OTTAWA—For many, a 50th birthday is a milestone that sparks reflection and introspection.

For Nigel Wright, it was especially so — he decided to quit his job as one of the most powerful people in Canada.

On Sunday morning — the day after his birthday — Wright announced he was resigning as chief of staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

When Wright came to the Prime Minister’s Office in January 2011, people cheered his economic credentials as the government struggled to steer its way through an uncertain recovery. He leaves as the man at the centre of one of the most serious controversies to rock Harper’s Conservatives since they took office in 2006.

It was Wright’s decision earlier this year to secretly write a personal cheque for $90,000 to Sen. Mike Duffy to cover repayment of improperly claimed expenses that dropped the Senate spending scandal squarely into the lap of the Prime Minister’s Office.

Wright said he was quitting over the furor that has broken out over the cheque, meant to enable Duffy to reimburse expenses that had been improperly claimed.

“My actions were intended solely to secure the repayment of funds, which I considered to be in the public interest, and I accept sole responsibility,” Wright said in a statement.

“I did not advise the Prime Minister of the means by which Sen. Duffy’s expenses were repaid, either before or after the fact.”

Wright, a successful Bay Street financier before going to Ottawa, said he regretted the “impact” of the controversy on the government and caucus.

“I came to Ottawa to do my part in providing good government for Canada, and that is all that I ever wanted and worked for in this role,” Wright said.

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Harper’s office had insisted as recently as Friday that Wright retained the full backing of the Prime Minister, even as questions mounted about the propriety of the payment.

“The Prime Minister had full confidence in Mr. Wright, and Mr. Wright is staying on,” Andrew MacDougall, Harper’s director of communications, said at the time.

Reached Sunday, MacDougall would not comment on the abrupt change. “Nigel is a very honourable man. Sometimes you realize the way it’s got to be,” he said.

A Conservative source said Wright spent his birthday weekend contemplating the growing controversy and realized that he had to go in a bid to spare the Prime Minister’s Office further damage.

“He came to the decision that he probably wasn’t going to be able to continue and do the kind of job he wanted to do,” the source said.

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“This is a guy who looked at the situation and thought he was a liability to the Prime Minister, the party,” the source said. “It was going to continue to haunt the PM if he stayed on.”

Wright is the latest casualty in the spending debacle that has cost the Conservatives two senators. But there is no doubt that this casualty is the most wounding for Harper.

Wright’s resignation is a double blow for Harper. Not only is there the political fallout; there’s also the loss of a talented administrator who brought a steady hand to a pressure-filled post.

But more than anything, he was respected by the Prime Minister.

The Harvard-educated lawyer, who made his fortune as a managing director at Onex Corp., the Toronto-based private equity firm, wasn’t a stranger to politics. Indeed, it was a return to Ottawa for Wright, who had served in the PMO under Brian Mulroney.

That’s why friends and colleagues are perplexed by his decision to give Duffy the money, an act that Conservatives have sought to paint as generous and thoughtful.

The Prime Minister’s Office has said Wright was simply trying to help Duffy, a former CTV journalist who was unable to meet the financial obligation on his own.

A Conservative source said Duffy made a personal appeal to Wright.

“He comes into the office and begs for help, cries poor, was in trouble ... Nigel made the decision that was going to haunt him,” the source told the Star.

“I see a guy who tried to do what is best and made an error. (He) went out there on his own and put himself at risk, great risk ... trying to do what he thought was the right thing,” the source said Sunday.

Duffy did not respond to a request for comment on Sunday.

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