No Charges Doesn't Mean Wright Is Clean

On Friday, we learned that the RCMP will not be laying charges against Nigel Wright for writing a cheque to Mike Duffy in the amount of some $90,000 and change. 

The CPC, and the PMO, seem to think that this is some kind of exoneration.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

The RCMP only lays charges when they have evidence of criminal activity that is sufficiently solid to have a "reasonable expectation of conviction".  If for any reason, the evidence is insufficient to meet that bar, charges are not laid.

In no respect does this mean that what Nigel Wright did was right, nor does it mean that his actions as the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff are either morally or or ethically acceptable.  They may even include a violation of one or more laws in this country, but the RCMP has not turned up enough evidence to be able to have a reasonable chance of conviction.  

Frankly, I have never been convinced that Mr. Wright's actions were criminal per se.  Questionable in their motives, to be certain, but not necessarily illegal.  

However, to say that Mr. Wright's actions were justified simply because charges weren't laid is to ignore the subtle distinction between unethical behaviour and criminal activity.  We have enough of the e-mails that Mr. Wright sent to know that he had made the payment in an effort to make a political problem "go away", and there was little if any love for Mr. Duffy involved.

Ethically, Mr. Wright's actions speak to a man whose idea of solving problems like Mr. Duffy is to throw money at it and hope that it goes away for good.  While not exactly illegal, certainly dubious.  Mr. Wright action in writing a cheque to Mr. Duffy constitutes a political act - one intended to remain in secret so that a political problem could be washed away.  

Obviously, if the $90,000 had come out of the PMO budget, it would of course be a gross misuse of government funds.  Similarly, we know that the Conservative Fund had also refused to underwrite Mr. Duffy's expenses.  In both cases, the bodies involved recognized that using funds available to support Mr. Duffy would have significant consequences if they ever got made public.  

So, Mr. Wright agrees to write Mr. Duffy a cheque for $90,000 from his own bank account, on the proviso that it is kept secret.  At the very least, Mr. Wright's actions fail to meet the test of openness.  We all grew up learning that if we couldn't tell our mothers about what we were doing, we probably shouldn't be doing it.  In Mr. Wright's case, he didn't feel that he could tell the public about it.  

In short, he knew perfectly well that he was covering up something which the public as a whole would view as inappropriate.  From a simple perspective, Mr. Wright's actions would fall into the category that most people would consider unethical.  

Looking at it from a somewhat more business-oriented perspective, the need for a degree of secrecy in a deal such as this seems suspect as well.  Confidentiality is perfectly reasonable in a myriad of business propositions.  However, confidentiality when it is a tool used to cover up even more questionable dealings (such as Mr. Duffy's reasons for abusing expenses, or even his eligibility to sit as a Senator), is generally seen as a violation of reasonable business ethical practices.  Under the terms of the Sarbanes-Oxley act, such deeds in the United States actually carry significant legal penalties with them if they should be discovered.

If Mr. Wright's acts are not criminal per se, they are certainly unethical.  If the ethical bar in Ottawa is now the "It's not a crime, therefore it's okay" (AKA "The Rob Ford Defence"), then it is truly a low bar to meet.  Canadians should rightly demand better of our politicians and their staffs than this.

Deflect, Spin, Misdirect: Preston Manning and the PMO

Apparently, Preston Manning must have received new orders from the PMO.  In yesterday's Globe and Mail, we found Mr. Manning opining on the supposed issue of ethics in the Parliamentary Press Gallery.

The upshot of Manning's arguments is that the whole Duffy affair wouldn't have happened if the Parliamentary Press Gallery had a rule in place that prohibited members from taking a government appointment for five years after they leave the Press Gallery.

In short, "Hey look!  The problem is over there!".

No Mr. Manning, your transparent and ridiculous attempt to direct attention away from the centre of the maelstrom is not going to work.

At this point, Canadians have known that Harper has lied to them about every aspect of the Senate scandal repeatedly.  We have considerable evidence that the boys in the PMO were cooking up a cover-up of Mike Duffy's expenses right under Harper's nose, and even more evidence still points to his direct involvement.

Trying to lay the blame for this at the doorstep of the Press Gallery is ridiculous.

Did the Press Gallery lobby openly for a Senate appointment for Mr. Duffy?  No, Mr. Duffy did that himself.

Did the Press Gallery appoint Mr. Duffy to the Senate?  No, Mr. Harper did that.

