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Stephen Harper owes Canadians an explanation and now would be a good time to offer it.

How did a lawyer twice convicted of fraud, who went to jail for 18 months for stealing from his own clients, who was charged with influence peddling in 2012, and is now facing three new counts of illegal lobbying and another of influence peddling – how did such a talented guy get to sit at the right hand of power in the Prime Minister’s Office?

Logic suggests that there are only a few possible explanations:

Did officials in the PCO who did the vetting simply blow it when it came to Carson’s multiple convictions – 1982 and 1990, plus his bankruptcy?

Did the RCMP just drop the ball on his security check?

Did Carson lie about his past crimes?

Or did Carson’s manager in the PMO override the security check, as is possible? And who was that manager, the chief of staff of the day, or the Stephen Harper himself?

Some of these possibilities have been addressed. Carson says the government knew about his criminal record – all of it. The PM asserts that he knew about the initial fraud conviction from 1982, but not the second one – as if that explains anything. So one stretch in jail is okay, but a second fraud conviction and bankruptcy is not?

There is another matter Stephen Harper has to explain about Bruce Carson. Why would he entrust the development of a national energy strategy for the entire country to a disbarred lawyer? Why did he get him the top job at the new Canada School of Energy and Environment at the University of Calgary – and $15 million in taxpayers dollars to get the place going?

Carson has zero scientific experience and suddenly he’s got 7,000 students and 260 researchers looking to him for leadership. What leadership? This is a guy who thinks a clean planet is an unrealistic idea. This is a guy who thinks the tar sands’ effluent is fit to drink.

And on what basis did the Harper government give another company chaired by Carson — Carbon Management Canada — another $25 million in federal funding?

As a matter of fact, Carson’s email requesting a grant under the Centres of Excellence program arrived at the Department of Natural Resources while Carson was busy helping prepare the 2009 budget in a special, short-term return to the PMO. Harper’s then chief of staff Guy Giorno reportedly blew a gasket and called in the Ethics Commissioner.

On an already underwhelming report card, the biggest F on Stephen Harper’s record so far has been his utter failure to “clean up” Ottawa, after riding into town like the Lone Ranger in the wake of the Ad Sponsorship Scandal.

Instead of cleaning things up, he will leave the system dirtier than he found it. Consider the personnel choices:

Nigel Wright — fired by the PM for doing a deal the PM says he would never have approved, the $90,000 cheque to Senator Mike Duffy;

Arthur Porter — his choice to be watch dog for CSIS, in jail in Pan-ama fighting extradition to Canada where he faces multiple fraud charges;

Dean del Mastro — his former parliamentary secretary, up on charges of election cheating, and pleading not guilty;

Saulie Zajdel — Harper’s “shadow MP” in Irwin Cotler’s Montreal seat, facing five counts of breach of trust, fraud and corruption;

Suspended Senator Mike Duffy — under investigation by the RCMP;

Suspended Senator Patrick Brazeau — facing multiple charges and currently in rehab;

Suspended Senator Pamela Wallin — under RCMP investigation;

Beyond poor draft choices, Harper has damaged the public service by deeply politicizing everything – including the Privy Council Office.

Countless interviews with senior public servants, officers of parliament, and tribunal heads who believe they were unjustly treated by the prime minister or their own minister come with the same punch line. They did what they were supposed to do under such circumstances; they appealed to their proper protector, the Clerk of the Privy Council. None of them got help from the country’s top civil servant, and all saw a big change in the PCO.

One very senior head of a quasi-judicial body asked for a meeting over a very serious matter but the Clerk of the day did not oblige. Instead, he sent underlings, his chief legal counsel, and a representative from the Machinery of Government side. They listened silently, nodding occasionally, and offered the embattled public servant no help.

So how can it be that Stephen Harper’s key political operatives, even when they no longer work for him, do not have problems reaching the most powerful public office holders in the land? Consider the circumstances of Bruce Carson’s latest charges.

On November 16, 2009, former Harper advisor Carson sent an email to the Clerk of the Privy Council asking for a meeting the following week. “Will be in Ottawa from Monday to Wednesday inclusive next week – you got a half hour for a visit. bc.” Wayne Wouters, whom Harper had appointed Clerk of the Privy Council just four and a half months earlier replied: “Sure. Set it up with my office.”

A second email from Carson to the Deputy Minister of Natural Resources, Cassie Doyle, informed the senior public servant that he had had one of his regular meetings with the Clerk, and spent most of his time talking about energy. “I brought him up to speed on various initiatives I am involved in – in this area – especially the so-called “think tank” one that I wrote to you about a month or so ago after a meeting in Winnipeg.”

At the time, Carson headed up the Canada School of Energy and Environment and worked with a group called the Energy Policy Institute of Canada. Since he himself was not yet five years out from the date that his own government employment ended, it was illegal for him to be dealing with public office holders over the development or amendment of any government policy; the awarding of any grant; or the arranging of a meeting between a public office holder and any other person.

Why was he able to do that? Carson’s passport to the highest offices in the land bears Stephen Harper’s face.

So do tell us Mr. Prime Minister, besides a criminal record, a taste for young escorts, and an alleged yen for unregistered lobbying, how did Bruce Carson come to sit by your side – and why did you give him so much power and so much of the people’s money?

An explanation and an apology would be appropriate right about now.