Harper says he didn't OK call to Deloitte about Duffy audit

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says neither he nor anyone in his office gave Senator Irving Gerstein the green light to contact the auditing firm of Deloitte about Senator Mike Duffy's expenses audit.

"No," Harper told reporters gathered in Winnipeg following an event where the prime minister and Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger welcomed the completion of a new four-lane expressway.

But emails obtained by the RCMP in court documents released this week reveal that Harper's former chief of staff Nigel Wright did ask Senator Irving Gerstein to contact Deloitte and sort the matter out.​

According to the court documents Duffy agreed to repay his ineligible expenses – even though the senator believed he did not owe the money – only if five conditions were met.

The first of those five conditions was that the government would put a stop to the Deloitte audit looking into his expenses.

In an interview with the RCMP Gerstein said he did contact Michael Runia, one of the partners at Deloitte, about the audit. Runia advised Gerstein that he did not know anything about it, but would inquire.

On March 21, Gerstein contacted Patrick Rogers, the manager of parliamentary affairs in the Prime Minister's Office, and told him Deloitte would not be stopping the audit.

PM 'answering for himself'

In an email to CBC News Friday afternoon, a spokespersonfor the prime minister clarified that Harper was only speaking for himself.

"He was answering for himself. He had no knowledge of Gerstein's efforts to contact Deloitte or that he [Gerstein] had been asked to do it," said Jason MacDonald, Harper's director of communications.

"The RCMP document speaks for itself."

The question from the reporter in Winnipeg was "Prime minister, did you or the PMO approve Irving Gerstein to contact Deloitte about the Duffy audit?"

The Mounties have also alleged in the court documents that the senior ranks in the PMO "influenced" Conservative senators into changing the wording of the final Senate report to remove all criticism of Duffy. 

The final Senate report was based on the Deloitte audit.

In an email to CBC News on Thursday, Caitlin Stidwill, a media relations manager at Deloitte, said "at no time was the ethical wall breached. No information related to the audit was provided to anyone who was not entitled to receive the information."

Monday byelections

Harper told reporters he does not believe the Senate expenses scandal has had an impact on the campaign in the Manitoba federal riding of Brandon-Souris.

"For those who are concerned about the Senate matter I only need to point out that it was this party, the Conservative Party, that required for the first time transparency on Senate expenses. And only this party that sanctioned those who have not respected the rules," the prime minister said.

Polls released ahead of Monday's byelection show the Liberals are in a tight race for the traditionally Conservative riding of Brandon-Souris.

Harper said those who are considering voting in Monday's byelection in Brandon-Souris ought to stay focused on the economy and accountability in government.

He took a swing at the Liberal Party saying it was the Liberals in the Senate who voted against the suspensions without pay of senators Duffy, Patrick Brazeau, and Pamela Wallin.

"The Liberal Party opposed transparency, and the Liberal Party opposed having any sanctions for people who disregarded the rules," Harper said.

The prime minister is not expected to visit the two Manitoba ridings ahead of Monday's byelections, although he was in Winnipeg on Friday for the opening of a new major expressway.

Harper was also at the Winnipeg Jets game on Thursday night.

The prime minister did, however, send a letter to Brandon-Souris residents asking them to vote for Conservative candidate Larry Mcguire.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau also wrote an open letter to Brandon-Souris residents answering what he called the prime minister's "malicious, negative and false attacks" against him.

There are a total of four federal byelections on Monday, the other three being in Provencher (Manitoba), Toronto Centre (Ontario) and Bourassa (Quebec.)

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Solving 'Ring of Fire' mine delays up to Ontario, Harper says

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says his government is not getting involved in sorting out problems in Ontario's mineral-rich region known as the Ring of Fire.

Harper was in Winnipeg Friday for an event with Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger to open a local highway partly funded by the federal government.

Asked by a reporter if he was going to do anything to get the Ring of Fire back on track following the decision by a major U.S. mining company on Thursday to suspend its operations in the area, Harper said it isn't his problem.

"This is a project that is primarily under provincial jurisdiction because ultimately resources belong to the provinces and resource development is a provincial responsibility," Harper said.

"Obviously we have been talking to Ontario over the past few years in terms of regulatory approval processes, in terms of infrastructure investments and in terms of making sure First Nations continue to benefit," he told reporters.

"The jurisdiction here is primarily provincial, and ultimately it is private companies themselves that have to make commercial decisions on the viability of projects."

In other words, it's Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne's problem.

The Ring of Fire is considered a northern Ontario mining jackpot, rich in chromite, nickel and gold worth up to $60 billion.

But the remoteness of the area has posed challenges to its development.

The Ring of Fire is a mineral-rich region 500 kilometres north of Thunder Bay in northern Ontario.

Cliffs Natural Resources, the largest of  three companies in the region, announced Thursday it's suspending its chromite project because of an uncertain timeline and risks associated with developing infrastructure.

The area is 500 kilometres north of Thunder Bay. The company is facing up to $1 billion in costs to build a road to get the minerals south to a rail line.

The plan is snarled in a dispute with another company that has staked a claim to part of the road right-of-way.

