Rotten to the core?

RCMP documents how 'how deep the rot was' in PMO: Conservative consultant

Andrea Janus
CTV News.ca
Thursday, November 28, 2013

Former Conservative staffer David Sachs speaks to Power Play about the PMO on Thursday, November 28, 2013.

Alleged interference into an audit of Mike Duffy’s expenses “showed just how deep the rot was” in the Prime Minister’s Office, says Conservative communications consultant David Sachs.

The long-time Tory worked for former cabinet ministers Lawrence Cannon and Peter Kent, and now sits on the Board of the Conservative Riding Association in Pontiac, Quebec.

Sachs told CTV’s Power Play Thursday evening that his disenchantment with the Conservative government and Harper “has been building over a number of years.”

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In an editorial published in the Ottawa Citizen earlier this week, Sachs urged Conservatives to “call on Harper to speak the truth at last.”

“If he can pull the party back from this slide, he can yet rescue his leadership. If not, he must go,” he wrote.

Sachs told Power Play that “a lot of Conservatives” are uncomfortable with the government and how the PMO has conducted its affairs, although they may not say so publicly.

“The people in the PMO have basically been running the country for years telling MPs how to vote, telling campaigns what they’re allowed to say and who they’re allowed to speak to, which is generally nobody and nothing,” he said.

In Sachs’ view, the PMO is “controlling things in such a way that was so clearly wrong.”

In both his editorial and on Power Play, Sachs accused the Conservative Party under Harper of betraying what he called the traditional conservative “mindset that power tends to corrupt.” Sachs told Power Play that it was this mindset that was the “driving force behind the Conservative movement during the Chretien years.”

“I don’t see what conservative and liberal has to do with ethics,” he said. “And as I said in my article, I think the Conservatives should find it easier to reconcile themselves with the idea that the party has strayed from the proper path.”

Sachs said he “left town” for a couple of days after his editorial was published and has not heard any reaction from his riding association. But he remains a Conservative, and said he has nothing to hide.

“I’m not the one under RCMP investigation,” he told Power Play. “I’m not too worried about the way things look for me.”