“…We care more about looking good than about truly being good. Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second. We lie, cheat, and cut ethical corners quite often when we think we can get away with it, and then we use our moral thinking to manage our reputations and justify ourselves to others. We believe our own post hoc reasoning so thoroughly that we end up self-righteously convinced of our own virtue.”

— Jonathan Haidt in The Righteous Mind.

More from Michael Harris available More fromavailable here

If there is a better description of how the government of Stephen Harper has conducted its business, I haven’t found it.

From Paul Calandra to Nigel Wright, the political washing machine is always set on spin.

But the real question arising out of Nigel Wright’s laundered account of the Wright/Duffy Affair is this: what’s a self-respecting Conservative party-loving Kool-Aid drinker to do when faced with so many inconvenient truths?

Conservatives like to think they occupy the moral high ground. There is the greenhorn Trudeau, the ideologically-obsessed Mulcair and — somewhere on Mount Olympus, taking it all in with august superiority — are the transcendent Harper Conservatives.

But now, thanks in large part to the Duffy trial, the Conservatives now reside in the basement apartment of Canadian politics — exposed for their lying, cheating and stunning abuses of power. In any legitimate political system, that has consequences.

After all, the Conservatives like to tell themselves that Justin Trudeau isn’t ready to be prime minister — conveniently forgetting that their leader had scarcely led more than a tiny lobbying office before assuming the mantle of power. The better question today might be whether Stephen Harper is fit to lead anything other than a gang of street thugs.

A new poll by Leger appears to show Canadians are starting to agree. It shows the Conservatives in third place in the crawl towards the October 19th vote – and that is despite the best PR bribery someone else’s money can buy – the cash-for-kids thing and all the other goodies they are handing out.

Over the coming days, the Conservatives’ (or Cons as they are increasingly becoming justifiably known) problems will only get worse. New emails are about to emerge backing up claims made by Duffy in his speech to the Senate, and new witnesses will take the stand who know what really happened — including the PM’s former legal counsel, Benjamin Perrin.

And if anyone ever leaks the emails on PMO staffers’ personal accounts, or their Blackberry PINS, the roof could cave in on this crowd in a heartbeat. It is well known that those, after all, are the favoured communications methods of Harper’s inner circle.

But the damage to the Conservative Party of Canada is already significant. Three days into his cross-examination by Duffy’s lawyer, Donald Bayne, Wright has started to say even sillier things about this scandal than his former boss.

My personal favourite was his claim to retroactive altruism, including a biblical reference to how one goes about playing the Good Samaritan. He gave the money to Duffy because he walked straight out of the Book of Matthew as a man living his faith. Yes, Nigel, the expurgated edition of Matthew 6 that goes something like this: “Let not the Left know what the Wright is doing, so that your giving will be in secret.”

[Harper] simply doesn’t understand he can’t make it up as he goes along. Could it possibly be true that no one, not Nigel Wright, Ray Novak, Benjamin Perrin, Patrick Rogers, Senator Irving Gerstein, or Arthur Hamilton whispered a word about this extraordinary payment? [Harper] simply doesn’t understand he can’t make it up as he goes along. Could it possibly be true that no one, not Nigel Wright, Ray Novak, Benjamin Perrin, Patrick Rogers, Senator Irving Gerstein, or Arthur Hamilton whispered a word about this extraordinary payment?

Wright, who looked every bit the titanium superhero under the gentle questioning of the Crown, looked a little sketchy and even ticked off when Bayne started testing his story. Nor was his memory seemingly as sharp.

A key part of the Cons’ narrative has always been that Wright forked over $90,000 to Duffy to spare Canadian taxpayers the expense. Where was that public-spirited concern when Wright was ready to use taxpayer-subsidized funds, $32,000 plus legal expenses, from the Conservative Party Fund, to make his Duffy problem go away?

And there was something else wanting about Wright’s self-ascribed motive in giving Duffy $90,000. In fact, Wright seemed to be taken aback when Bayne pointed to a different, far less philanthropic motive for his “gift”.

Quoting from what Conservative Party lawyer Arthur Hamilton told the RCMP, Bayne contended that the real reason Wright badgered Duffy to take the cheque was his experience as a young politico in the doomed administration of that former Conservative Prime Minister affectionately known as Lyin’ Brian.

You remember those days? Mulroney cabinet ministers were dropping like flies in an orgy of scandals. Wright, who had witnessed those firsthand, wanted to prevent a replay of that scenario in the Harper government, believing that “We can’t lose a caucus member” because when that happens you’re in trouble. The trick is to smother scandals before they start racking up political casualties – even if high-pressure payola is the means.