Did the Press Gallery lie about Mr. Duffy's residency?  No.  Mr. Harper and Mr. Duffy came up with that little crock, as did Ms. Wallin and Mr. Harper.

Did the Press Gallery lie to Canadians about its involvement in this mess?  No, Mr. Harper has done that repeatedly, in the House of Commons no less.

Did the Press Gallery push Mike Duffy to campaign on behalf of the CPC in 2011 and expense it back to the Senate?  No.  Mr. Harper's party certainly encouraged it.

Right smack in the middle of the whole Senate affair are three Senators - Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau who abused their privileges as Senators for the benefit of their party.  In common with them?  The man who appointed them to the Senate in the first place - Stephen Harper.

There is not one shred of evidence that has placed so much as a hint of this mess at the door of the Parliamentary Press Gallery, and reams of evidence that has been published that has placed Stephen Harper and his inner circle of advisors squarely in the midst of it.

In short, the problem here is that a corrupt government, led by a power-hungry, lying Prime Minister has appointed people to the Senate and given them license to act dishonestly.  The man who should be held responsible is the Prime Minister - Stephen Harper.

How Shocking ...

So, apparently the PMO has "found" a bunch of e-mails that they previous claimed had been deleted.

The emails of Stephen Harper's former legal advisor were not deleted when he left the Prime Minister's Office, according to a letter sent from the Privy Council Office (PCO) to the RCMP. 

Benjamin Perrin, who was named in RCMP documents last week as a player in the deal between Nigel Wright and Mike Duffy, left the PMO in late March. 

The letter released Sunday night states when Perrin left in March, the PCO said they deleted his emails records as part of standard protocol. Last week, the RCMP sent another request to the PMO for Perrin's records to see if there were any backups. 

But it turns out the Perrin's emails were held as part of "unrelated litigation", a discovery the PCO made the next day after PMO asked them to check again.

If this sounds just a little Nixonian to you, it should.   First the records don't exist, then they do.  I'll put even money that the PMO has been busily hacking up the e-mail trail to remove the most damning evidence, and to end up making it look like Perrin never told Harper what was going on.  Which will, incidentally throw Mr. Perrin under the same bus as Mr. Duffy, Mr. Wright and a few others.  In this case, because Mr. Perrin will suddenly find himself under suspicion of failing to carry out the ethical duty of notifying "up the chain of command" when the organization is about to act wrongly).

As far as I am concerned, at this point, the RCMP should walk into the Langevin block armed with warrants for the seizure of all backups of the PMO's e-mail servers, if not the servers themselves.  We already have evidence of the PMO attempting to cover up its activities and involvement in this whole mess.  It is time to lock down every piece of communication related to this.  The RCMP should also ascertain any external e-mail accounts that may have been involved, and issue requests for copies of all data in those accounts for the last couple of years.

Does this sound like a fishing expedition?  To some extent it is.  However, when there is reason to suspect that evidence has been tampered with, a wider net is needed to ensure that we capture the full picture.

However, even if we establish beyond all doubt that Harper really did not know the particulars of the arrangement that resulted in Nigel Wright paying Mike Duffy some $90,000 it does not matter.  At the end of the day, the PMO is Harper's office.  He is not some low level functionary who can be excused for not being fully aware of the consequences of someone's actions.  He is the man at the helm.  The guy in charge.  The man who ultimately has to bear responsibility whether he likes it or not.  Harper has tried desperately not to take responsibility for the actions of his staff.

This is unacceptable.

As Predicted

Mike Duffy is releasing the next bits of information linking this whole steaming mess back to Harper's doorstep (or his desk).

Senator Mike Duffy's lawyer has begun turning over hundreds of emails to the RCMP following a request by the Mounties last Friday to hand over documentation that may prove to be "evidence of criminal wrongdoing by others," CBC News has learned. 

In a letter obtained by CBC News on Monday, the RCMP said they were interested in "emails from the [Prime Minister's Office] specifically relating to a script for Senator Duffy to follow in advance of obtaining funds from a RBC loan to repay the Receiver General." 

The emails being turned over to the Mounties by Duffy's lawyer Donald Bayne are said to be "much more explicit" about the Prime Minister's Office script that Duffy said he was to follow.

I said previously that Harper's zealous desire to excise a political liability was likely as not to create an even bigger liability.

The question I have is when is the RCMP going to raid the PMO and confiscate not just a few files, but the ever critical backups of the e-mail system?  (Not to mention subpoena the email logs for every PMO denizen using a "personal" email such as Gmail or Yahoo Mail from their desks or cell phones?

