The Harper Scandal - Connecting the Lies

Your lie-detector guide to the latest PMO spin

If lying were an Olympic sport, Canada's PMO would be the Jamaican bobsled team. They’re really bad, but it's great TV.

The PMO's culture of casual lying made possible by tightly controlled media access is withering under the relentless onslaught of Donald Bayne's cross-examination. As a former criminal prosecutor who watched the last three days of Nigel Wright's testimony at the Duffy trial in person, I find hard to envision a way out now for the government. Nigel Wright's best moments in the witness stand are far behind him, and by my estimation he's not even half-way through.

But say what you will, these PMO guys aren't quitters.

Take their newest “media line” that the PM’s latest chief of staff doesn’t read his emails. Below is the email that Ray Novak, trusted confidante of the prime minister, didn't read.

READ MORE: http://www.nationalobserver.com/2015/08/17/opinion/your-lie-detector-guide-latest-pmo-spin

http://www.nationalobserver.com/2015/08/17/opinion/your-lie-detector-guide-latest-pmo-spin

You may need to copy and paste as Windows 10 won't allow link to open.

This latest whopper was delivered dead-pan by Kory Teneycke, chief spokesman for the Conservative Party. This would be the same Kory Teneycke who recently told Tom Clark of Global TV that the Conservatives are better than news, because they're truthful.

Teneycke also said that it’s unfathomable that Ray Novak, Harper’s then principal secretary and longtime confidante, would know about Wright’s payment to Duffy and not tell the prime minister.

That assessment aligns with Donald Bayne's theory that Novak in fact operated as a direct pipeline to Stephen Harper, providing the prime minister with both unfettered information and plausible deniability.

Indeed, the only input from the PM among the hundreds of emails entered in the Duffy trial came through Novak himself, in response to a legal memo from PMO legal counsel Ben Perrin in February. Harper's signature controlling style is instantly recognizable from his opening sentences, "I feel very strongly on Option 1. Had I known we were going down this road I would have shut it down long before this memo."