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Government in crisis?: Nigel Wright, Stephen Harper’s chief of staff, steps down

Another one bites the dust.

Nigel Wright, Stephen Harper's chief of staff, has become the latest Conservative causality in the ongoing Senate expense saga.

Earlier this week, the PMO admitted that Wright personally funded Senator Mike Duffy’s repayment of more than $90,000 in improperly-claimed living expenses.

On Thursday, Duffy resigned from the Tory caucus over the scandal. On Friday Senator Pamela Wallin — who is still being audited for her travel expense claims — followed suit.

And on Sunday, Wright resigned from the PMO.

"My actions were intended solely to secure the repayment of funds, which I considered to be in the public interest, and I accept sole responsibility," Wright said in a statement according to the Canadian Press.

"I did not advise the prime minister of the means by which Sen. Duffy's expenses were repaid, either before or after the fact."

[ Related: Wright off: PM's deep-pocketed chief of staff quits amid Duffy fallout ]

No one should shed a tear for Wright, a former finance executive. Invariably, in a couple of days or weeks, one of his Bay Street buddies will come to his rescue and console him with a muti-million dollar annual salary.

You might, however, want to be concerned for Prime Minister Harper.

While there's been no verdict on the most recent senate shenanigans, the opposition parties smell blood.

NDP ethics critic Charlie Angus suggests that the government is in "political panic."

"Conservatives are now in full-out political panic over the pay-off to Mike Duffy and attempted cover up of the Senate expense scandal. Nigel Wright's resignation doesn't fix anything," Angus said in a statement.

"After promising to clean up the corruption and improve accountability in Ottawa, Stephen Harper has failed and his Conservative government is reeling from one scandal to another."

Liberal critic Ralph Goodale says that it's the prime minister who must be held to account.

"It's just not credible for the prime minister to say that he was entirely out of the loop. This is a prime minister that wants to control every detail of information. This was the biggest issue affecting his government for weeks and weeks and weeks on end," he told CBC News World.

"He has to provide compelte accountability for his office. His chief of staff was selected and chosen by him. The senators who are in trouble were selected and chosen by him, He is the one at the centre of action."

Clearly the resignation of Wright isn't enough for the opposition parties.

But will it even be enough for the Conservative caucus? There have already been rumblings by some Tory MPs at the way this has all been handled.

[ Related: Why Stephen Harper should be held accountable for Senate scandals ]

Post Media News' Michael Den Tandt argues that the prime minister is now in "uncharted territory."

"So these are the questions facing the prime minister Tuesday, as he sits down with 163 Conservative MPs (there are 164 in total, including him) whose collective reputations have been tarnished to an as-yet unknown degree by this affair: How much did you know? If you knew, what on Earth were you thinking? Dent Tandt wrote on Sunday.

"Harper finds himself, for the first time in his seven-plus years in power, in the grip of a full-blown crisis at the highest levels of his government, with as-yet unknown consequences for all the players involved, including him."

In his weekend column, the Globe and Mail's John Ibbitson argues that the Senate expense scandal along with Harper's muzzling of backbenchers and "a lack of a clearly defined governing agenda" has put this government into a very precarious position.

"Mr. Harper’s biggest problem – and it is a very big problem – is that he has shaken the confidence of his caucus and, by extension, of voters generally, in his judgment and competence," he wrote.

Crises can be overcome especially when there's two years before the next election.

But this crisis is about ethics and accountability which were one of Stephen Harper's main planks in the 2006 election campaign — it's one of the reasons Canadians elected him.

(Photo courtesy of the Canadian Press)

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