Harper's Eyes Wide Shut Moment

As the Senate Expenses Scandal unfolds, Canadians are seeing the consequences of the culture that Harper has fostered in the CPC in his drive to gain power.  

When Harper set his sights on power, specifically on making the CPC "Canada's Natural Governing Party" for the coming decades, he decided on some key fundamentals to guide the operation of the party:  The first was an unyielding control over every action and word to come out of the party's political apparatus.  The second was to do everything possible to undermine parliament in such a way as to hamstring any other party from undoing Harper's legislation.

Harper came to power in 2006 with promises of more "open and accountable" government.  Greater transparency came in the form of a government which suddenly became slow to respond to information requests, and those it did fulfil were heavily redacted.  Accountability, well, Harper did create the Parliamentary Budget Officer.  The first occupant of that position, Kevin Page, turned out to be a problem for Harper, as he questioned just about everything that the Harperites did, and did so publicly.

In 2007, Harper discarded earlier promises of attempting to reform the Senate based on long asked for (in Western Canada, at least) principles of a "EEE" Senate.  He started appointing people to fill the Senate vacancies, and since then has used the Senate for more patronage and partisan appointments than any prime minister before him.  

In 2008, Harper chose to appoint Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau to the Senate.  Each one was appointed because of what Harper believed they could do for him.  Whether that was bringing in votes, or money, doesn't really matter.  They were brought into the Senate so that they could work full time on partisan activities without the CPC having to pay their salaries.  

Harper erred significantly in his handling of both Duffy and Wallin though.  Most new senators are not used to being in the public eye, and are appropriately cautious about their conduct.  Duffy and Wallin are both former journalists.  Not only are they used to being in the public eye, they are also accustomed to spending to support their position.  I'm sure that neither of them thought twice about the expenses they would be claiming.  They would be accustomed to privileged treatment when travelling for business in their prior lives.  It wouldn't occur to them that there was a lot of subterfuge involved in their appointments in the first place.  Duffy was no more a resident of PEI than I am, and Ms. Wallin had long ago put down roots in Toronto.  Her origins in small town Saskatchewan are very much a part of the past, not the present.

So, when this whole mess blew up last winter, Harper was no doubt feeling more than a little flat-footed about the whole thing.  Collusion and calumny come naturally to Harper.  He knows that he has to hide a certain amount of his activities from the public.  What he underestimated was that he failed to govern the actions of those who act on his behalf.

Harper's failure here is one not of political judgment, but rather one of his own character flaws.  He is so accustomed to lying, subterfuge and deceit as part and parcel of the power game.  Using other people as tools is as natural to him as using a screwdriver is to a mechanic.  Harper's blind spot has always been that he doesn't understand that others do not see the world as he does.  

While Duffy and Wallin can hardly be shown as "innocents" in this.  They both knew full well that there was a degree of subterfuge and dishonesty at play when they were appointed.  Harper knew it, and I'm sure that they did too.  Both of them had to be aware that they were being appointed not for their political acumen but for what Harper perceived they could do for him.  They were told, and no doubt believed, that the expenses they were claiming were perfectly legitimate.  With only limited experience dealing with public opinion, they wouldn't have had a clue what the public reaction would be to these expenses being disclosed.

At the end of the day, though, for all of Harper's prevarications lately, the responsibility for this mess lies on his desk.  He made these appointments, gave these Senators their marching orders, and his PMO staff gave them the guidance regarding their activities and expenses.  While Harper may try to claim "plausible deniability" in terms of his knowledge of events and specifics, that does not absolve him of responsibility.

There Is No Honour Among Thieves

Make no mistake about it, I have little sympathy for Mike Duffy.  When I caught wind of his political aspirations several years before he became a Senator, he ceased to be among the journalists that I had much respect for.  

That said, Duffy's last couple of speeches in the Senate speak volumes.  Today, he revealed the existence of yet another cheque originating within the CPC apparatus to bail him out of the financial quagmire that he found himself in.

Senator Mike Duffy set Ottawa abuzz Monday with his latest revelations from the Senate floor. Duffy says Conservative party lawyer Arthur Hamilton was part of a scheme to cover his $13,560 legal bill. An audible gasp went up from senators as Duffy dropped his latest bombshell. 

