OTTAWA—A former senior Harper aide says he worked both sides of the journalism-politics fence this month, providing free corporate advice to Sun Media, while being paid as a political strategist to the Conservative election campaign.

Patrick Muttart, the former deputy chief of staff for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, told The Canadian Press on Thursday he gave periodic unpaid advice to Sun Media in recent weeks to help it launch its new television news channel. Until this week, he was also on the Tory payroll as a consultant to the party's election war room.

Muttart was a key backroom player in Harper's two previous election victories and served as deputy chief of staff before leaving to join the American public affairs firm, Mercury LLC.

He returned to the Tory fold last month as a hired political consultant, but was forced to part ways with Harper's campaign this week after Sun Media owner Pierre Karl Peladeau accused him of allegedly supplying false information to the news organization.

Muttart had been giving pro bono feedback on music, graphics and on-air promotion to the Sun chain since last summer. Sun Media last made a specific request of Muttart in March and he continued to provide feedback to the news organization well into April, as the federal campaign unfolded, he said.

Muttart also sought out advertising clients for Sun News as it readied its television channel, which debuted last week. His last attempt to set up a client introduction was last month, he said.

“The bottom line is there was no mixing of business between the commercial side of Sun News and the editorial side,” Muttart said. “There was never an expectation of a quid pro quo, nor was there a suggestion that they owed us (the Conservatives) a hearing or coverage on the basis of the fact that I was introducing them to advertisers,”

Muttart's affiliation with Sun Media came to light because Peladeau accused him this week of offering a bogus photograph that purported to show Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff posing in military fatigues with U.S. troops in Kuwait four months before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

That offer came in Muttart's role as a Tory political operative.

Peladeau declined an interview request Thursday and a senior Sun spokesman refused a subsequent interview request.

Muttart revealed his working relationship with the Sun chain when he fired back at Peladeau on Wednesday night in a statement through his U.S. employer. He called Peladeau's allegations “false and downright bizarre.”

He elaborated in an interview Thursday.

Muttart said Peladeau's accusations make no sense because he helped Sun News set up its TV network by offering unpaid advice from Chicago after Mercury's formal contract with Sun Media ended last summer. The Sun's corporate side “continued to bounce a few things off me,” and Muttart said he was happy to oblige.

Muttart said he maintained his affiliation, “out of friendship, out of interest, out of a belief in the stated objectives of the channel.”

Muttart said: “I completely, completely disagree with his assertion that I somehow had an interest in torpedoing the news organization.”

In his column, Peladeau tried to counter suggestions that his news organization is tight with the governing Conservatives.

“If any proof is needed to dispel the false, yet still prevalent, notion that Sun Media and the Sun News Network are the official organs of the Conservative Party of Canada, I offer this unfortunate episode as Exhibit A,” he wrote.

“Let me be clear: This chain of newspapers had historically and will continue to stand for true, Canadian conservatism — with a small 'c' ...”

Sun News vice-president Kory Teneycke is a former Harper spokesman. Peladeau said in his column that Muttart contacted Teneycke three weeks ago with a photograph that supposedly showed Ignatieff in Kuwait.

In Thursday's interview, Muttart explained that he was able to maintain a separation between his dealings with the Sun chain on a corporate level as a private-sector consultant and with its news-gathering side as a paid Tory strategist.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“This is the nature of consulting. You govern yourself accordingly,” Muttart said.

“And you don't mix clients' business. Working with the (Conservative) war room was one thing. We had an interest in multiple media organizations from a strategy perspective.”

As for his unpaid effort to launch the Sun television channel, he said it “was a continuation of trying to be helpful after working for them at one point in time.”