In contrast to Harper's comments Friday, the federal minister responsible for northern Ontario sounded worried. In an telephone interview with CBC News on Thursday, Greg Rickford expressed concern over what he calls the "legacy project" for the remote area.

"We're very disappointed by this and we take it very seriously," he said. "Not only does this represent a legacy project for Ontario, but the world, including investors, have their eyes on us and we want to get this right."

The Conservative government has made it a policy to make resource development a big part of its economic plan. The Ring of Fire is on the list of major projects frequently cited by Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver.

And it's been called "Ontario's oilsands" by provincial Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak.

Rickford points out his government has invested $4.4 million to help First Nations prepare business plans for the resource activity that may come their way.

But the federal Conservatives seem prepared to wait for the Ontario government to try to get the mining company to return.

Former Liberal Leader Bob Rae, who is the lead negotiator for the Matawa Tribal Council Chiefs, is taking the long view.

"The minerals in the ground aren't disappearing, they are still there, they won't go stale," said Rae in telephone interview with CBC.

"The interests of First Nations haven't changed either. They're very committed to working with the government and committed to working with the private sector and seeing what's possible as we go forward."

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Liberals blame email for delay in sex harassment claim response

The Liberal Party is blaming an email mix-up for its late response to allegations of sexual harassment against Senator Colin Kenny.

CBC News reported yesterday that Senate authorities have opened a sexual harassment investigation following a formal complaint lodged by Pascale Brisson, a former employee of the long-time Liberal senator. 

Kenny withdrew Wednesday from the Liberal caucus, backdating his withdrawal to Nov. 13.

Reporting by Radio-Canada's Brigitte Bureau has also uncovered that this is not the first time that Kenny has faced complaints about his behaviour towards women.

A former Liberal MP confirmed she received complaints about Kenny from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Parliamentary Assembly in 2001.

Brisson, who worked as an assistant to Kenny for about two months, not only complained to Senate authorities but also sent an email to Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau's office about harassment by Kenny.

None of these allegations against Kenny have been proven in court. The senator said he cannot comment on the complaint by his former Senate staffer because the matter is under investigation. He called all the allegations "bogus."

In a statement Friday, Kenny said he looks forward to the matter being resolved.

"The allegations against me are without merit," he said in the four-sentence statement.

'Backlog on our system'

A spokeswoman for Trudeau said his office missed the email because the subject line was "Senate reform."

Brisson sent the email on Aug. 22, 2013, Kate Purchase wrote in a statement to CBC News.

"The same day, our office received a high volume of emails, [appoximately] 400, with the same subject line because of the Wright-Duffy affair," Purchase said, referring to a long-running scandal involving Nigel Wright, former chief of staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and Senator Mike Duffy, whom Harper appointed.

"As well on the same day, we received an additional 70,000 emails regarding the situation in Syria, resulting in a backlog on our systems. Unfortunately, Mme. Brisson's email was triaged into a bulk folder of the Senate reform emails and was not seen by our office."

CBC News reported on Oct. 22 that Brisson had been assigned tasks related to Kenny's personal life, spending as much as half of her work day on them.

Purchase said Brisson wrote to Liberal Senate Leader James Cowan two days later and mentioned the first email, which "was immediately flagged to the chief of staff, Cyrus Reporter."

"Mr. Reporter wrote to Mme. Brisson immediately, apologizing and explaining the delay, and subsequently met with Mme. Brisson on Oct. 28," Purchase said.

"In addition to this email to Mme. Brisson on Oct. 24, Mr. Reporter forwarded her original email to the Senate clerk for appropriate followup. Following their meeting, on Nov. 4, Mr. Reporter sent a summary of this meeting to the Senate clerk for his information and for appropriate followup."

In question period, Conservative MP Roxanne James called the allegation "incredibly serious," and accused the Liberals of knowing about it for months.

"If the Liberal senator is found responsible, he should face the full force of the law. What is also disturbing is that the Liberals' top adviser knew of these allegations for months and did not say anything," James said.

As Bureau reported for CBC News, Brisson wasn't the first woman to allege Kenny was paying her unwanted attention.

International complaints

Former Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish, who was also vice-chair of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, says she was asked in 2001 to leave Kenny off of assembly trips.

The 2001 letter from a NATO Parliamentary Assembly official, obtained by CBC News, alleged Kenny paid "persistent" and "unwelcome" attention toward two women working at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

"In both cases, the women affected by this problem have indicated ... that the attention they received was unwelcome, upsetting and made their work environment uncomfortable," wrote Simon Lunn, who was at the time the secretary general to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

One of the women was "considerably distressed" by the attention, Lunn said. The other said that "what began as a friendly meeting became persistent and unwelcome attention," he wrote in the letter.

Parrish described the behaviour relayed to her as "general harassment."

"All that came to my attention was hundreds and hundreds of phone calls and requests to go out for dinner and requests to socialize," Parrish said.

Another woman, who worked at a tanning salon Kenny used to own, complained to police that he told her to perform oral sex or risk losing her job. Police dismissed the complaint as not credible.

Trudeau‛s office said Thursday that Kenny had already withdrawn from the Liberal caucus while the investigation continues.

