Carson was Harper’s Point Man on Afghanistan

A staffer with five fraud convictions to his name received secret information about Canada’s mission on a daily basis, a government source says.

Another layer of controversy has been added to the Bruce Carson affair, with the Toronto Star quoting an anonymous source as saying the former Conservative staffer was “Harper’s guy” on the Afghan file. Despite being convicted of fraud five times and undergoing court-ordered psychiatric treatment, Carson was a regular participatant in daily briefings on the Afghan mission involving senior officials from foreign affairs, defence, and the RCMP. Such briefings are usually classified as top secret, and Carson was reportedly involved because his job was to help manage how the mission was being communicated here at home. Carson is currently under investigation for illegal lobbying he allegedly engaged in after he left the government in 2008.