime minister, the government and the party, who on earth do you trust? How do you move ahead?
More on that later.
One senior Conservative source grimly told the Star that ultimately, no matter what Wright’s motivation was — even if it were to shield the prime minister or provide him plausible deniability of any tie to a scheme — Wright broke the cardinal rule: keep no secrets from the PM.
Their sympathies lie not with Wright, but with a prime minister who came to power charging his predecessor was either incompetent in failing to see corruption under his nose, or complicit, and now faces daily charges in the House of Commons he is that man.
According to sources with knowledge of the workings of the Prime Minister’s Office under Wright, part of the mystery may be understood by knowing how he ran things. The sources do not all agree on this. Others suggest it is more a function of the personalities involved, a human tragedy of sorts.
All agree Wright had Harper’s confidence.
He was a disciplined, loyal and longtime Conservative soldier who arrived at PMO in January 2011 as a successful financier from Gerry Schwartz’s Onex group. A lawyer and financial dealmaker, he was and remains respected on Bay Street, and his Conservative credentials were first rate. Wright once worked as a junior staffer in Brian Mulroney’s PMO; he was part of a group that helped build the Manning Institute, and helped found and fundraised for the Conservative Fund of Canada, alongside Sen. Irving Gerstein, the chief fundraiser, for years.
At first there were a few whispered mutterings about whether he had a tin ear for practical politics, but that criticism faded quickly. On May 2, the night Conservatives won a majority, Wright celebrated in a Calgary pub with PMO staffers, MPs and ministers, and rejoiced that it was finally possible to believe Canadians were embracing conservatism.
As chief of staff, Wright was responsible for dealing with about 100 PMO staff, some 350 political staff in ministerial offices, dealing with the prime minister’s own ministry — the Privy Council Office of nearly 1,000 employees — through the Privy Council clerk. He was a key liaison for cabinet ministers, caucus members and senior party officials. The job is described in many ways: to keep the trains running, to deal with emergencies, to keep the troops happy.
His supporters and detractors agree, Wright was a taskmaster who paid attention to details, and expected orders to be followed.
Wright had maintained a practice instituted by his predecessor Guy Giorno: insisting a political eye be cast on all memos that went to the PM. The RCMP affidavit reveals his was an exacting eye.
Opinions diverge, however, on whether Wright paid too much attention to detail, operated too much alone, failed to loop in a wider circle of trusted Harper advisers on important topics.
Some say if a senior staff person needed time with the prime minister to get his okay on something important, it was easily arranged. Wright’s office was well removed from Harper’s — at the east end of Langevin Building’s second floor, the opposite end of the building from the prime minister’s personal office, so he wasn’t a literal gatekeeper.
But there were a lot of pots boiling.
As the Conservatives’ Senate problems deepened, Wright was also leading major government initiatives like the rocky talks toward the Canada-European Trade Agreement negotiations and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He was trying to clinch the European deal before the G8 that spring.
Spending questions exploded after a Senate sub-committee dispatched the accounts of Duffy, and Conservative appointees Patrick Brazeau and Pamela Wallin along with Liberal Mac Harb to Deloitte for independent audits.
Questions were swirling whether Duffy and Wallin were constitutionally entitled to hold the seats Harper had named them to. Even Senate officials were struggling to determine what province the senators were resident in.
Now dealing with Duffy had opened a Pandora’s box.
Wright, frustrated by Duffy’s whiny demands, objections and tendency to “misquote” him, had called in PMO legal counsel Benjamin Perrin to negotiate lawyer-to-lawyer with Duffy’s counsel Janice Payne. PMO email excerpts revealed by the RCMP show Wright kept a guiding hand in, accepting an offer from Gerstein that the party fund might help.
Here’s where it gets tricky to understand how none of it might have reached Harper.
Sources say the staffers ultimately in the know — Perrin, PMO issues management director Chris Woodcock, parliamentary affairs director Patrick Rogers, or Wright’s assistant David Van Hemmen — all directly reported to Wright. None were longtime political confidants who might have flagged the potential problem of paying a senator — out of any fund, party, personal, or otherwise — to the prime minister.
None, sources suggest, were likely to bypass Wright, knock on Harper’s door and disagree with the man who hired them even if they did suspect a problem.