Duffy says he received two cheques as part of a larger plan he says was devised by the Prime Minister's Office. The legal bill payment is in addition to the original $90,000 cheque from Nigel Wright, the former chief of staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Make no mistake about it, all of this mess points quite clearly to the PMO, and in particular at Harper.  Even if we accept that there is a common principle in the PMO where the PM is not told certain things in order to give him "plausible deniability" should the scheme backfire, Canadians need to bear in mind that it is Harper himself who sets the tone in the PMO.

So, when you consider that Harper appointed quite a few of the Senators on the basis of their ability to help the CPC win a majority government.  There was an intent when Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau were appointed.  They weren't appointed to represent regions of Canada.  They were appointed for their ability to bring votes to the table.  No doubt, the PMO set the tone which made both Wallin and Duffy believe that they could expense quite lavishly as long as they claimed to be on "Senate Business".  I don't even think that they necessarily broke the rules where Senate expenses were involved.  However, they did break a covenant with Canadians, and in doing so, broke open the festering mess that has been the Senate under Harper.

While the responsibility for the overall mess in Ottawa sits clearly on Harper's desk, Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau all bear the responsibility for having the poor judgment to engage in Harper's scheming to gain greater power.

Harper promised Canadians a more open, accountable government.  He has delivered anything but. 

Duffy's Testimony Before Canada's Senate

Full Text

Read it.  It's a bombshell that very clearly ties Harper into this whole scheme.  It doesn't make any of the parties involved look good - in fact in many respects it makes Duffy look pretty low too - which is part of the reason I suspect that he is being basically truthful in this speech.

Like you, I took a solemn oath to put the interests of Canadians ahead of all else. However, the sad truth is, I allowed myself to be intimidated into doing what I knew in my heart was wrong out of a fear of losing my job and out of a misguided sense of loyalty.

A promising start to the speech.  I still maintain that Duffy willingly engaged in an act of fraud when he claimed a recreational property on PEI as a primary residence when he's been a resident in Ottawa for decades.

I immediately contacted Nigel Wright, the Prime Minister's chief of staff, and explained that I was doing nothing improper. Nigel Wright emailed me, saying he had my expenses checked and he was satisfied that my accounts were in order, that all was in compliance with Senate rules.

The fact that Duffy's expenses "were within the rules" according to Nigel Wright suggests that the Senate expense rules are far too loose.

The Prime Minister wasn't interested in explanations or the truth. It's not about what you did; it's about the perception of what you did that has been created in the media. The rules are inexplicable to our base.

So Harper's worried about "keeping his base"?  Gosh - isn't that a surprise.  The fact that executing a lie comes so quickly to Harper's mind says a great deal ... and none of it good.

The PMO piled on the pressure. Some honourable senators called me in PEI. One senator in particular left several particularly nasty and menacing messages: Do what the Prime Minister wants. Do it for the PM and for the good of the party. I continued to resist. Finally, the message from the PMO became: Do what we want or else.And what was the "else?" He said the Conservative majority on the steering committee of the Board of Internal Economy, Senator Tkachuk and Senator Stewart Olsen, would issue a press release declaring me unqualified to sit in the Senate.

Here's where there is a large amount of shared poor judgment for both Harper and Duffy.  Duffy knew perfectly well that he wasn't resident in PEI prior to being appointed by Harper, and Harper was clearly willing to engage in the fiction that Duffy was representing PEI.  Further, later in the process, it becomes a handy lever for Harper to use when things get out of control.

Duffy is showing an enormous amount of poor judgment in this whole affair himself.  Harper is demonstrating the pathological dishonesty that has been the hallmark of his rise to power.

There was an undertaking made by the PMO, with the agreement of the Senate leadership, that I would not be audited by Deloitte, that I'd be given a pass; and further, that if this phony scheme ever became public, Senator LeBreton, the Leader of the Government of the day, would whip the Conservative caucus to prevent my expulsion from the chamber. 

PMO officials confided it wasn't easy to get this commitment to do as they were told from Senators LeBreton, Tkachuk and Stewart Olsen, but the email chain shows it took hours of shuttling back and forth as the lawyers checked with their principals about the guarantees they were going to give to ensure that I wasn't censured for going along with this PMO scheme. 

Given all of those emails, you can imagine my shock when I heard there is not a single document about all of this in the PMO, not one. In response to an access to information request, CBC was told there is not a single document related to this matter in the PMO. 

