Sen. Mike Duffy takes the elevator as he arrives to the Senate on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Monday, October 28, 2013.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
TORONTO — Conservative MPs weren’t saying much after Senator Mike Duffy said that, in addition to a $90,000 cheque he received from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former chief of staff, Nigel Wright, the Conservative party covered his legal fees.
“Wright told me he would pay the $90,000. All I had to do was go on [and] do what I was told,” said Duffy in the Senate on Monday afternoon. “Not only that, but when I insisted on written guarantees that repaying money I didn’t owe would not be seen by the Senate as a guilty plea, Nigel Wright arranged to have my legal fees paid. That’s right. One cheque from Nigel Wright? No, ladies and gentlemen, there were two cheques.”
Duffy described the ordeal as a “nefarious scheme,” in which the PMO has had its hand in every step Duffy took since the Senate expense scandal started making headlines. Audio: Listen to Mike Duffy’s explosive statements in the Senate on Monday
While all was quite on the Tory front, here’s what other MPs and Canadians were saying.
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NDP MP Françoise Boivin
"@yowflier: Duffy says that Cdns would be shocked to see how the Conservatives operate" nothing surprises Cdns after #sponsorshiplibscandal
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