"We can confirm that Senator Kenny informed us yesterday that he was withdrawing from the Liberal caucus effective November 13, pending the outcome of an investigation by the Senate administration," Purchase wrote in an email to CBC News.

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5 things the RCMP documents tell us about Nigel Wright

Nigel Wright resigned as Prime Minister Stephen Harper's chief of staff in May, just days after a news report identified him as the source of a $90,000 cheque to repay the ineligible expenses of Senator Mike Duffy.

That payment and audits of the expenses claimed by Duffy and three other senators have touched a growing RCMP investigation.

RCMP court documents released this week outline efforts within the Prime Minister's Office to manage the repayment of Duffy's expenses and avoid embroiling him in the audits by Deloitte and a Senate committee. The documents also allege there is evidence Wright and Duffy committed bribery, fraud against the government and breach of trust.

Here's a look at what the documents reveal about Wright, who has stayed largely silent since he left the PMO last spring.

1. He doesn't need the money

During his three years as chief of staff for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Nigel Wright did not make a single expense claim. Not for meals. Not for hotels. Not for travel while on government business.

Wright admits he is "financially comfortable" after working for many years in the private sector. He was most recently managing director at Onex, a private equity firm. Wright tells the RCMP he is "out of pocket tens of thousands of dollars" because he did not claim expenses while doing government business. Wright is also still out the $90,000 he used to pay Duffy's expenses and another unexplained $60,000 in legal fees on a mysterious unrelated matter that Senator Irving Gerstein offers to pay at one point.

2. Wright believed Duffy at first

Wright believed Mike Duffy had followed the rules about expense claims. That was made clear when the two spoke by phone on Feb. 7 and the senator told Wright he had been cleared to make the claims. Although Duffy didn't produce permission in writing, Wright tried to make sure the Senate committee on internal economy treated Duffy differently by changing the wording of an early press release about the audits.

For days, Wright was also under the impression that Duffy was going to pay back his expenses. From Feb. 11 to Feb. 19, Wright told Duffy at least three times to pay the money back, with no success. On Feb. 11, Wright tells another PMO staffer, "I met with Duffy today. He will repay, with a couple of conditions…"  

It wasn't until days later, after another phone conversation with the senator, that Wright realizes Duffy is balking at repaying the money.

3. Wright ran out of patience

By Feb. 20, he is clearly fed up with Duffy. In response to an email from Duffy claiming Wright says the senator is not in violation of the housing policy, Wright responds, "I did not say that, and if you continue to misquote me, then we will be speaking only through lawyers going forward." On Feb. 26, Wright lays bare his anger in an email after discovering Duffy charged meals and per diems and will owe the Senate much more than initially predicted: "I am beyond furious".

4. Wright tried to influence the audit process

As one of the conditions of the deal, Duffy asked to be withdrawn from the Deloitte audit process. Wright confirms he will try to limit the work done by auditors once Duffy repays the expenses. Wright has trouble getting the senators on the committee to help him so he turns to Senator Gerstein to try to speak with someone at Deloitte directly. On March 1, he emails, "…Today I asked Sen.Gerstein to actually work through senior contacts at Deloitte." Wright also agrees with a suggestion that Duffy no longer co-operate with the audit process to try to limit the damage.

5. Wright didn't think RCMP would get involved

Wright has now been questioned by the RCMP and provided hundreds of emails, but he did not believe in the beginning that any of this would be subject to an RCMP investigation.

In February, when Liberals first start talking about sending the matter to the RCMP, Duffy emails Wright with his concerns. Wright responds, "I can't figure out why the RCMP would have anything to do with this - unless there is clear fraud, which I have never heard."

In May, Wright again writes, "I personally don't think that Mike committed a crime at all - if I did I would have pursued a different course."

In spite of this, Wright told the RCMP he flatly denied one condition suggested by Duffy's lawyer: that the matter never be referred to the RCMP.

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How the RCMP mapped the Wright-Duffy money trail

A deal between suspended Senator Mike Duffy, left, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper's former chief of staff, Nigel Wright, right, is being investigated by the RCMP. (Adrian Wyld and Sean Fitzpatrick/Canadian Press)

RCMP investigators have already pieced together an almost-complete picture of how $90,000 from the prime minister's former chief of staff ended up in Senator Mike Duffy's bank account. But they want more information to finish the narrative.

The money from Nigel Wright's personal resources was used to repay inappropriate housing and living expenses filed by Duffy over a four-year period.

The origin, purpose, deliverance and acceptance of that $90,000 could result in charges against Duffy and Wright. Court documents released this week show both men are being investigated by the Mounties for bribery, fraud and breach of trust. No charges have been laid and the allegations have not been proven in court.

In an affidavit filed in an Ottawa court Wednesday, RCMP Cpl. Greg Horton laid out how the money travelled from Wright to Duffy.

Although Duffy owned his Ottawa suburban home before he was appointed to the Senate, he declared that his P.E.I. winterized cottage was his primary residence, allowing him to charge secondary expenses for his house in the nation's capital.

The money route

Once it was established that Duffy had to repay his expenses, he took out a $91,600 mortgage loan from the Royal Bank. In his affidavit, Horton says, "I believe this loan was an effort by Senator Duffy to create a paper trail so he could show that he obtained the loan to repay the money, if ever asked."

