Sen. Mike Duffy drops a bombshell in the Senate
Channel: GroundHog News
Date: 29/10/2013

http://www.peoplestandup.ca
OTTAWA—Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Senate troubles deepened Monday as Sen. Mike Duffy made new charges the Conservative Party paid $13,000 to cover his legal fees, a caucus rift widened, and Harper's own words tripped up efforts at political damage control.
In a bitter speech Monday in the Senate, Duffy tabled documents that show a lawyer for the Conservative Party of Canada paid his $13,560 legal bill as part of orchestrated effort to make the controversy over his living expenses go away.

On the eve of a Conservative Party convention with party rank-and-file already angry over excessive Senate spending, the revelation that the donor funds to the party — which are tax deductible and therefore subsidized by public treasury — were being used to defray Duffy's expenses may prove the most damaging of all.

    Sen. Mike Duffy buys a poppy as he arrives on Parliament Hill on Monday before testifying in the Senate. zoom
Harper did his cause no good Monday when he claimed in a radio interview that he fired chief of staff Nigel Wright after learning he cut a $90,000 personal cheque to Duffy to repay the improperly claimed living costs.
"I had a chief of staff who made an inappropriate payment to Mr. Duffy — he was dismissed," said Harper.
It is a marked change from Harper's public statement May 19 that he accepted Wright's resignation with "great regret."
At that time, the government was trying to tough out the unfolding expenses scandal.
That task got a whole lot harder Monday.
Duffy, in a bid to defend himself against a motion to suspend him, lashed out again in the Senate with the surprise allegation that Harper's office had Conservative party lawyer Arthur Hamilton pay his legal costs.
"That's right senators. Not one payment but two," Duffy told a hushed upper chamber.
He laid responsibility for what he branded a "nefarious scheme" at Harper's feet.
"He had my legal bills fully paid," said Duffy.
He said this "monstrous fraud was the PMO's creation from start to finish."