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Rob Ford and Mike Duffy may not prove to be the end of Stephen Harper, but they are the beginning of the end.

To what must be the disbelief of his political base, the prime minister reduced Mayor Ford’s saga — of cocaine use, driving while over-refreshed and hanging out with guys who pack heat and use it — to a political cliche. When asked for his view of the ‘gangsta’ side of Rob Ford, Harper responded simply that the voters of Toronto will decide his fate.

That can only mean one thing: If, 11 months from now, a conflagration of idiots re-elects Rob Ford, Harper is suggesting he believes that ROFO’s drug use and criminal associations are inconsequential, if not utterly without meaning. Political success purges all. This from the fellow who used to say he would rather lose an election than do the wrong thing in Afghanistan.

It was also a strange thing to say for a man who has presented himself to his supporters as a champion of law and order. Harper once spoke for people who thought law-breakers should pay for their crimes, not run for public office.

Jason Kenney, who properly called for Ford’s resignation last week, is now the sole Harper cabinet minister the base can trust on one of their key issues: justice. For the PM, electability apparently trumps criminal behaviour. Not a big seller in Conservative circles.

Conservatives have another peculiar trait. They traditionally expect their leaders and MPs to tell the truth — just ask ‘Lyin’ Brian.’ Wantonly misleading the public is supposed to be what Liberals do. Not only has Harper turned his mania for control on his own MPs, corseting the few who are actually allowed to speak in talking points — he has lied egregiously on Duffygate, and attempted to cover that fact with the aura of office.

Conservatives have another peculiar trait. They traditionally expect their leaders and MPs to tell the truth — just ask ‘Lyin’ Brian.’ Wantonly misleading the public is supposed to be what Liberals do.

There is not a single, informed person in Canada who believes that Duffygate comes down to two evildoers — Duffy and former chief of staff Nigel Wright. Yet this is our prime minister’s sad refrain — regardless how many facts emerge to render his version of events little more than delusion in a footrace with farce.

Still, the truth is in the things that make men lie. Harper may always be relied upon to stick to marketing rather than facts. But marketing or not, it is a story that won’t sell in Toronto — or, for that matter, in Calgary. It is narcissistic hot air designed for one purpose only — to insulate the prime minister from the fallout from a potentially government-killing scandal that has taken place under his watch, under his nose, and perhaps under his direction.

The heart of Harper’s defence in Duffygate is that he didn’t learn that Wright gave Duffy $90,000 to make disputed expense problems go away until he saw it on the news — expenses, by the way, that Duffy believed were in order.

Had he known what Wright and Duffy had planned, the PM contends, he would have put a stop to the deal. It is the only part of a rickety story told by the PM that has remained consistent since CTV’s Robert Fife broke the “secret” payment story last May. And it might even be true, though that is a matter open to question.

But the heart of Duffygate is not Wright’s $90,000 ‘Hail Mary’ to Duffy under conditions that might amount to duress.

That payment came at the very end of a colossal conspiracy of far greater dimension: the subversion of an independent institution, the Senate, by a predatory PMO. It also involves attempted interference in an independent audit, a call ordered by the PM’s chief of staff and carried out by Conservative bagman Irving Gerstein, as well as a serious attempt to use Conservative party funds subsidized by taxpayers to pay off Duffy.

Put the $90,000 to one side for a moment and ask another question: What did Harper know about that process which began in early February behind the scenes and exploded publicly in May only as Wright’s cheque-book damage control?

The affair began innocently enough, but Wright clearly saw the thunderheads on the horizon. It was reported in the media that Duffy had applied for a Prince Edward Island health card on Feb. 5, 2013, made necessary by inconvenient media inquiries about his eligibility to serve as a senator from P.E.I. since he was a longtime resident of Ontario.

Wright called Senator David Tkachuk the next day to get an assessment. Even after Wright was informed by Chris Woodcock in the PMO that Duffy would issue a statement about documents provided to the Senate regarding his residency, Harper’s chief of staff had a premonition. As he replied to Woodcock: “But let this small group (in the PMO) be under no illusion. I think that this is going to end badly.”

For Duffy, it began badly. He found out on February 7 that there was going to be an independent audit by Deloitte and hired a lawyer. He hoped the matter of disputed expenses could be resolved without an audit. He didn’t think he had broken the rules. Four days later, Wright told Duffy that if his primary residence was, in fact, in Ottawa rather than P.E.I., he ought to repay his housing allowance on moral grounds. It was believed at this time that the amount owing was $32,000.

The elephant in the room that Stephen Harper is working overtime to hide under the smokescreen of the $90,000 payment by Wright to Duffy is that everyone — including, it would seem, the PM — had agreed to an earlier deal that would have seen the Conservative party “make Duffy whole”.

Why do I include the PM in a chain that includes PMO staffers Perrin, Woodcock and Wright, and Sen. Gerstein? Because of internal PMO messages recently obtained under production orders granted by the courts to the RCMP in their ongoing investigation of Duffygate.

It came down to this before the initial deal fell apart: Duffy would repay disputed expenses but he needed help. Wright asked PMO legal advisor Ben Perrin to help close the issue of a cash payment to Duffy by getting a clarification of terms with Duffy’s lawyer, Janice Payne, that included his silence about the arrangement.

“Ben, please go back to Ms. Payne on these points and ascertain where they stand on everything else. I do want to speak to the PM before everything is considered final.”

Less than an hour later, Wright sends another email stating, “We are good to go from the PM once Ben has confirmation from Payne.”

It is open to debate what those words mean. But Wright himself cast light on the interpretation just the day before, when he inserted his own comments into an email from Duffy’s lawyer laying out the terms of a deal to which the senator would agree.

Those terms clearly included giving Duffy the funds to cover any repayment he might have to make — and his legal costs. Wright agreed to the terms, but first wanted the exact amount of the legal fees disclosed. With that proviso, he noted that “the Party is open to keeping Duffy whole since it is clear that any overpayments were innocently received.”

To this point, Harper’s PMO makes Hamlet’s Denmark smell like the powder room at the Ritz. If the PM didn’t know a thing about the “Duffy problem”, it looks a lot like wilful blindness to me. If he did, it’s time for him to step down and allow someone else to do what he once promised back in 2006 after being sworn in as the 22nd Prime Minister of Canada: “We will improve Canadians’ faith in public institutions by making government more accountable and effective … Our first priority will be to clean up government.”

Thanks to broken promises and hubris, it’s a much bigger job today than it was then.

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 eight 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. He is currently working on a book about the Harper majority government to be published in the autumn of 2014 by Penguin Canada.

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

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