The vast majority of Canadians do not believe Stephen Harper is telling the truth about the Mike Duffy Senate expenses scandal, a new poll has found.

Some 56 per cent of respondents do not think Harper has come clean about a controversy that is dominating news coverage in the federal election campaign, according to the Forum Research survey.

Only 22 per cent said the Conservative leader has told the truth about his role in the Duffy affair, while 22 per cent don’t know.

The findings are yet another reminder the issue could have major implications for Harper at the ballot box: Nearly three-quarters of those surveyed see his role in the scandal as a potential liability.

Forum president Lorne Bozinoff said the Duffy trial does not appear to be the Ottawa “inside baseball” kerfuffle that some political observers have claimed.

“This is what captures the public’s attention — when you have an individual. This is a person they already knew because he was a reporter all those years. They know who he is,” Bozinoff said Friday of Duffy, a high-profile former CTV broadcaster.

“It’s a human drama and people love that,” he said, noting the alleged transgression is not all that complicated.

“Everyone understands what fudging your expenses is.”

Duffy, who Harper appointed to the Senate to represent Prince Edward Island even though he lives in Ontario, is on trial for fraud, breach of trust, and bribery related to his questionable expense claims.

Nigel Wright, a multimillionaire businessman and the prime minister’s former chief of staff, gave Duffy a bank draft in 2013 for $90,172 from a personal account, to cover the senator’s disputed travel and living expenses.

Harper has insisted Wright acted on his own, though the prime minister’s story has evolved. In May 2013, he said his chief resigned after making the mistake; that October, he said he had fired him for his error.

Perhaps the most sensational claim in court is that Ray Novak — Harper’s longest-serving and most-trusted aide (and Wright’s successor as chief of staff) — was allegedly aware of the payment to Duffy.

The Ottawa trial, which has been generating front-page headlines across the country, seems to have captivated Canadians.

Forum found 68 per cent of respondents have been following the court proceedings with 32 per cent saying they have not.

Of those who are paying attention to the trial, 68 per cent believe Harper knew Wright gave Duffy the money with 21 per cent saying they feel he did not and 11 per cent unsure.

Using voice-activated response phone calls, Forum surveyed 1,473 people across the country between Monday and Wednesday with results considered accurate to within three percentage points, 19 times of 20.

Data has been statistically weighted by age, region and other variables to ensure the sample accurately reflects the population, according to the most up-to-date census results.

The poll suggests the Duffy trial is not helping the Conservatives’ electoral prospects, with 44 per cent saying it is “very damaging” and 29 per cent saying it is “somewhat damaging.”

That means 73 per cent view the issue as a potential liability.

In contrast, 15 per cent said it is “not very damaging,” four per cent said it is “not damaging at all” and seven per cent didn’t know.

“People have kind of factored this in,” said Bozinoff, noting the same poll found Tories are at 29 per cent overall — compared to 34 for the New Democrats led by Thomas Mulcair, 28 per cent for Justin Trudeau’s Liberals and four per cent apiece for Elizabeth May’s Greens and Gilles Duceppe’s Bloc Québécois.

“He has a rock-solid base and that base has taken a direct hit from this trial and has been unscathed,” the pollster said of Harper.

“It’s been all bad and it has not shaken the base. If you saw that guy who was yelling at reporters, that’s the base,” he said, referring to the Tory supporter who profanely attacked journalists for asking the prime minister about Duffy at an event in Etobicoke on Tuesday.

“But before we say this is having no impact (on the Tories’ standing in polls) it is possible that this is creating a barrier moving forward — a glass ceiling (on support).”

Court versus campaign

The testimony from Sen. Mike Duffy’s ongoing criminal trial continues to dog Stephen Harper on the campaign trail. Here’s how what was said in court compares to what the Conservative leader and his staff have told reporters in recent days.

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Aug. 13

Court: “My view is I was helping out. I was doing a good deed. It’s sort of Matthew 6, right? You should do those things quietly and ‘not let your left hand know what the right hand is doing,’ ” said Harper’s former chief of staff Nigel Wright, defending the fact that he personally covered Duffy’s $90,172 repayment to taxpayers from his own bank account.

Campaign: “Ray Novak learned about this the same time the prime minister did. That’s when it happened. I’ve known Ray for 20 years. It’s unfathomable that Ray would be aware of a payment from Nigel to Mr. Duffy and not tell the prime minister. That’s just unfathomable. It’s not the case,” insisted Conservative campaign spokesman Kory Teneycke.

Aug. 14

Court: Ray Novak was “entitled to know what was going on,” testified Wright, insisting the principal secretary, now Harper’s chief of staff, was not a “surrogate” for the prime minister.

Campaign: “These are the actions of Mr. Duffy and Mr. Wright. You hold people responsible for their own actions. You certainly don’t hold subordinates responsible for the actions of their superiors,” Harper said.

Aug. 17

Court: “I don’t feel it was a lie. It just wasn’t on my list of things I felt I had to check with him,” Wright said when asked whether he needed the prime minister’s approval to repay Duffy’s expenses.

Campaign: “I don’t accept that particular rendition of the facts. What I know is that Mr. Duffy should have repaid his expenses. He did not. He did not because Mr. Wright paid them for him.” said Harper when asked by reporters if he has a responsibility to “clean house” after the revelations about Novak court.

Aug. 18

Court: “Ray was in that meeting, and Ray heard this, and I remember looking at Ray to see his reaction,” Benjamin Perrin, a former lawyer in the Prime Minister’s Office, told RCMP investigators, according to the statement read by Duffy’s lawyer.

Campaign: “It was Mr. Duffy’s responsibility . . . to repay his expenses. Mr. Duffy did not do so. Mr. Wright permitted him not to do so. These are the individuals I consider responsible. And they are being held fully accountable for their actions,” Harper said.

Aug. 19

Court: “The important thing was that the expenses themselves get repaid. I didn’t think it was misleading in a significant respect,” Wright said under cross-examination.

Campaign: “I’m not going to discuss individual things before the court. There are two people, in my judgment, who are responsible. Mr. Duffy, who did not reimburse the taxpayers for expenses that I believe cannot be justified, and Mr. Wright, who, although he did reimburse the taxpayers, he did so without my authority and contrary to my wishes,” Harper said.

Aug. 20

Court: “Because it was so surprising to me, I immediately looked to my right to see Mr. Novak’s reaction and he didn’t have any reaction to that information,” Perrin, on how Novak was in the loop.

“When people are working for me, they have my confidence. If they didn’t have my confidence, they wouldn’t be working for me,” Harper said when asked about Novak.

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