Canada’s Official Opposition NDP party wants to know why the federal police force, the RCMP, has decided to drop criminal charges against Nigel Wright, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former Chief of Staff.
In a letter sent April 24, to the head of the RCMP, Commissioner Bob Paulson, Official Opposition ethics critic Charlie Angus asks for clarification into the RCMP’s “decision to drop its investigation into the secret payment of $90,000 by Nigel Wright to Senator Mike Duffy.”
The payment was made in 2013 by Wright to the senator to cover contested expense claims. At first the Prime Minister and cabinet ministers said Wright had done the honourable thing, and saved taxpayers money. Several days after media reports about the cheque, Nigel Wright resigned as Chief of Staff, and ministers distanced themselves from their original statements.
The lead RCMP investigator on the case says the reasons why the police didn’t charge former Wright will be made public, possibly in court.
“Once the whole investigative process follows its path, then those reasons will be made public,” RCMP Cpl. Greg Horton told Global News in a brief interview Monday. “Nothing will be hidden. It will all be publicly disclosed at some point.”
“Rather than proving to Canadians that clear ethical principles are being enforced in Ottawa. Corporal Horton’s statement raises several troubling questions,” Angus writes in his letter to Commissioner Paulson, “The fact that the RCMP has decided to drop this important matter risks raising further alarm.”
More information:
NDP asks RCMP for more information on Nigel Wright investigation – Statement and link to letter (pdf) – here
Global News – ‘Nothing will be hidden’: RCMP says questions about Nigel Wright will be answered – here
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