As much as I detest Mike Duffy and everything he stands for, I have to confess that in listening to his Senate speech yesterday I was much-taken with both its content and delivery. Thundering at his erstwhile allies and colleagues, Duffy rebuked the motion of suspension pending against him and Senators Brazeau and Wallin. While undoubtedly heavily self-serving, Duffy portrayed a PMO and, by extension, a Prime Minister who abandoned him despite earlier reassurances that all was kosher with both his expenses and residency, all for the sake of political expedience.
During a meeting with Nigel Wright and Harper, the latter is alleged to have told Duffy:
"'It's not about what you did. It's about the perception of what you did that's been created in the media. The rules are inexplicable to our base' …, after which he was ordered to pay back the money.
Hardly a smoking gun, but the unfolding portrait is one that promises to further erode Harper's credibility on claims of knowing nothing about anything pertaining to Wright's arrangements to write the $90,000 cheque to Duffy. I am sure more will be revealed in the forthcoming weeks and months.
Will Duffy's words be enough to circumvent the suspension? Today may provide the answer.
If you would like to hear Duffy's speech, click here.
Think I'll go out on my bicycle this morning. In the meantime, enjoy these letters on the Senate imbroglio found in yesterday's Star:
Machiavelli wrote: “Those who governed the state of Florence . . . used to say it was necessary to reconstitute the government every five years . . . otherwise it was difficult to maintain it.”
What brings down all holders of significant public office in the end is hubris. There is no escape, no way out, whether in an oligarchy or a democracy. Once they are sucked into the maelstrom embrace of the “government machine,” they are inevitably cut off from the real world with the result being hubris ending in a wretched fall from grace.
Monte McMurchy, Toronto
If I were to rob a bank and then get caught, I would be charged and sent to jail, even if I said I would give back the money. So why are politicians not treated the same way when they steal money from the taxpayers? Anyone caught using public funds for their own benefit should receive an automatic jail sentence and forfeit their pension. Implement this rule and anyone in public office would think twice before sliding their hand into our pocket.
Dave Watson, Pickering
Two things consistently strike me about this Senate scandal:
1. Is it not very telling that it is so difficult to specifically define “Senate business” for the purpose of making expense claims?
2. Is it also not very telling that the principal reason for retaining the Senate repeatedly given by many observers is the fact that it would be so difficult constitutionally to abolish it?
Hmmm. We can’t really say what we do, but it might be a pain to get rid of us, so we better keep going. Hardly a ringing endorsement.
Michael Farrell, Oakville
Senator Wallin seems to have the same syndrome as Conrad Black, Bill Clinton, Sheila Copps, Mike Duffy, Patrick Brazeau, Mac Harb and Martha Stewart, etc. She simply will not admit that she ever did anything wrong. Strength and self confidence based on noble principles is one thing, but stubborness. arrogance, and frothing and grunting at the public trough is something else.
Douglas Cornish. Ottawa
And the best for last:
Every time a peace tower bell rings Pamela Wallin gets her wings to fly anywhere at the public’s expense. Oh it’s a wonderful life!
Terry Toll, Campbell’s Bay, Que.
UPDATE: For those who can't get enough of the shenanigans transpiring in our chamber of sober second thought, Bruce Anderson offers an interesting perspective in The Globe.
Wondering if the rotund Senator from somewhere has made his annual pilgramage to P.E.I. yet. In any event, the Cavendish Cottager (as The Disaffected Lib refers to him) should not travel too far afield, as the RCMP may have some questions for him soon. As reported in The Ottawa Citizen, the federal force
...appears to have broadened its investigation into Senator Mike Duffy’s expense claims by obtaining campaign records from 11 Conservative candidates from the last election.
The exhibit report filed in court lists campaign returns and “expense claims and payment documents related to Mike Duffy from the following candidates.” It lists current Conservative MPs Gerald Keddy, Greg Kerr, John Carmichael, and Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver. The list appears to be comprised of candidates who Duffy promoted during the 2011 election campaign, when he visited ridings across the country on behalf of Tory candidates.
