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If, likewise, it was as above-board as we are told, why the obsessive secrecy in which it was enveloped? After all, they were putting money back into the treasury! Surely that called for some kind of celebratory press conference, no? Or at any rate, after the story broke, what reason would there have been not to talk about it then? “It’s simple, really,” Wright could have explained that first day, the prime minister by his side. Instead, here we are, two-plus years of stonewalling, denial and evasion later, and people still can’t keep their stories straight.

When people are going to great lengths to conceal something, chances are they have a good reason

News, in Lord Northcliffe’s famous formulation, is “what someone wants suppressed.” When people are going to great lengths to conceal something, chances are they have a good reason. The Duffy conspirators plainly thought so, and they were right.

First, there is the matter of the payment itself. The secrecy of it is indeed a large part of what makes it such a big deal. It was one of the conditions attached to the payment — at Wright’s explicit insistence — of the kind that mark the difference between a possible bribe and a gift; moreover the failure to disclose it is itself one of the things the law forbids.

It is important to bear in mind: Wright’s bank draft was not made out to the Receiver General, but to Duffy’s law firm. It may have ultimately gone to repay his expenses, but its first purpose was to relieve him of the obligation. Whether that was illegal or not is for a court to decide, but it clearly sailed very close to the line: if not under the Criminal Code, then under Sect. 16 of the Parliament of Canada Act (“no member of the Senate shall receive or agree to receive any compensation … in relation to any bill, proceeding, contract, claim, controversy, charge, accusation, arrest or other matter before the Senate…”) Put simply, you can’t make clandestine payments to sitting legislators, no matter what your reason.