Perrin, whose title of legal counsel to the prime minister suggests he would or should directly get instructions from Harper, was more of legal policy adviser to the office, it appears. Much of his time last spring was taken up with devising the Senate reference questions that the government would put to the Supreme Court of Canada.
As for Sen. Irving Gerstein’s ability to go to the PM, one source suggests Gerstein would have had little reason to doubt Wright wasn’t speaking for Harper.
So Friday, Feb. 22 — as they were trying to nail down details of Duffy’s repayment — Wright emailed his aides: “I do want to speak to the PM before everything is considered final.”
According to the partial email excerpts, that “everything” appeared to include an plan that the party’s Conservative Fund would cover $32,000 of Duffy’s costs (a plan that later fell apart when the bill ran up to $90,000).
Less than an hour later, the RCMP says, Wright followed up with another email, “We are good to go from the PM(. . . ).”
So what did the infamous “Good to go” line mean? Surely Duffy didn’t need Harper’s permission to repay.
But from the perspective of those who spoke to the Star, Wright indeed did need Harper’s sign-off to force the issue.
Seen from this perspective, neither Wright nor Harper knew what the political impact of forcing Duffy to repay against his will would be. Neither knew at that moment to what extent cracking the whip on Duffy would further expose the government to risk; how many other senators might be confronted with residency or expense challenges; and more important in their eyes, whether senators would rebel, whether the government’s broader Senate reform agenda would then be sunk by being seen to punish Duffy, who was then still the garrulous member of Conservative caucus who’d lent his face to many a party fundraiser.
“Absolutely,” the prime minister would have had to sign off on that before Wright could act, said one.
Likewise, there is “no question” that Wright should have divulged any proposal to use Conservative donor funds if that’s what was in play, said another. But according to Harper’s answers this week in the Commons, that never happened.
Late that Friday, Duffy appeared on CTV and CBC from Charlottetown to awkwardly say perhaps he’d made mistakes on his claims, and would repay after all.
But it wasn’t over, not by a long shot.
Four days later, when the Duffy bill rang in at $90,000, Gerstein who’d offered to help — according to the RCMP — balked. It’s not clear why. Was he worried it would set an expensive precedent and the party would have to fork over to cover Wallin’s expenses, too? Her expenses were already suspected to be a bigger problem.
Duffy pleaded he was broke. On March 8, Wright informed aide Chris Woodcock he would personally cover Duffy’s expenses.
In the view of one source, it was Wright’s “monumental” error to assume he could decide for the prime minister. “Because that’s essentially what Nigel did; he made a decision on behalf of the prime minister and he had no authority to do that.”
Asked if part of Wright’s job description was to provide the prime minister with the deniability he now hangs his reputation on, the source said flatly “No. Harper doesn’t want deniability on wrongdoing.”
On Tuesday, May 14, the story broke on CTV News that Wright had intervened to help Duffy while an audit was still underway.
Harper did not watch the news that night but learned the truth of Wright’s role on the morning of May 15, sources say.
Heading into the long May weekend, the PMO struggled to get a handle on the implications of what had happened. By Thursday, Duffy was out of the Conservative caucus. By Friday, so was Wallin, a decision she says was forced on her by Wright’s soon-to-be replacement Ray Novak.
Wright went on a previously scheduled trip to the United States with friends to celebrate his 50th birthday that Saturday, May 18. By then, it was clear only one outcome was acceptable. Wright issued a resignation statement first thing Sunday. But the decision was made Saturday. Harper issued a brief statement accepting Wright’s exit with “great regret.”
Conservative senators involved in the file — other than Gerstein — were shifted out of leadership roles. Perrin’s contract ended in April. But Harper has consistently refused to fire the other young staffers — all in their 20s — who were carrying out Wright’s orders. One’s just recently married. Another has two young children. Harper has made clear he holds Wright responsible, not the people who answered to the chief of staff.
As the RCMP probes further, the prime minister has surrounded himself with longtime trusted aides, instituted new checks and balances, and says little. In this environment, his supporters believe it is best. There is little expectation Harper, long portrayed as a man in control, would get the benefit of doubt if more surprises — grounded in fact or not —emerge.
After the RCMP affidavit was released Nov. 20, Wright released a statement through his lawyer: “My intention was always to secure repayment of funds owed to taxpayers. I acted within the scope of my duties and remain confident that my actions were lawful.”
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