One does not want to jump to the conclusion that The Puffster was double-dipping, claiming both per diems from the Senate and expenses from the canadidates; no, one definitely doesn't want to impute fraud on a man who apparently exists in a such a state of confusion that where he lives is one of life's more profound mysteries.
We are still in Alberta, having just returned to Edmonton from a trip to Banff and Lake Louise conducted by our son. I suspect that even if we weren't here, I would have some sympathy for the West's reaction to the latest utterance from Justin Trudeau.
Although I generally don't like to use cliches, some would say that this is what happens when you send a boy to do a man's job. The alternative interpretation, of course, would be to say this is what happens when a party of no discernible principles elects as their leader the person whom polls suggest will lead them back to the promised land of politics.
Sadly, the good of the country does not appear to enter into the Liberal Party's calculations.
There just seems to be no bottom to this cesspool. Now the Puffster is said to have tried to subvert the CRTC hearing so that the money-losing Sun News gets its wish to be carried on basic cable.
In his column this morning, Thomas Walkom suggests that Mike Duffy's current scandal-plagued problems are representative of much deeper ones in the Senate, namely that our much-cossetted members of that 'chamber of sober second thought' are appointed, not because of their expertise (many of them have none), not because of intimate knowledge of a particular province (Duffy has none, having lived in Ottawa for over 30 years and not even legally qualified to represent P.E.I.), but because the Senate has become, under both Liberal and Conservative governments, a repository of party strategists and bagmen where they can continue their partisan wizardry.
No doubt Walkom is correct as far as he goes. But the above, it seems to me, are simply symptomatic of two much deeper problems in public life, the widespread disengagement of our citizens, about which I have written before, and the shocking dearth of integrity in those who achieve high office.
For example, all of the events surrounding the Duffy porkbarreling have, quite rightly, provoked widespread outrage. However, when the abuses and betrayals of the public trust are not so obvious or so sensational, far too many citizens just shrug their shoulders and say that politics doesn't interest them. This marked indifference is precisely what has permitted, even encouraged, the depradatory environmental, science, economic and social policies the Harper regime has so avidly embraced and promoted. It is this indifference that enabled Harper to prorogue Parliament twice. It is this indifference that enabled, without even a hint of contrition, the excesses of Treasury Board President Tony 'gazeebo' Clement. I could go on and on.
A sleeping public enables, even encourages the unethical, the unprincipled, those for whom integrity is an alien concept, to prey upon and erode the public good.
I have always tried to live my life with principle and integrity, as do so many others throughout the world. Because we inhabit a world requiring adaptation and compromise, integrity and principle are ideals toward which we strive, providing, as they do, a moral compass and the recognition that the solely material and secular things of this world often come with a price too high to pay.
I will close this post with a quote from Shakespeare's Macbeth, a man who learned that hard truth far too late, recognizing, as the end of his life approaches, that he has sacrificed everything of enduring value in his lust for power and pomp:
My way of life
Is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf;
And that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but in their stead
Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath,
Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not.
.... people showing such contempt for my intelligence really inflames me:
A senior PMO official told Fife that Duffy couldn’t afford to repay the $90,000 and did not want to borrow money from a bank, fearing that his wife would be stuck with the large debt if he died suddenly from a heart attack. Duffy has battled cardiac problems over the years.
Jennifer Ditchburn and Steve Rennie present an alternative view of The Puffster's finances here.
In Act 5 Scene 2 of Shakespeare's Macbeth, when the overthrow of the ruthless, power-drunk politician/king is nigh, Angus speaks these words about him:
Now does he feel
His secret murders sticking on his hands.
Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach.
Those he commands move only in command,
Nothing in love. Now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.
Despite the fact that English literature is dismissed by many of our current 'masters of the universe' as something of a frill, with nothing to offer the practical, results-driven mentality of our times, perhaps the likes of Stephen Harper, Senator Duff, Nigel Wright et al should have paid more attention to the classics during their formative years. They then might not be facing what I hope is soon a 'palace' revolt against corruption by their former enablers:
GLOBE EDITORIAL
A strange, $90,000 gift to the undeserving Senator Duffy
PENNY COLLENETTE
Mike Duffy scandal finds the Tories in a moral maze without a compass
ANDREW COYNE:
The only right thing left for Mike Duffy to do now is resign
MATT GURNEY:
How can the Tories keep Mike Duffy on now?
