By Kenneth Jackson
APTN National News
OTTAWA – The former escort at the centre of the Bruce Carson scandal was called to testify against the former senior aide to Prime Minister Stephen Harper Monday at the beginning of Carson’s influence peddling preliminary inquiry.
Michele McPherson was called to the stand as a Crown witness. Evidence taken at the inquiry can’t be shared publicly due to a routine publication ban on the proceedings.
A preliminary inquiry is held to test the Crown’s evidence and a judge will decide if the case proceeds to trial.
Carson was charged in July 2012 after the RCMP investigated him for nearly year.
Carson has pleaded not guilty and last month he was charged again by the RCMP with illegal lobbying and another charge of influence peddling unrelated to Monday’s proceedings that stem from his work on the Energy Policy Institute of Canada (EPIC), an energy industry-funded think tank created by Carson with alleged ties to the Prime Minister’s Office and the co-chair of Liberal leader Justin Trudeau’s election campaign.
The probe into Harper’s former aide was launched after APTN National News first broke the news in March 2011 that Carson was allegedly lobbying on behalf of an Ottawa water filtration company trying to land lucrative contracts on First Nations plagued by dirty water.
McPherson had a contract with H20 Pros that she would receive a commission on all filtration sales obtained with the help of Carson as reported by APTN.
APTN also reported Carson set up meetings with federal bureaucrats in Aboriginal Affairs in the fall of 2010 so H20 Pros could pitch its water systems.
Emails obtained by APTN were penned by Carson who said he was only helping the company to benefit McPherson who he was engaged to at the time. He confirmed to APTN he wrote the emails.
McPherson was, for several years, a well documented sex trade worker in Ottawa. Carson first met her in early 2010.
APTN reported their relationship quickly picked up and by the summer of 2010 Carson began reaching out to contacts in the federal government.
That included meetings with former Assembly of First Nations national chief Shawn Atleo.
One of the former owners of H20 Pros, Nicolas Kaszap, was also called to testify Monday.
APTN has reported that Kaszap left the company in October 2010 when he felt the other owner, Patrick Hill, was trying to cut him out of the deals Carson was looking to obtain.
In emails to Kaszap from Carson, obtained by APTN, Carson wrote he was only helping the company for McPherson and spoke of his connections to federal ministers, including former Aboriginal Affairs minister John Duncan, who Carson wrote saying he had knowledge of Duncan’s appointment the day before it was announced.
APTN confronted Carson with that email where he says he spoke to Harper but when shown the email Carson said he lied about speaking with Harper and that he talked to someone else about Duncan’s appointment before it happened.
He admitted to witnessing a contract between McPherson and the company that would have paid her 20 per cent commission. It was later learned a second contract was made lowering McPherson’s rate to 15 per cent.
Soon after APTN reported its investigation H2o Pros went bankrupt.
Carson was fired from his job as executive director of the Canadian School of Energy and Environment at the University of Calgary, as well as other appointments or groups he sat on, including EPIC.
The RCMP was able to build its case against Carson based on emails written by Carson during his time at CSEE that were obtained with a warrant.
There were about 50,000 emails and from those the RCMP built a separate case to lay additional charges against Carson for his time on EPIC.
The preliminary inquiry is scheduled to continue Tuesday when Patrick Hill is expected to be called to testify. Hill previously told APTN meeting Carson and McPherson ruined his life.
