Perrin, a University of British Columbia law professor, also emphasized that he was in the room during the conference call with Wright and Harper’s longtime adviser and current chief of staff, Ray Novak.
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The Conservative Party’s position has been that neither Harper nor Novak, who replaced Wright as chief of staff, knew about the check for Duffy ahead of time.
Wright used those words in a 2013 email after he, Perrin and others had negotiated an arrangement with Duffy and his lawyers that would see the senator say publicly that he had made a mistake with his expenses and they would be repaid.
Duffy has pleaded not guilty to 31 charges of breach of trust, bribery and fraud, partly related to his claims that Cavendish, P.E.I. was his primary residence rather than Ottawa, the city in which he has lived since the 1970s.
“I found the prime minister’s qualifier revealing”, he said in Vancouver.
Case in point: the angry Harper supporter who launched into a profane diatribe against reporters for their insistence on pressing the prime minister about the embattled senator.
“When people are working for me, they have my confidence”. I remember this very vividly because there were relatively few occasions where I met with him directly in his office.
There can be vigorous debate on issues within the PMO but once a decision is made, Perrin added, “it’s time to move on”.
On March 22, 2013, a conference call was organized involving Payne, Perrin, Wright and Novak.
Van Loan said that the NDP had yet to repay the money they owed, totaling $2.75 million, but pointed out that taxpayers were reimbursed by Wright for any expenses that Duffy improperly claimed.
“At this point, Mr. Wright interjected and said that, ‘Sen”.
Court: “Because it was so surprising to me, I immediately looked to my right to see Mr. Novak’s reaction and he didn’t have any reaction to that information”, Perrin, on how Novak was in the loop.
Perrin’s testimony also contrasts with that of Wright, who at first testified under cross-examination that only Perrin and himself were on the call with Payne. Carolyn Bennett said way back in December of 2010: “For someone who vowed never to appoint an unelected Senator, Mr. Harper is now the all-time patronage king, having appointed 38 Conservative activists to the upper chamber”.
Wright earlier testified that Novak had only popped in and out of that conversation.
Still, if they believed their opposition enemies weren’t licking their lips with gleeful anticipation of seeing a Harper appointee’s dirty laundry (we apologize in advance to anyone who just had a mental image of Duffy’s drawers) dragged through open court followed by the harsh glare of media kleig lights, they didn’t know who they were dealing with.
Any potential fallout might be mitigated by the likelihood many voters won’t start paying attention to the campaign until after Labour Day, she said.
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Perrin has not been accused of doing anything illegal.