I never believed for a moment that the PMO was being honest with the CBC when it claimed that it had no documents related to the Duffy affair.  This is not a minor "lie".  It speaks to a deliberate effort to cover up what has been going on.  If the PMO truly does not have those documents, it can only be because it has gone on a document shredding spree that would put Oliver North to shame.

Then, in May, after someone leaked selected excerpts of a confidential email I had sent to my lawyer in February, in which I voiced my opposition and concern about the deal, the PMO was back with a vengeance. I was called at home in Cavendish by Ray Novak, senior assistant to the Prime Minister. 

I find it interesting that a confidential e-mail got leaked.  If Duffy used facilities at the Senate to send that e-mail, then it tells us that there is a level of surreptitious surveillance going on in the halls of Parliament that Canadians should be very concerned about indeed.

If Duffy used personal equipment to send that e-mail, then we need to further ask just how much control Harper has over CSEC that this e-mail came to light.

There are two major issues here, and both are issues of unwarranted surveillance.

This motion, put forward by Senator Carignan, is in direct conflict with any sense of fundamental justice. Not only is it a firing without a firing, as Senator Segal has correctly pointed out, it deprives me, not only of a paycheque but of a health plan, of life insurance. This, a guy who came back off sick leave because of serious heart problems. Who is going to buy the heart drugs I need? What kind of a country do we have when the power can override the sick leave provisions of the federal government of Canada Health Care Act or arrangement?

To be honest, I do not like this particular paragraph.  Having worked in private industry as a journalist for decades, Duffy should know full well that paycheques, health plans and life insurance provided by ones employer cease once you have been terminated.  Further, thousands of small business owners and their employees don't make enough money to support those kinds of benefits either.  Duffy is whining about his "entitlements" here, and I see no evidence that he has been fighting to make those available more broadly than himself.

And those same senators who conspired to put me in this corner, conspired to destroy my reputation with Canadians, they are going to sit here in judgment of me? Let me be clear: I have violated no laws. I've followed the rules, and I've got a ton of documentation, including a two-page memo from Senator LeBreton's office about it, and I never received a single note from Senate finance or the leadership that suggested anything in my travels was amiss. 

There's an old saying, Mr. Duffy:  When you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas.  You should not be surprised that a PM who was willing to let you lie about residing in PEI when appointing you has appointed other people who are just as willing as he to throw you under the bus.

I am less convinced that Mr. Duffy's actions did not violate any laws.  There have been revelations of all sorts of questionable expense claims, even if we ignore the residency issues.  At the very least, there is a significant degree of question around the fictions used when he was originally appointed.  There are also a fair handful of dubious expense claims to be considered.  Claims which on their own would probably be overlooked by Canadians, but when more fundamental issues are raised about the Senator's legitimacy cannot be ignored.

The upshot of Duffy's speech is that Harper was directly involved from the beginning.  He claims to have significant supporting documentation.  I would hope that he has the gumption to do the right thing, and turn it all over to the RCMP when they come knocking.  Personally, I'd like it all out in the public sphere, but if the RCMP criminal investigation results in actual charges being laid, that wouldn't hurt my feelings too much.

The Legitimacy Of Harper's Senate Appointees

With the latest set of revelations in the ongoing Senate Scandal, we find out that Senator Wallin spends the majority of her time living in Toronto.

Frankly, I don't much care where Ms. Wallin lives.  That is largely her business - except for that part of her life where she is being paid a rather sizeable sum of money by taxpayers to be a Senator representing Saskatchewan.  (I certainly haven't seen any declaration making Ms. Wallin's residence in Toronto a part of Saskatchewan, have you?)

So, now we have Mike Duffy, allegedly representing PEI who lives in Ottawa, Pamela Wallin representing Saskatchewan who lives in Toronto, and Senator Brazeau's residence has also been questioned (although with respect to whether he is eligible for the Senate housing allowance).  I am beginning to think that we have a more serious problem facing Canada than just a couple of corrupt senators who have been taking more than their fare share from the public trough.

I think that the issue has become one of determining if any of Harper's appointees are in fact representing Canadians and their regions at all - or are they all beholden to some other role that Harper has forged for them.  We know that Mike Duffy serves primarily as a campaigning and fundraising figure (or has done), Ms. Wallin appears to be acting as an adjunct representative to a myriad of events where Harper or one of his cabinet cannot appear.  Nobody has ever figured out just what Brazeau does (other than get into boxing matches with Justin Trudeau), but I have my suspicions that there is more to it.

