Harper says chief of staff Wright ‘dismissed’ over $90K cheque

Prime Minister Stephen Harper continues to recast himself in the role of stern disciplinarian in the Senate expense narrative, telling a Halifax radio station he “dismissed” his chief of staff for writing a $90,000 cheque to Sen. Mike Duffy.

Last spring when word of the secret payment first surfaced, Harper initially praised Nigel Wright, before appearing to regretfully accept his top lieutenant’s resignation several days later.

“I accept that Nigel believed he was acting in the public interest, but I understand the decision he has taken to resign,” the prime minister said last May 19.

Harper is now striking a new tone.

“I had a chief of staff who made an inappropriate payment to Mr. Duffy — he was dismissed,” Harper told radio station News 95.7 Halifax in an interview aired today.

At issue is an alleged coverup in which the Prime Minister’s Office paid off Duffy so that he could repay disputed expenses, in return for which a Conservative-dominated Senate audit committee would whitewash Duffy’s behaviour and make the scandal disappear.

The expense questions were first a matter dismissed by government as a media smear, then a political problem to be quietly managed away.

The latest change in tenor began last week after Harper and his office faced a full-on broadside from Duffy and fellow Harper appointees Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau, who are also mired in their own expenses controversies.

The Senate Conservative majority is pushing to suspend, without pay, all three of their former caucus mates. That threat has brought the Conservative fight into the open.

The prime minister has been extremely reluctant to respond to the Senate spending crisis, more often than not allowing his House of Commons surrogates and subordinates to parry opposition questions on the matter.

But Harper went on offence last week after Duffy’s incendiary address in the Senate chamber, in which he described a meeting between himself, Harper and Wright — “just the three of us” — to discuss the expense issue.

“Darn right I told him he should repay his expenses,” the prime minister responded the next day in the Commons.

Harper has also come out four-square behind the Senate suspension motions, which were sprung after Parliament returned on Oct. 16 following a month-long prorogation break.

Some senators have said Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau deserve a full hearing and due process; there are indications that the Senate leadership may move this week to soften the motions.

But Harper again today called on the Senate to press for full suspension, saying the standard for being booted out of the upper chamber should be higher than simply being convicted of a crime.

Harper said having misappropriated hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars is reason enough for tough action.

“There has been a view in the Senate, a long historic view, and there’s a few people who still believe it, even in our party, that the only standard for sitting in the Senate is that you’ve not been convicted of a crime,” he said.

“I’m sorry, that is just not good enough.”