Duffy would later tell reporters he voluntarily paid back the inappropriate expenses on his own, although he didn't believe he had done anything wrong. "It was the right thing to do," he said, explaining he'd taken out a bank loan to make the repayment

On the same day Duffy obtained the mortgage loan, he took $80,000 from his private account and put it into a line of credit he said was being used for renovating his cottage.

According to Horton, "He now had $91,600 from a mortgage loan, so having no need for it for the repayment, he put $80,000 of that money on his line of credit."

The officer believes Duffy knew a bank draft from Wright was on its way.

Three days later, on March 25, Wright arranged for a bank draft worth $90,172.24 to be delivered to the office of Janice Payne, Duffy's lawyer. The figure was the exact amount Senate administration staff calculated Duffy owed in inappropriately claimed expenses.

On March 26, a branch-to-branch transfer put $90,172.24 into Duffy's private RBC account.

On that same day, a personal cheque from Duffy for $90,172.24 made out to the Receiver General was delivered to the Senate.

Horton says in the affidavit that he believes this was Nigel Wright's money. One purpose of the 81-page affidavit is to persuade a judge to allow him access to bank records showing who transferred the money into Duffy's account, and from where.

That information would complete the picture of a complex routing of money designed to hide the source of the funds, and a plan to make it seem Duffy had used his own resources to repay his expenses.

Why Duffy's Senate debt jumped from $32K to $90K

A question that rises out of the RCMP documents is how the amount of money Duffy owed the Senate for inappropriate expenses escalated from $32,000, a figure Wright, in early February, initially thought was the correct amount — which the Conservative Party was apparently willing to pay — to $90,000.

The party balked at the higher figure, which Wright wound up covering since Duffy either couldn't, or wouldn't.

The smaller figure may have come from a Deloitte audit on Duffy's expenses, conducted in February, that concluded the P.E.I. senator charged about $34,000 in living expenses for the 18-month period the independent accounting firm was tasked to examine.

The audit shows Duffy collected a private accommodation allowance for his house in Kanata, an Ottawa suburb, because presumably he didn't have a mortgage.

The private accommodation allowance is $28 per day, amounting to about $10,000 a year. Had Duffy been able to show Senate administration he had a mortgage or a lease, he could have charged double that amount

But the the allowance for per diems or meals is much higher — $86 for every day an out-of-town senator is in Ottawa on Senate business.

Wright, an independently wealthy man who never personally charged expenses, didn't seem aware Duffy was charging per diems. When he found out, he told the RCMP, he was incensed that Duffy was getting paid for meals he ate in his own house in Ottawa.

Once the Senate looked back at the entire four years of Duffy's Senate tenure, his ineligible private accommodation costs and per diems jumped to $80,000 with another $10,000 for interest, as well as the payback of claims Duffy said he mistakenly made while on vacation in Florida.

Wright ended up reimbursing the entire amount out of his own pocket, saying in an email obtained by the RCMP, "I am beyond furious ... the money will be repaid."

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Harper ducks queries about fundraising chief in Duffy affair

Questions are growing about whether Prime Minister Stephen Harper knew about an earlier attempt that might have been worked on by his office to repay Senator Mike Duffy's inappropriate housing claims.  

RCMP documents released to an Ottawa court Wednesday allege that Senator Irving Gerstein, chair of the Conservative Party Fund, offered to pay Duffy's housing claims in the amount of $32,000 in February.

This offer was allegedly made about a month before Nigel Wright, Harper's former chief of staff, personally repaid Duffy's claims with a $90,000 cheque.

Harper did not answer specific questions from reporters Thursday about whether he knew his top party fundraiser had at one point agreed to repay Senator Mike Duffy's expense claims, as the RCMP claim, using party funds collected from donations by supporters.

Harper was speaking at Lac-Mégantic, Que., where he announced money for a cleanup of last summer‛s deadly rail

Asked directly by a reporter about when he knew Gerstein had initially planned to repay Duffy's housing claims, Harper replied, "I said right from the outset that Mike Duffy should repay his own expenses. I was told that was what he agreed to do, and I was told that was what he had done." He did not mention Gerstein.

The RCMP say that on Feb. 22, Wright called Gerstein and asked if the fund would pay $32,000 plus interest to cover Duffy's housing claims. "Gerstein confirmed it," the RCMP says in a sworn affidavit.

Harper has always said he didn't know about his former chief of staff's $90,000 payment to Duffy until May 15 and has insisted he never would have approved it. 

The $32,000 figure comes out of an earlier effort to clean up Duffy's housing claims. At the time, Wright believed the figure was correct.

But, the $32,000 was only for Duffy's housing claims. His per diems — the amount he charged for meals and incidentals while in Ottawa on Senate business — brought the amount he owed to $90,000. Wright found out about the per diems on Feb. 26.

"I am beyond furious," he wrote to his executive assistant, David van Hemmen. "This will all be repaid."

The RCMP say once Gerstein found out the amount would be $90,000, he refused to repay it with party money.

Gerstein told the Conservative Party's Calgary convention in October that he never agreed to any kind of repayment for Duffy. He refused to comment Thursday when reporters asked him about his statement.