The underlying point here is that Harper has an ugly habit of appointing people to the Senate so that they can be paid by the public for partisan work of some kind.  The man thinks in terms of power and retaining power as if it were the only thing that mattered.

In my view, that makes all of Harper's Senate appointments suspect.  While Duffy and Wallin have simply floated to the surface as being the most prolific abusers of the system, one might imagine that there is more lurking just below the surface.  Audit every last one of them, and the ones whose "work" appears to end up having more to do with a party role than actually representing Canadians should be dismissed from their post in the Senate - immediately.

Further, the Crown in Canada should begin a process of ensuring that Senate appointments are not partisan.  While the Prime Minister can make a recommendation of someone to the Senate, the Governor General is not obliged to accept any particular nominee.  As the Queen's representative in Canada, the GG is also responsible for ensuring that Parliament is able to function appropriately.  Given Mr. Harper's propensity for making everything partisan, it seems rational to me that the GG should step in and start curbing this aspect of Mr. Harper's behaviours as it is ultimately resulting in a dysfunctional parliament that does not serve the interests of Canada and Canadians.

[Update 16/08/13]
MP Charlie Angus has a few choice words on the matter as well.
[/Update]

Is The PMO Above The Law?

There seems to be a mistaken belief in Harper's PMO that they are above the law.  

According to CTV, the PMO has been quietly withholding an important e-mail related to the Duffy Affair.

“My understanding is it is a paraphrase of conversations that happened,” he told CTV’s Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife. “I’ve had them described to me from someone who is no longer here.”

The Feb. 20 email describes a secret deal to have Harper’s then-chief of staff Nigel Wright personally bail out Duffy, a Conservative senator who improperly claimed $90,172 in living expenses and faced the public release of an audit of his spending. 

...

After CTV News broke the story, Wright resigned and Duffy left the Conservative caucus to sit as an Independent.

The Mounties subsequently launched an investigation into Wright’s payment to Duffy. The lead investigator has contacted CTV News twice to ask about the Feb. 20 email. In order to protect his sources, Fife told the Mounties to ask the PMO for the information they need to conduct their investigation.

But insiders say the Prime Minister’s Office has been withholding that information.

Asked if Wright himself has the email in question, MacDougall said: “I can’t speak for Nigel.”

RCMP affidavits allege that three other senior PMO staffers, including Harper’s former legal counsel Benjamin Perrin, knew of the deal between Wright and Duffy.

 Later today, we have the PMO denying that they have been asked for this particular e-mail:

The Prime Minister’s Office denies it is withholding an email from the RCMP concerningNigel Wright’s $90,000 cheque to Sen. Mike Duffy.

In response to a CTV story about the email, spokeswoman Julie Vaux told Global News:

“Contrary to CTV’s reporting, our office has not been asked for this e-mail.  As we have always said, we will assist investigations into this matter,” she said in an email.

Please note the careful wording from the PMO:  "our office has not been asked for this e-mail".  The only way that this makes any sense whatsoever is in terms of the PMO playing semantics games by trying to treat this e-mail as distinct from other evidence related to the Duffy Affair.  Perhaps the RCMP's request didn't name that e-mail by its unique database identifier, or some other semantic dodge.

The PMO is quietly dodging this while fighting Corporal Horton's move to get a "Production Order" from the courts.  For the PMO to claim that they have not "received a request" for a particular e-mail smacks of the same kind of dishonesty that one expects from a fraudster when caught cooking the books.

Quite frankly, it is my opinion that Corporal Horton should gather a squad together and march down to the PMO, and demand that they turn over every last scrap of information that is related to the Duffy Affair, and every person in that office who does not cooperate is taken down to explain themselves to a judge.  This PMO, and the Prime Minister at the top of it all, seem to think themselves above the law and that the rules do not apply to them.  It is time to remind the "get tough on crime" lot that the rules apply to them just as much as the rest of Canada.

Even if Duffy has committed no crime personally, another crime has been committed:  the trust of Canadians has been abused by a hypocritical government that wants to imprison more Canadians for longer times has tried to place itself and its misdeeds outside the law.

Shorter Michael Coren: Harper's Corruption Is Small Potatoes

I have never considered Michael Coren to be even remotely reliable in his analysis of anything.  The simple fact is that he is so firmly embedded in radical conservatism that he can't possibly bring himself to see anything wrong with anything that Harper has done.

Case in point:  His latest column whining about the media paying attention to the Senate Expenses Scandal.

