The alarms were raised when Carolyn Stewart Olsen helped whitewash a senate audit into then-Conservative senator Mike Duffy. Recently, Olsen has herself pledged to repay monies that she took from Canadian taxpayers on the basis of false housing allowance claims while she owned property in Ottawa.
CTV News has learned Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former Chief of Staff Nigel Wright wasn’t alone in reaching a deal with Mike Duffy to buy his silence.
Parliament won’t resume until October, possibly October 21, thanks to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s latest decision to prorogue parliament as his party scrambles with damage control.
The Prime Minister’s Office and RCMP are at a bypass over the February 20 email disgraced Senator Mike Duffy wrote to receive compensation for his fraudulent housing allowance claims with former Chief of Staff Nigel Wright.
A new document reveals the Conservative party wanted to pay disgraced senator Mike Duffy’s owing in a bid to cover up his scandal. The documents obtained by the RCMP and obtained by CTV show the Conservative Party would have cut the $90,000 cheque former Chief of Staff Nigel Wright did.
The Duffy investigation has broadened to grab the electoral records of 12 Conservative MPs and the spending claims of independent senator Mac Harb. Court records show the RCMP’s sensitive and international investigations division has characterized the investigation as one on “Breach of Trust.”
The former head of Elections Canada says the agency had no authority to probe the PMO’s secret fund and cannot probe the $90,172 cheque from former chief of staff Nigel Wright to former Conservative Senator Mike Duffy. The secret fund was first revealed by CBC but within 18 hours after acknowledging its existence, the Conservatives launched a sharp attack claiming it never existed and the CBC committed “shotty” journalism.
Ex-aide to Prime Minister Stephen Harper Bruce Carson spoke out yesterday in a surprising phone call to CBC’s Power and Politics where he said he was surprised Harper didn’t know about the Duffy affair. Carson said sensitive information was always given to Harper “immediately” – “no matter how bad.”
Conservative senator David Tkachuk is stepping down as head of the Internal Economy Committee as of Thursday citing “preventative treatment for cancer.” Tkachuk was allegedly responsible for whitewashing an audit made on the expense claims of former Conservative Senator Mike Duffy. He chaired the committee since 2011 and was appointed to the senate in 1993 by former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.
CBC released a bombshell story yesterday revealing the PMO hid a secret fund for seven years and was used for untracked partisan spending. The fund was secret and was guarded by four chief of staffs since its creation in 2006, along with a five-member board from the Conservative Fund of Canada. The Conservatives have since denied the existence of the fund, despite admitting to its existence only 18 hours ago.