The $32,000 figure

Emails from Wright, obtained by the RCMP, indicate that when the amount Duffy owed was thought to be only $32,000, the prime minister may have known the Conservative Party was planning to cover the bill.

Wright was embroiled in making a deal with Duffy's lawyer at the time, Janice Payne. Payne stipulated in an email dated Feb. 21 that if Duffy were to accept help repaying his expenses, which he did not believe he owed, one condition would be "an arrangement to keep him whole on the repayment. His legal fees will also be reimbursed."

The RCMP's lead investigator on the Duffy case, Cpl. Greg Horton, writes about this email, "I believe the term 'keep him whole' means Senator Duffy would not financially be out of pocket."

On Feb. 22, Wright in an email to Benjamin Perrin, the prime minister's lawyer, and others in the PMO said, "I do want to speak to the PM before everything is considered final," referring to the deal with Payne and Duffy.

Horton says an hour later Wright followed up with an email, stating, "We are good to go with the PM once Ben has his confirmation from Payne."

The deal fell through, the RCMP say, because of Gerstein's refusal to repay the sum.

The Conservative Party did pay Duffy's legal fees.

Duffy 'deliberately lying'

The CBC's Catherine Cullen asked Harper Thursday at Lac-Mégantic why Gerstein and Chris Woodcock, a former PMO staffer who now works for a cabinet minister, were still part of Harper's team since RCMP documents say both were aware of the Duffy repayment.

Harper again would not directly answer, but said, after accusing Wright of "inappropriate actions" and Duffy of "deliberately lying to the public," said, "It is Mr. Duffy and Mr. Wright who are under investigation for their actions. That is what is appropriate for this case."

In question period Thursday, Liberal MP Ralph Goodale said such a payment, referring to the $32,000 figure, "would be just as wrong as the payment by Nigel Wright. Why did the prime minister say 'good to go' for a payment from the Conservative Party [to Duffy]?"

Conservative MP Paul Calandra, the prime minister's spokesperson in the House, said, "The prime minister said no such thing."

CBC News later asked the prime minister's director of communications for clarification about whether Harper knew about discussions between Wright and the Conservative Party concerning whether its fund would repay Duffy's expenses.

Jason MacDonald replied in an email, "The answer is no. The prime minister had no knowledge of this. Until May 15 the prime minister was of the understanding that Mr. Duffy had repaid his inappropriate expenses using his own funds."

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Colin Kenny, Liberal senator, faces sexual harassment complaint

Senate authorities have opened a sexual harassment investigation following a formal complaint lodged by a former employee of long-time Liberal Senator Colin Kenny, CBC News has learned. 

Reporting by Radio-Canada's Brigitte Bureau has also uncovered that this is not the first time that Kenny has faced complaints about his behaviour towards women.

A woman who worked at a tanning salon Kenny used to own complained to police that he told her to perform oral sex or risk losing her job. Police dismissed the complaint as not credible.

Bureau has also obtained a 2001 letter sent by a  North Atlantic Treaty Organization official alleging Kenny paid "persistent" and "unwelcome" attention toward two women working at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

It is important to note that none of these allegations have been proven in court. Kenny said he cannot comment on the complaint by his former Senate staffer because the matter is under investigation. He called all the allegations "bogus."

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau‛s office said Thursday that Kenny has withdrawn from the Liberal caucus while the investigation continues.

"We can confirm that Senator Kenny informed us yesterday that he was withdrawing from the Liberal caucus effective November 13th, pending the outcome of an investigation by the Senate administration," Kate Purchase wrote in an email to CBC News.

'Sexual comments'

Pascale Brisson, a former assistant to Kenny, recently told CBC News that half her day was spent tending to his personal affairs rather than taking care of Senate business. 

She also alleged Kenny sexually harassed her. 

"He said sexual comments at work and also invited me over to his house for a few drinks," Brisson told Bureau.

"At that moment, I asked if it was related to work. He said he just wanted to get to know me. So, I refused the invitation."

Brisson also said Kenny asked her to wear high-heeled shoes to work and would stand with his hand on her waist when they were meeting alone in his office with the door closed.

"When we were discussing different issues, it would happen sometimes that he would put his hand around my waist or try and come closer to me to talk to me. I didn't really feel comfortable at the time with such things, so i would just take a step back and continue the conversation," Brisson said.

International group complained about behaviour

 In 2001, Kenny was active in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, a working group of politicians from NATO countries. 

The group wrote a letter to the head of the Canadian delegation, then-Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish.

The letter, obtained by CBC News, alleges Kenny made frequent phone calls to a female intern and female staff member. 

"In both cases, the women affected by this problem have indicated ... that the attention they received was unwelcome, upsetting and made their work environment uncomfortable," wrote Simon Lunn, who was at the time the secretary general to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

One of the women was "considerably distressed" by the attention, Lunn said. The other said that "what began as a friendly meeting became persistent and unwelcome attention," he wrote in the letter.

Parrish says the NATO group urged her to oust Kenny from future trips to assembly functions.

"It was just general harassment. All that came to my attention was hundreds and hundreds of phone calls and requests to go out for dinner and requests to socialize," Parrish said.

