Duffy trial wraps up five weeks of testimony

WATCH ABOVE: Delays and long days of testimony are putting the Mike Duffy trial on a collision course with the federal election campaign. But, the most damaging revelations aren’t about the expenses themselves, so much as how involved the Prime Minister’s Office was in all of it. Vassy Kapelos reports.

OTTAWA – The Mike Duffy trial wrapped up five weeks of testimony and arguments Friday with the suggestion from another former journalist-turned-Conservative staffer that other senators skirted the rules too.

But the trial will have to wait until June to hear from a key player in the case whom the Crown alleges Duffy used to stash public money as a personal slush fund.

Former Conservative communications director William Kittelberg, who went by Bill Rodgers as a journalist, was paid $2,000 in March 2012 for consulting services on energy topics.

Although he wasn’t expecting the money and never asked for it, Kittelberg said Duffy told him he’d given good advice on climate change when he was director of communications for former cabinet minister Jim Prentice who served as energy, aboriginal affairs and environment minister.

The money was paid by a cheque signed by Gerald Donohue – whom the Crown alleges Duffy used to funnel $65,000 worth of Senate contract money for improper purposes.

“He said he was going to call Gerry Donohue and see if he had some money,” Kittelberg testified.

“My understanding was we were talking about Senate funds.”

Kittelberg also suggested that Duffy wasn’t the only one who skirted the Senate contracting rules, which required contractors to be cleared by Senate administrators.

READ MORE: Mike Duffy’s cousin paid for sending the senator newspaper clippings, trial hears 

“I thought it was unusual to have a third party paying me, although I understand that this happens in the Senate frequently. It’s not a Mike Duffy practice, it’s a practice that happens with quite a few senators,” Kittelberg told Crown prosecutor Jason Neubauer.

“Have you received money from other senators?” Neubauer asked.

“No,” Kittelberg said.

“So is what you’ve just said then based on some things you’ve head?”

“An RCMP officer told me that when he interviewed me,” Kittelberg replied.

Court has already heard that contract work for other senators sometimes started before the contract was in place.

Duffy has pleaded not guilty to 31 charges of fraud, breach of trust and one of bribery. His lawyer Donald Bayne has argued Duffy followed the rules as they existed and is guilty only of administrative errors.

Notably absent in the trial so far is Donohue – whom Bayne says is gravely ill.

READ MORE: ‘He may not be with us’: Key witness in Duffy trial in ‘grave’ health, court hears

He is expected to appear by phone when the trial resume in June after a three week break.

The trial also heard Friday from Dean Karakasis, executive director of the Building and Managers Association of Ottawa, which paid Duffy more than $11,300 to speak at a trade association event in Ottawa – a $3,000 trip Duffy billed to the Senate.

Karakasis said he and the suspended senator never discussed picking up the flight tab for travel expenses or accommodation in the nation’s capital.

“As far as we were concerned, Senator Duffy was a local person,” he said.

According to Duffy’s travel claim, he charged about $2,800 in flights for he and his wife from Charlottetown to Ottawa, as well as taxis and meals.

Karakasis said Duffy spoke for about half an hour about what goes on behind the scenes in Parliament.

A backbench radio show

Former Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro, who is awaiting sentencing for breaking election laws, testified earlier Friday that he wanted to start an Internet radio show with the now-suspended senator to prove that not all backbenchers think alike.

Del Mastro, testifying over the phone from Peterborough, Ont., said he discussed the show, which he wanted Duffy to host, at an hour-long coffee meeting with the senator in July 2010 at a local Tim Hortons.

“It would be a communications tool but it would also allow people to see much more depth to elected representatives, and to allow them to see that they’re not kind of a uniform group, that they have thoughts that can vary,” Del Mastro said.

Still, when asked by Crown Prosecutor Mark Holmes why Duffy and his wife Heather were in town in the first place, Del Mastro said: “They were attending a dog show.”

“It’s a big local event,” he said.

READ MORE: Mike Duffy trial: 8 allegedly fraudulent trips that cost almost $38,000

The Crown alleges Duffy billed the Senate for public business on what was essentially a puppy-buying venture, although it’s not totally clear when Duffy purchased his Kettle Blue terrier, Chloe, from a breeder in New Brunswick.

Prosecutors also argue Duffy charged taxpayers to attend Conservative fundraising events. But Bayne argues this travel was not explicitly against the rules and that Duffy also attended to public business by meeting local officials and the public.

Del Mastro also testified about a fundraising dinner Duffy attended at his request in June 2009.

He said he picked Duffy up at his Kanata, Ont. home in his bright red Dodge Charger “muscle car” and drove him to the dinner in Peterborough.

READ MORE: Del Mastro’s election overspending merits only a fine, lawyer argues

Duffy spoke at the Peterborough Naval Association for about 30 minutes, Del Mastro recalled, and then took questions for another half hour.

Del Mastro, who at the time was parliamentary secretary to the heritage minister, said he requested Duffy’s attendance a couple months before the dinner, and that many people in the Conservative caucus wanted Duffy at their events.

He said late former finance minister Jim Flaherty was the “Number One person” that MPs wanted at events, followed by cabinet ministers and Duffy.

“He was well-known. He would be somebody that would be would be very easy to kind of get the word out, publicize it, (bring) a little bit of excitement that he was coming to town.”

While Del Mastro said the dog show was a “significant” event in Peterborough drawing about 1,000 people, he told the Crown he’d only been twice and not in the last couple of years.

Del Mastro is awaiting his sentencing after being found guilty of three charges for overspending in the 2008 election. He told the trial his matter is “before the courts.”

As for the radio show, it didn’t happen, Del Mastro said.

“It was just something that never quite got off the ground.”

The trial continued with Conservative MP Cathy McLeod, who represents Kamloops, B.C. where Duffy also attended a fundraising event in June 2009.

McLeod said she picked Duffy up in a convertible and drove him from Kelowna to Kamloops, where he spoke at an event that was also intended to bring people together.

The trial resumes again on June 1.