Harper Reestablishes Confidence in Novak despite Duffy Revelations

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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In response to inquiries from the media, Conservative leader Stephen Harper reassured on Thursday that his current chief of staff, Ray Novak, enjoys his complete confidence despite being linked in court testimony to the secret $90,000 cheque paid to Senator Mike Duffy. Harper said at a campaign stop in Newmarket that “people working for me have my confidence,” adding that “if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be working for me.”

Inquiries are being made since Thursday about what Novak knew about the secret payment as the prime minister’s former lawyer, Benjamin Perrin, prepares to take his testimony at the Duffy trial in Ottawa. According to Perrin, Harper’s former top aide Nigel Wright disclosed that Novak had been in a room when Wright revealed he wrote the Duffy cheque to allow the senator to repay his expenses.

In response to other queries about Novak, Mr. Harper replied on Thursday that “there is one person on trial here. That person is Mr. Duffy because Mr. Duffy took taxpayers’ money. He did not repay it. Mr. Wright did reimburse the taxpayers” but that was “contrary to my wishes.” Reestablishing his previous claim, Harper reiterated that that Duffy and Wright have been held accountable for their actions and “I’m not going to go around holding everybody else accountable for their actions,” referring to Novak. Harper’s former chief of staff, Wright, ended six days of testimony Wednesday and returns to his current career in the corporate world in England.

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