Apparently, in Coren's mind, the festering boil of corruption in Ottawa is not important.  We should all be paying more attention to the Ontario Liberal government.

So where are the exposed and shamed names, where are the CBC hacks and the brave Toronto Star reporters demanding to know what has been going on?

Most of the time we haven’t even been told where Dalton McGuinty is, and Wynne is treated as if she’s above suspicion. Yet on some television networks, Ford Watch has become a soap opera, with even his non-appearances discussed, and reporters are receiving praise for calling Mike Duffy names. There’s courage for you.

To hell with Ford and with Duffy and the other Senate mediocrities.

I want real journalism and real accountability, and I want to know where my money is and who spent it and then covered their tracks.

Being dumb or greedy is wrong, being a major thief far worse.

Well...let's start with the obvious.  Apparently a corrupt conservative government in Ottawa is less important in Coren's mind than a corrupt liberal government in Queen's Park.

News Flash to Michael Coren:  Corruption in Ottawa affects the entire country.

No, we need to pay extremely close attention to the corruption in Ottawa.  It is not small potatoes corruption.  The further we dig, the more the stench of corruption becomes all the more pungent.  Harper has driven Ottawa into the ground with his short term political gain strategy.  EVERY citizen of Canada is paying the price for this.

While the uproar in Ontario over power plants is serious, I don't think it can be held as superseding the ongoing issues in Ottawa ... unless of course, like Coren, you are a Conservatroll seeking a way to divert attention from the mess that Harper has created in Ottawa.

For the first time in years, the media is finally doing its job:  publicizing what the government in Ottawa should be held accountable for.

Duffy - Entitled To His Entitlements

Wow.  There's an old saying:  "Power Corrupts".

It seems with Mike Duffy, he's turning out to be the proof of just how corrupt things are within the Conservative Party of Canada.  When CBC turns up an e-mail where Duffy is basically demanding to be made a cabinet minister.

Not only does it speak to a sense of entitlement on Duffy's part, but it also gives us a little window of insight into some of the techniques that have developed to exploit the taxpayer dollar to the benefit of the CPC since Harper came to power.

Six months after he was appointed to the Senate, Mike Duffy was in consultations with Conservatives about an expanded role in the party and increased compensation, including his own suggestion he be named a minister without portfolio to get a car and staff, according to an email exchange obtained by CBC News.

Seriously.  Just consider the sense of entitlement that this implies.  Duffy thinks that he doing so much "good for the party" that he deserves a political appointment to the cabinet table?  Interesting.  It says a great deal about the atmosphere the party under Harper.

At first, it may seem rather odd to have a member of the Senate named to a cabinet minister.  But then there is Harper:

Marjory LeBreton, speaking to reporters in the Senate foyer, said, "It's ridiculous. The idea that the prime minister or anyone would pass over elected members of the House of Commons and name Mike Duffy as a minister? It's so ridiculous it's not even funny. It's totally bizarre. Who knows, who knows, but when I read it, when I read it — I don't know who the recipient of the email was — but when I read it I went, like, there isn't a chance of a snowball in hell of this ever happening, and I never spoke to him about it." 

However, as soon as Harper formed government in 2006 he advised the Governor General to appoint Montreal businessman and Conservative fundraiser Michael Fortier to the Senate, and immediately put him in cabinet as public works minister. Harper had no Conservative MPs elected in Montreal, and needed a Montreal voice in his cabinet. Fortier promised to run in the next election in 2008, but he was defeated and was not reappointed to the Senate. 

LeBreton herself was named from the Senate as a minister of state for seniors for a few years by Harper, although as government Senate leader she is automatically a cabinet member. 

I do note that the party adviser that Duffy was corresponding with seems to be cool to the ideas, the responses are not rooted in whether the path Duffy was proposing was right or wrong, but rather they were based on whether there was a cost to the party if Duffy got caught.

Remember, the party leader sets the tone.  For Mr. Duffy to believe that he could make such a suggestion and get away with it, he had to have gotten the idea from somewhere.  I'm sure that Duffy very much believes that he is entitled to his entitlements, but the idea that double billing the taxpayer, or using taxpayer resources to fund what is obviously going to be partisan activities says a great deal.  At the end of the day, this goes back to Mr. Harper's desk - directly.

Duffy Case Going To The RCMP

This broke last night, but I don't do a lot of writing late at night.

