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Has Nigel Wright just uttered Stephen Harper’s ultimate epitaph?

If Harper’s “Blue Man Group” does go down in flames on October 19, today’s words from his former chief of staff, in the Mike Duffy trial, will be indelibly stamped on its tombstone.

To recap, Duffy’s lawyer, Donald Bayne, began his fifth day of cross-examining Wright by asking about his role in allowing the accused senator to publicly claim that he had paid back his own questionable expenses.

As we all now know, that was never true, as Wright had secretly covered those claimed expenses with his own infamous $90,000 cheque to Duffy.

"You didn't think that was a misrepresentation to Canadians?", Bayne asked.

"I don't know if I'd go that far," Wright said. "I just didn't think it was a bad misrepresentation."

Bulls-eye.

In one line, Wright has nailed the core of the Harper government’s inveterate abuse of power and its ethically blinkered view of all it does.

The ends justify the means that may be dishonestly presented for “good” political reason, to make all lies, “white” lies.

Who knew that there are two types of misrepresentation: the bad type and the not bad type?

Then again, should we really be surprised by Wright’s apparent view that deliberately misleading the public is really just tantamount to politically justifiable truth-fudging?

After all, it is arguably the Harper government’s most defining and enduring attribute.

OK, so contrary to the government’s claims, the economy may not be booming as advertised. Indeed, the country may well already be in a recession, as Harper was himself forced to acknowledge, by NDP Leader Tom Mulcair in the Maclean’s leaders’ debate.

The Conservatives don’t think that constitutes a “bad” misrepresentation.

Yes, yes. The “surplus” budget might be more accurately described as an obvious deficit, if you want to get all technical about it.

So it’s written in red ink. Big deal.

Only a New Democrat, a Liberal, or a Green would consider that a “bad” misrepresentation. Oh, and maybe most voters, too, if they want to interpret the election budget for what is obviously really is.

Come on, people. Get with the program. A fib is not a lie if it is meant to make us believe it is the truth.

Sure, the opposition might see something nefarious in the massive omnibus bills that are presented as “budget implementation” measures. But really, are they “bad” misrepresentations, just because they devote hundreds of pages apiece to changing laws and polices that have nothing whatsoever to do with the budget?

Who cares if former auditor general Sheila Fraser has condemned them for undermining Parliament?

So they gutted environmental assessments, obliterated the National Energy Board’s former independence, savaged good science, revamped immigration policies, compromised Aboriginal interests, and weakened protection for many species—to cite a handful of examples.

What fair-minded person would call that “bad” misrepresentation?

The Harper government wouldn’t. Because the very notion of inappropriate misrepresentation is not in its lexicon.

Certainly it was a foreign concept to the Conservatives’ convicted robocall scammer, as it was to the PM’s foreign parliamentary secretary who was jailed for his election spending violations.

Innocent misrepresentation. Not really so bad, in their own minds. And besides, they were only isolated actors among the many party faithful who just bent the rules a bit to help voters make the right choices.

I mean, just because the ethics commissioner found that one Conservative MP acted inappropriately by misrepresenting his government’s infrastructure funding as his party’s gift to his riding doesn’t mean that he meant to do anything really “bad.”

On and on it goes, in so many examples that speak to the Harper government’s assiduously crafted culture of righteous deception.

It is the hallmark of its secret trade deals, of the glaring gap between its deeds and words on climate action, of its various abuses of democratic and quasi-judicial processes, of its abuse of taxpayer-funded advertising, and more.

For Harper’s minions, what really counts is not the truth of their claims and actions. Rather, what counts is their “pure-hearted” mission in using minor lies and institutional deceptions for ends that are so self-evidently “virtuous” they demand no accountability or justification whatsoever.

Starting with getting re-elected.

Wright’s words today should remind all voters of that fact as they also lay bare the Harper government’s warped disposition on the relativity of truth and its moral underpinnings.

When the situation demands, any wrong can be recast as right—or at least as not being so bad—no matter how far it is from the truth by dint of its innocent intentional misrepresentation.

On October 19, Stephen Harper and his entire administration will at last be put on trial.

In the meantime, the Conservatives’ campaign of deception continues, as they swear that, this time, they are telling us all the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So help them, God.

After Wright’s testimony, they are going to need that help more than ever, when we all get to play judge and jury.