JENNIFER DITCHBURN
Duffy claimed Senate expenses while campaigning in 2011 election
Well, in the tried and true tradition of governments announcing embarrassing news on Fridays, 'P.E.I. Senator' Mike Duffy kinda sorta admitted to maybe an error, thanks to 'confusing senate forms' asking for his primary residence. Not that he did anything wrong, of course, but after 80 days of what Tim Harper calls a sideshow, the rotund representative of the island province told CBC that the issue has become a "major distraction" from the work he's trying to do for Prince Edward Island, the province he represents in the Senate.
"We are going to pay it back, and until the rules are clear — and they're not clear now, the forms are not clear, and I hope the Senate will redo the forms to make them clear — I will not claim the housing allowance."
The following video offers some analysis from Terry Milewski:
How complex or confusing is the form? For a person of normal intellect, not very, as The Rabble points out:
The form Duffy found so confusing asks first of all if a Senator's primary residence is within 100 kilometres or more than 100 kilometres from Parliament Hill.
You don't need an advanced degree in geography to figure that out.
For instance, if you live, as Senator Duffy now admits he does, in the Ottawa suburb of Kanata you are about 20 kilometres from Parliament Hill, maybe less.
The form then asks for the address of the Senator's primary residence in the province or territory he or she represents.
Given the good senator's confusion, I also can't help but wonder if there is a story here that the media are missing out on. Mr. Duffy has made much of the fact that he had open-heart surgery in 2006, hence the need for an OHIP card, granted only to those who spend at least 153 days a year physically present in Ontario. As he told CBC,
"I had open heart surgery, ... I'm being intensively followed. The other day I counted up, I have six different doctors … so I have a lot of health problems, and the advice of my doctors was not to make a switch, to stay with them at the Heart Institute in Ottawa. And that's what I've done."
Open-heart surgery, with which I have some familiarity within my own family, entails the heart being stopped and the patient placed on a heart-lung bypass machine for varying lengths of time. An unfortunate byproduct of the procedure can be cognitive imnpairment, known colloquially as 'pump head', with a wide range of cognitive impairments and deficits that can persist and worsen for years. And while I realize that such dysfunction may go largely unnoticed for a long time in our senate as attested to by recent events, it does seem to be a legitimate question to raise in Mr. Duffy's case.
Of course, another legitimate and related question to raise is that if he indeed found the senate forms too confusing to correctly and honestly complete, can he really be competent to discharge his senatorial duties, given that one of them is exposure to excruciating legislative minutia that demands a clear mind to read, understand, and make informed decisions on?
Just wondering, is all.
UPDATE: Here is more analysis by the CBC's Terry Milewski on the issue.
While there was much talk in the House of Commons yesterday about how to prevent a 'zombie apocalypse,' in Canada, Bob Hepburn has his own solution on how to deal with the scourge of the undead: hold a referendum on abolishing the Senate.
Noting that it costs well over $100 million a year to operate the Senate, including the $132,000 annual salary for the 105 senators, their staffs and expenses and the fact that senators need to show up for work barely 70 days a year, Hepburn suggests that Ontario Premiere Kathleen Wynne include a sentence in her throne speech calling for the referendum.
Given the unholy and voracious appetites of Senators Duffy, Brazeau, Harb and Wallin, dealing with the living dead in a decisive manner would unquestionably make Canada a safer place for that much-threatened ideal known as democracy and finally bury the careers of the party hacks who currently inhabit the upper chamber.
I really have nothing to add here. The absolute puerility of the Conservatives speaks for itself:
OTTAWA—The so-called house of sober second thought witnessed the kind of contest normally associated with first-grade birthday parties, as a showdown erupted over seating arrangements this week.
When he asked her to step away from the head table, she refused.
So Gerstein, elected this week as chair, called a vote to kick Payette out of her seat.
With a Conservative majority on the committee, the motion passed Wednesday and the game of partisan musical chairs ended with Payette being forced to sit farther away.
Will the Conservatives next be claiming that girls have cooties?
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