Demanded sexual favours

There have been other allegations made against Kenny outside his role as a senator.

For several years, he operated two tanning salons in Ottawa. Candace Amis worked for Kenny in 2003 when she was 19. 

She says one night, when the two of them were alone in the salon, Kenny demanded sexual favours.

"He wanted to see my breasts and I did not want to do it. I made it clear that I was uncomfortable," she said.

"And he communicated to me that if I didn't take my shirt off then I wasn't 'performing' as to be expected, to the level he wanted me to perform at my job. And so, therefore, he would have no other choice but fire me. So I took my shirt off."

Amis said Kenny then told her to take off her pants, then to perform oral sex on him.

"I was in shock. And he communicated again that, are you going to give me a blow job or you're going to lose your job. That was it, that was all. You're going to take your shirt off, you're going to take your pants off, you're going to give me a blow job and that's it."

She says she complied because she was afraid of losing her job.

'This job meant a lot'

Amis grew up in foster homes and was an exotic dancer when she got a job at the tanning salon. She had just moved from a shelter into a rooming house, and was about to start university.

"This job meant a lot to me at the time," she said.

"I wanted to be able to ensure I could pay for [the room] without having to depend on having to do dancing," Amis said.

"I felt like [a] self-productive, functioning member of society."

Amis complained to the Ottawa police. They didn't believe her story, in part because she had lied to the police in the past. 

A former employee of the senator says she now regrets not corroborating Amis's story because she knew other workers had also complained about him.

Another former employee spoke to CBC News about an encounter with Kenny. She says he was waiting for her one morning when she arrived to open the salon.

"He was naked from the waist down and I got the full frontal view of him. And when I came in, he didn't apologize," said the former employee, who requested anonymity.

Kenny wouldn't address Amis's allegations, other than to say they are "fabricated."

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Wright-Duffy affair tests Harper's 'new era of accountability': Chris Hall

For his single-minded devotion to business as usual, you have to hand it to Stephen Harper. Really.

There he was Thursday in Lac Megantic, far away from Parliament Hill, committing $95 million to the critical work of decontaminating the site of one of the worst rail disasters in Canadian history.

Harper is frequently the face of his government when it comes to big spending announcements. Good news like that is good for the PM's image.

But when it comes to the $90,000 doled out by his former top adviser to solve a political problem largely of Harper's own making, well, then the responsibility rests squarely with others.

For months now, Harper has ducked, weaved and laid the blame on Nigel Wright for having the poor sense of paying off Senator Mike Duffy's improperly claimed living expenses; and also on Mike Duffy for lying about having used his own money when he hadn't.

The prime minister's lines have changed each time the scandal deepened: from first praising Wright's intentions to later condemning them, from saying Wright ''acted alone'' to suggesting he told ''very few.'' He has also morphed from saying Wright resigned, to insisting his former chief of staff was dismissed.

This week, new RCMP court documents related to their investigation of the Wright-Duffy affair, made it clear that many more people knew of Wright's decision than the ''very few'' he referred to.

They include a half-dozen of the most senior people inside his own office, as well as at least one senator and two officials with the Conservative Party.

None of those people have paid a price for helping keep what Harper now describes as Wright's ''deception.''

Nor does it appear any of them will.

A higher accountability

"It's important to note that the inappropriate action taken here was by Mr. Wright at his own initiative and obviously [by] Mr. Duffy, who deliberately lied to the public about those things,'' Harper said in Lac Megantic when reporters pressed him on the matter at a brief news conference.

Senator Mike Duffy and former chief of staff Nigel Wright. "We are good to go from the PM," Wright emailed fellow PMO staffers in February about a Duffy repayment plan. What exactly was he referring to? (Reuters / CBC)

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As for his own responsibility for the actions of people in his office, Harper was mute. This buck is for passing.

That stance is, of course, entirely at odds with the standards Harper promised when he first came to power in 2006.

In those days, a Conservative win meant a new era of accountability in Ottawa. He vowed Conservative ministers and political staff would be held to a higher standard of conduct than the Liberal government that preceded them.

Canadians were told he would brook no aberrant behaviour, no case in which anyone in his government would profit from his or her position.

The promise became an important selling point in Harper's win, and was built on voter fatigue with the Liberal sponsorship scandal.

Living up to those standards today in the midst of the Wright-Duffy scandal may well determine the Conservative hold on office two years from now.

Harper is now the leader under siege over what he knew, and when he knew it.

He's being pressed to explain why staff in his office seemed to work harder on the cover-up, keeping the issue under wraps, than on saving taxpayers' money from being spent on Mike Duffy's expenses.

Perhaps most troubling, he's being pressed to explain why his confidantes went to such lengths to meet the conditions Duffy imposed on their dealings, including one ''to keep him whole on the repayment'' — something the RCMP documents released this week make clear Wright reported to Harper way back on Feb. 22.

"I want to speak to the PM before everything is considered final,'' Wright sent to others in the office. An hour later he sent another email indicating ''we are good to go from the PM.''

The larger question

Harper insists the ''good to go'' meant he was good with Duffy repaying the $90,000. Not, as the RCMP investigator writes in the documents, "I believe the term keep him whole means that Senator Duffy would not be financially out of pocket.''

