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OTTAWA — This may require a little prime ministerial stick-handling.

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Stephen J. Harper, hockey author, relied for ethical advice on the same former senior staffer he now says is solely responsible for the most serious ethics scandal to hit his Conservative government.

The prime minister’s long-awaited hockey history, A Great Game, was released earlier this month and in the acknowledgments Harper credits the assistance of Nigel Wright, his now-disgraced chief of staff.

Harper says several staffers in the Prime Minister’s Office helped on the book — with “minimal impact” on their official duties, of course — and credits Wright for the advice and liaison he provided with the federal ethics commissioner.

“Nigel Wright similarly assisted with advice and liaison with Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson, whose office was forthright and constructive,” Harper writes.

Oops. Wright has now become Harper’s go-to whipping boy since he resigned — or was fired — from the PMO last May over his role in an ongoing Senate expense scandal.