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Such was Mike Duffy’s third day testifying in his own defence that if prosecutors Mark Holmes and Jason Neubauer had any decency, they would have stood up and announced to the judge that they were withdrawing all charges against Duffy and then, in a truly sporting gesture, been the first to hoist him to their shoulders before carrying him out of the courthouse up Elgin Street to Parliament Hill, or perhaps the Governor General’s joint, to receive honours.

That’s how good a senator and public servant and human being the 69-year-old former veteran broadcaster is, by his own reckoning.

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“He’d had a close call during the previous election and it was only through the divine intervention of (late campaign manager) Doug Finley’s black ops group at Conservative headquarters that he managed to get himself re-elected,” Duffy told the court.

Julian West, the federal NDP candidate in Saanich-Gulf Islands in 2008, had withdrawn from the race, but his name remained on the ballot. Duffy recounted that the Conservatives used the party’s voter database to encourage NDP voters to vote for that candidate.

“Basically what happened was that they used robocalls to misdirect NDP voters, to split the vote and allow Gary Lunn to win,” Duffy said.

“He knew nothing about it, except that they phoned him afterward and said ‘You’re welcome Gary.’ He said ’What?’ (They said) ‘We got you in.’”

Lunn told The Canadian Press on Thursday that he has no recollection of the June 2009 lunch, never knew who made the misleading phone calls and never told Duffy that it was Conservative headquarters.