CP NewsAlert: Nigel Wright, former chief of staff to Stephen Harper, dead at age 62

By Canadian Press on September 30, 2025.

OTTAWA — Nigel Wright, a longtime Canadian businessman and former top aide to prime minister Stephen Harper, has died.

Onex, the private equity firm where Wright worked for nearly three decades, announced his death in a post today.

The firm’s president and CEO, Bobby LeBlanc, says in a statement Wright was the consummate gentleman and will be dearly missed.

Onex’s chairman, Gerry Schwartz, says Wright was humble and selfless and an outstanding leader.

Wright was Harper’s chief of staff from 2011 to 2013, but left that high-profile position over his involvement in the Senate expenses scandal.

Wright secretly paid Mike Duffy, then a Conservative senator, more than $90,000 to cover some of Duffy’s contested expenses, a move the ethics commissioner eventually said broke federal conflict-of-interest rules.

More coming.

The Canadian Press