OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he is not aware of anything that links a Tory MP's flirtations with a Chinese journalist to official government business.
Harper waded into the Bob Dechert affair for the first time today at an announcement in Saskatchewan.
The prime minister has stood behind his embattled parliamentary secretary since it was revealed Dechert sent love notes to a reporter with a state-run news agency linked to China's intelligence service.
Dechert admits he sent the notes, but he insists his relationship with Xinhua reporter Shi Rong was an innocent friendship.
The Prime Minister's Office says it accepts Dechert's explanation he did nothing wrong, and Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird says he still trusts his parliamentary secretary.
Rong has apparently returned to China on a vacation that was planned before someone hacked her email and distributed her notes from Dechert to almost 250 recipients in media, government and diplomacy.