NDP leader Thomas Mulcair seized on this point Thursday in question period.

"Since when does the prime minister of Canada have to approve a senator repaying his own expenses,'' Mulcair thundered.

Harper, of course, wasn't there to hear it. He was in Lac-Mégantic. The answer fell to his parliamentary secretary, Paul Calandra.

"As I've said on a number of occasions,'' Calandra solemnly intoned as though his words carry the same weight as those of his boss, ''and as the prime minister has said, the standard that we expect on this side of the House is that if you have some expenses you did not incur you should not be accepting those expenses, Mr. Speaker.''

That might pass as an answer explaining why the government wanted Duffy to be held accountable, but it doesn't begin to address the larger question.

Harper's been even less clear on what Wright meant in another email sent May 14 — the day before the PM says he learned Wright had paid for Duffy's expenses.

In that email, Wright says this: "The PM knows, in broad terms only, that I personally assisted Duffy when I was getting him to repay the expenses.''

There's been no explanation of when the PM knew this, or what Wright means by ''broad terms only.''

It doesn't appear the RCMP are focused on getting answers to those questions either. As Harper says, only Wright and Duffy are under investigation.

"After months of interviews and review of documents,'' Harper read from the RCMP production order made public this week, ''the investigator says he is not aware of any evidence that the prime minister was involved in the repayment or reimbursement of any money to Mr. Duffy. The RCMP could not be clearer.''

And that's the message the prime minister wants Canadians to remember. In the Wright-Duffy affair, the man who would be the face of the government was left in the dark.

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New cyberbullying law has 'larger agenda,' expands police powers

When Justice Minister Peter MacKay unveiled the federal government's proposed cyberbullying law on Wednesday, he touted it as a necessary tool to combat the often hurtful spread of intimate images. To emphasize the underlying point, he made the announcement during national Bullying Awareness Week.

But legal experts were left wondering why a piece of legislation that is meant to rein in online tormentors is also taking on terror suspects and people who steal cable TV signals.

"There is a much larger agenda at play here," says Rob Currie, director of the Law and Technology Institute at Dalhousie University.

Under the banner of anti-cyberbullying measures, the government is "trying to push through a number of things that have to do with law enforcement but nothing to do with cyberbullying."

Among other things, these new measures include giving police easier access to the metadata that internet service providers and phone companies keep on every call and email.

MacKay has acknowledged that law enforcement did not have the tools to prevent the deaths of Canadian teens such as Rehtaeh Parsons and Amanda Todd, who endured years of torment online. C-13 would give police a greater ability to investigate incidents of cyberbullying by giving courts the right to seize computers, phones and other devices used in an alleged offence.

5 years in prison

Under the proposed legislation, anyone who posts or transmits an "intimate image" of another individual without that person's consent could face up to five years in prison.

Leah Parsons, mother of the late Rehtaeh Parsons, the Nova Scotia teen who died following a suicide attempt, is greeted by Justice Minister Peter MacKay as they attend a roundtable discussion on cybercrime in Halifax in October. (Andrew Vaughan / Canadian Press)

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MacKay said C-13, also known as the Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act, reflected the government's commitment "to ensuring that our children are safe from online predators and from online exploitation."

Since introducing the bill, MacKay has said that C-13 is also meant to update the Criminal Code to reflect modern communications such as email and social media.

Toronto internet lawyer Gil Zvulony says that it is a necessary step, given that some aspects of the Criminal Code pertaining to communications still refer to outmoded technologies such as telegrams.

"I don't know what the [government's] motivation is, but there is a logical theme to all of this, in the sense that it's trying to modernize [the code] for the digital age," he says. 

Currie, however, raises concerns about the breadth of C-13, which not only addresses cyberbullying, but also gives police heightened powers of surveillance to track terror suspects as well as individuals who use computer programs to gain unpaid access to WiFi or cable TV service.

Currie likens the omnibus nature of C-13 to Bill C-30, also known as the Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act, which was introduced in February 2012 by then-public safety minister Vic Toews.

"It was supposed to be all about [fighting] child porn, but it had all kinds of other stuff in it," Currie says.

The 'other stuff'

That other "stuff" included lawful access provisions, which would force internet service providers to hand over customer information to police without a warrant. This led to a public outcry and the government's abandonment of the bill.

Although C-30 was ostensibly killed in 2012, Michael Geist, a cyber-law expert at the University of Ottawa, says that the government has been inconsistent about its position on some of the key issues surrounding lawful access to private communications.

Earlier this year, then justice minister Rob Nicholson pledged that the government "will not be proceeding with Bill C-30 and any attempts that we will continue to have to modernize the Criminal Code will not contain the measures contained in C-30."

Still, Andrea Slane, a law professor at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, says C-13 is in many ways "identical" to its failed predecessor — though one of the key differences is that C-13 emphasizes judicial oversight.

For the most part, the new bill still observes "the checks and balances around what judges are meant to do to make sure warrants are issued" where they are supposed to be.

That said, one thing the new bill does is allow ISPs to voluntarily give customer information to police without civil or criminal liability, Slane points out.  

