Bruce Carson, a former senior adviser to Stephen Harper, faces a charge of influence peddling and three counts of illegal lobbying.
As the Conservatives try to turn the page on a rocky first half of their election campaign, the beginning of a criminal trial for a former Harper staffer threatens to bog down this relaunch.
Bruce Carson, a former senior adviser to Stephen Harper, faces a charge of influence peddling and three counts of illegal lobbying. His influence peddling trial starts on Monday in Ottawa, while the other charges will be dealt with in a separate trial next spring.
The Tories potentially have good news on the horizon too: Ottawa's final budget numbers for the 2014-15 fiscal year ended March 31 will be released on Monday morning, and officials with the Conservative election machine are being coy about whether they show a surplus.
The Tories would obviously like to trumpet a return to the black for the fiscal year that recently ended as evidence of good stewardship of public money.
The Tories will also make a concerted bid in the days ahead to regain the upper hand on the Syrian refugee file – which Conservatives privately say they mishandled by taking the wrong tone in early September.
The Harper government is preparing an announcement detailing new measures to expedite the intake of asylum seekers and bolster financial support for the effort. This comes after it faced accusations it had not responded nimbly enough after public attention was galvanized by the tragic image on Sept. 2 of three-year-old Alan Kurdi lying dead on a Turkish beach.
It will unfold as Canadians learn more about Mr. Carson's alleged misdeeds in an Ottawa court. The case is the latest in a string of court dates for Conservatives and Conservative appointees this summer. In June, former MP Dean Del Mastro was sentenced to a month in jail for election fraud, and the third phase of Senator Mike Duffy's trial played out over a couple of weeks in August – to the chagrin of the Conservatives.
In this case, the Tories are trying to distance themselves by pointing out that the allegations against Mr. Carson are from the period after he left the Harper Prime Minister's Office.
The campaign reboot comes as the Conservative war room bulks up in at least one respect. The Tories have bolstered their front-line media team in the war room, which until now largely consisted of one person: former PMO staffer Stephen Lecce. The party has brought in Chris McCluskey, a veteran Conservative government staffer who most recently served as communications director to Natural Resources Minister Greg Rickford.
Mr. Harper was tight-lipped on Friday when asked about his party's use of Australian political strategist Lynton Crosby as an adviser. The controversial consultant helped David Cameron win a majority earlier this year in the U.K., but has been accused of helping exploit fears about refugees to win elections.
"I do not discuss internal campaign matters," he told reporters.
The Conservative Leader used Friday's anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to play up his government's national security credentials – safe ground for Mr. Harper, who has styled himself as a hawk over the years, and the kind of campaign theme he is far more comfortable discussing.
Earlier this week, Mr. Harper tried to invoke security in a response to the Syrian refugee crisis with less success – after the government was heavily criticized for moving slowly on bringing these asylum-seekers to Canada. Mr. Harper had argued that careful screening of people fleeing a "terrorist war zone" justified the pace. But the Tory chief focused elsewhere on Friday, emphasizing that the Conservatives are the only party that would continue air strikes against marauding Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.
"The murder of 24 Canadians at the World Trade Center during 9/11, the Air India bombing in 1985, and the callous attacks on two Canadians right here last year all serve to remind us that Canada is not immune to terrorist threats," Mr. Harper said.
Steven Chase