Wright’s depiction of that $90,000 cheque as a “gift” is patently absurd. Gifts don’t come with the advice to take it or face the consequences. The ‘or else’ in this case was frying Duffy in a Senate report, as opposed to going easy on him if he played ball with the PMO. The trouble is, Duffy didn’t think that he owed the money and still doesn’t. What’s more, neither Stephen Harper or Nigel Wright apparently did either. But judge for yourself: does this sound like a man grateful for the “gift” Wright kept insisting he accept?

As the secret payback scheme was being negotiated, Duffy wrote to Ray Novak in the PMO: “Ray. I am cooked. I did nothing wrong.” Duffy also wrote that the repayment demand was “very hard for me to swallow.”

That led Duffy into a tormented ambivalence about what he should do. On one level, he wanted to be a team player and to do what the PM demanded for political reasons. But on another, as he wrote to Novak, why not “Phack it” and let Deloitte and the auditors decide. “If I take a dive for my leader when I am innocent”, Duffy wrote, “then I am totally at the hands of the media, the opposition.”

Novak’s reply was chilling. “As I think you’ve discussed with Nigel, we can put a com strategy around repayment that I think will work. Best to seize the initiative and not wait for the audit.”

Is it any wonder that just minutes before Duffy showed up at the studios of the CBC in Charlottetown at 4:40 p.m. on the afternoon of February 22 to give an interview, he wrote to Novak, “Ray. I can’t admit wrong-doing. The Senate has to meet me half way.”

As the light of day from the Duffy trial floods the subfusc landscapes of Harper’s political operation, complete with lying, tapping into a forensic audit before it was complete, and changing a Senate report to suit the political requirements of the PMO, the person who looks the worst is the prime minister himself. Mr. Accountability is nowhere to be found, and Mr. Transparency never has materialized.

Think about this: it was Stephen Harper who insisted that Duffy’s expenses be repaid whether they were within the Senate’s rules or not. In other words, he didn’t care about the truth or the law. What he cared about was the potential political consequences of an unwanted perception of his government. And that is why Wright asked Harper before he pressured Duffy to repay his expenses if he was comfortable with that course of action — even though Duffy might have been entitled to the expenses under the rules then in place.

If that’s not enough, think about another thing: Harper’s rationale for firing Nigel Wright. Harper said after four or five attempts to get his story straight that his former Chief-of-Staff had deceived him. But now that we know that his current Chief of Staff, Ray Novak, knew about the details of Wright’s $90,000 cheque to Duffy, (Wright to Novak: “I will send my cheque on Monday) a mystery. Not only was Novak not fired, he was promoted.

What is wrong with this picture? Didn’t Novak, who was in the on the phone call negotiating the final deal with Duffy’s lawyer, deceive the prime minister too? Isn’t he just like Senator Irving Gerstein, Benjamin Perrin, and a handful of other staffers in the PMO who knew about the payment? Why hasn’t Harper handed them their heads as he did with Wright?

And why is retired Senator Marjorie LeBreton back in the Conservative war room and on the campaign bus, after playing a central role in the Wright/Duffy debacle?

Justin Trudeau is beyond wondering about that question. The Liberal leader has demanded that Harper fire senior staffers who were aware of the hush-money Duffy was paid by Nigel Wright.

But despite calls for Novak’s resignation (and LeBreton’s) Harper has come to his staffer’s aid with a curious defence. A “subordinate” should never be held to account for the actions of his “superior”. But isn’t that exactly what Harper did to Wright? It was Harper who wanted Duffy to pay back his expenses, whether owed or not – Wright merely followed his orders.

Harper’s credibility is his Achilles Heel. He simply can’t be trusted. Where he once said no one in his office other than Wright knew about the $90,000, he now says the “vast majority” didn’t know. He simply doesn’t understand he can’t make it up as he goes along. Could it possibly be true that no one, not Nigel Wright, Ray Novak, Benjamin Perrin, Patrick Rogers, Senator Irving Gerstein, or Arthur Hamilton whispered a word about this extraordinary payment?

Meanwhile, here’s how bad it is for the CPC. The man who made Sun News unsellable, Kory Teneycke, is now providing the same service for Stephen Harper.

Let the squirming begin.

—

Michael Harris is a writer, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. He was awarded a Doctor of Laws for his “unceasing pursuit of justice for the less fortunate among us.” His nine books include Justice Denied, Unholy Orders, Rare ambition, Lament for an Ocean, and Con Game. His work has sparked four commissions of inquiry, and three of his books have been made into movies. His new book on the Harper majority government, Party of One, is a number one best-seller.

Readers can reach the author at [email protected]. Click here to view other columns by Michael Harris.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.