"That's the one that's most sticky for me," she says, because it was this kind of legislation that led to widespread surveillance in the U.S.

Geist says C-13 gives police greater access to metadata, which is the information that ISPs and phone companies keep on every call and email, and he adds that in some ways metadata can be more revealing than the substance of a phone call or email.

Metadata will enable police to pinpoint a suspect's "geographic location. It will tell who they were talking to, it will tell what device they were using," Geist told CBC.

Currie says that, within C-13, there are proposed amendments to other acts, including the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act, which allows Canadian police to gather evidence on individuals in Canada because a foreign state has requested it.

Jennifer Stoddart, Canada's privacy commissioner, has not had a chance to examine the bill. But her office released a statement to CBC saying C-13 "appears to be a complex bill, and we will be examining all of its privacy implications and preparing to provide our full analysis and recommendations before the parliamentary committee that will be studying the legislation."

Currie acknowledges that the bill strengthens many of the law enforcement tools needed to stem cyberbullying. But he takes issue with the sheer size of the legislation.

"This government has a history of introducing large omnibus bills that have all kinds of stuff in them – unrelated things all under the banner of one legislation," he says.

"The problem with that is it inhibits democratic debate. There are lots of evidence-gathering tools here that we need to have a debate about."

With files from Alison Crawford

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JFK's image endures as his conservative legacy fades: Stockwell Day

John F. Kennedy's youthful image endures as a symbol of hope 50 years after his assassination in Dallas, even as his political positions fade in collective memory, observes Stockwell Day on the anniversary of his death. (The Canadian Press)

JFK, and our contemplation of him, never gets old.

As heartbreaking as John F. Kennedy's assassination was, it bequeathed upon him something that escapes most mortals: the aura of eternal youthfulness.

Most modern-age celebrities, whether glorious or notorious, have to face a grim reality before they face the Grim Reaper. It's the cold awareness that unless they choose to shutter themselves from public view, their aging process will be vividly recorded in high-definition resolution for all the cyberworld to see.

However, for obvious and tragic reasons, JFK will always be retained in our memory and iCloud storage as a handsome, vital 40-something. No Botox-frozen forehead. No time-etched grooves at right angles to a wrinkled upper lip. No stooped shoulders or thinning hair line.

For "Jack" it is a sense of eternal vibrancy that serves to enhance the memory and the mythology about the man. In the minds of most, he will truly always be larger than life.

The Kennedys ride through the streets of Dallas with Texas governor John Connally and his wife, Nellie, moments before Kennedy was assassinated. The assassination remains one of the most debated events in U.S. history. (Reuters)

As I was on business in Dallas recently, I took advantage of a meeting break to wander over to Dealey Plaza, to the building the world had came to know as the Texas School Book Depository. In a tastefully done restoration, the infamous 6th floor has been turned into a museum of sorts.

You can stand beside the actual window where a replica rifle of the "left-wing loner" (as officially described in the montage on the wall) is still propped up on cartons of books.You can visually trace the precise line of fire down onto the street and stare at the exact spot where JFK's fatal lurch was recorded for all the world to see.

As an occasional gun-range shooter, I was somewhat taken by the fact that this was not at all an impossible target to hit, despite the reservations of many theorists over the years. The official distance from the muzzle of Lee Harvey Oswald's telescopic rifle to the exposed president was "only 264 feet."

That distance, with that equipment and a slow-moving, confined target, would not even qualify for a marksmanship award for somebody like Oswald, a former Marine sharpshooter.

Contemplating the facts and sad events of that day, right there within the actual historic and geographic context, somehow sharpened the whole focus of what had taken place 50 short years ago.

On the walls and in the halls of that history-changing 6th floor are hundreds of visual, audio and written accounts of the life and politics of JFK. He is somewhat idolized in a number of those exhibits, but nothing to the point of incredulity.

Naturally, I was drawn to his political reflections and positions of the time.

What is fascinating to me is how the perception of where he stood politically is nowhere near as perfectly preserved in the public mind today as it was 50 years ago.

Along the museum corridors are his clearly articulated strong views on a number of controversial issues.

For instance, he was severely criticized, even demonized, by political and media foes for his religious faith. Even his worthiness to hold presidential office was questioned because of his Catholicism. Though he pushed back courageously on those prejudiced attacks it still resulted in him only winning the 1960 race against Richard Nixon by the tiniest of margins.

He was an unabashed supporter of the war in Vietnam. Contrary to some latter-day history revisionists, he never recanted from his position that the U.S. needed to send troops to win that war.

He was one of the most ardent presidents in U.S. history on the issue of reducing taxes. You can read there in Dallas his statements of belief that lower taxation rates eventually lead to more jobs, higher living standards, a better economy and therefore more government revenue for social programs.

And of course, his unflinching belief in the paramountcy of personal responsibility over nanny-state paternalism is forever captured in his blazing clarion call to post-war youth to "Ask not what your country can do for you...."

So my visit to the site of Kennedy's last moments left me with a greater understanding of what took place that fateful day. But it also left me with a weaker understanding of why media reminders of his conservative policy positions are not implanted as clearly today in our minds as his eternally hope-filled countenance is thankfully implanted in our hearts.

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