It seems that Harper has found his way to silence this issue for the time being.  The minute that it goes to the RCMP - regardless of what the outcome is - there will be a wall of silence about it on the basis of "not wanting to interfere" with an ongoing investigation.

I do not expect that this will produce any kind of charges against Mike Duffy.  At most, I expect it to produce a statement from the RCMP in a couple of months to the effect of "we investigated, but there is insufficient evidence to lay criminal charges".

It has long been my opinion that Duffy hasn't engaged in criminal behaviour per se (although his dipping into the Senate money trough should be criminal).  Duffy has engaged in something that might be borderline fraud - but it's definitely in a grey zone.  What he has engaged in is telling Canadians a different story every time we turn around.  Duffy's transgressions are moral and ethical in nature, and speak to a lack of clear-headedness that we demand of parliamentarians in both chambers.

The point here is that were Duffy an "honourable" man in this regard, he would have made right a long time ago.  More recently, he should have resigned from his Senate seat.

Unfortunately, with the current Conservative government, it is unlikely that we will see any such thing as a resignation in this matter.  Harper has shown that he will go to great lengths to protect people that he sees as political assets.  Having recently lost Penashue to a by-election, expect Harper to entrench his efforts to secure his grip on power.  

Mr. Harper: If You Must Lie ...

Kindly do us the favour of at least remembering to tell a lie that can't be checked up on.

Unlike the logically inconsistent pablum you spewed in Peru yesterday.  As the good writers at the Hill Times point out, there's more holes in Harper's account of the Senate Expenses Scandal than a block of Swiss Cheese.

Mr. Harper went on: “Immediately upon learning that the source was indeed by chief of staff, Nigel Wright, I immediately asked that information be released publicly. That is what I knew.”

Mr. Fife, however, first asked Mr. Harper’s communications office on Tuesday, May 14, about information he had obtained indicating that Mr. Wright helped Sen. Duffy to repay the loan. That day, the day before Mr. Harper’s office confirmed the payment, Mr. Fife received the same response from Sen. Duffy’s office and the Prime Minister’s Office, both saying only that Sen. Duffy had “paid back the expenses and no taxpayers resources were used.” 

Mr. Harper’s communications director, Andrew MacDougall, did not reply to an email from The Hill Timeson Thursday noting, with a question mark, that Mr. Harper should have first learned about the payment on Tuesday, May 14, when Mr. Fife asked about it prior to his report.

Seriously?  You have to know that things have gotten out of control when Harper hasn't got a consistent story to tell.  Of course, logical inconsistency is the hallmark of lying when caught flat-footed.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government deploys a vast early-warning communications system to warn of potential problems on the horizon.

But Harper insisted Wednesday that he learned about his right-hand man bailing out an embattled Conservative senator in much the same way as other Canadians did: by seeing it on the news.

As the Canadian Press article cited earlier in this article points out, Harper spends enormous amounts of money on monitoring and picking out problems.  How the heck does something as big as Duffy's abuse of the Senate expenses system not make it onto that radar?  The answer is that given the Harper penchant for micromanagement and obsessiveness about "the message" that borders on paranoia, the issue had to have been visible.  The only reason it would have been invisible would be that Harper and his advisors have some rather enormous blind spots where an abuse is happening that just happens to be to their partisan advantage.

Senate Reform - The Right Way and the Harper Way

When it comes to the idea of rehabilitating our country's Senate, there are a few schools of thought out there.

We have Mulcair pushing the line of abolition - get rid of the thing entirely.  I can appreciate the visceral emotional response to the recent events which have landed several senators in hot water.  That said, I think that abolition would be a foolish approach to take.  Of all things, the Senate has demonstrated repeatedly its value in holding back some of the worst excesses of Harper's legislative agenda.

When it is not being stacked with partisan appointments by the Prime Minister, the Senate serves a useful purpose in cross-checking the legislative activities of a House of Commons which is often driven by the whims of the voters or worse, by the ideological affiliations of the MPs.

The next approach open to reforming the Senate is a combination of legislation and policy rules governing the Senate.  Harper has tabled several very flawed pieces of legislation which are intended to "reform" the Senate since 2006.  None of these have been passed into law.

In my opinion, there is an enormous problem with using legislation to modify the ground rules of the Senate.  The first is in fact Harper's own actions with respect to fixed election dates.  He brought in a piece of legislation that (in theory) dictated that Canada would have elections on a 4 year calendar much like the United States does.  Then he turned around and dissolved parliament partway through that 4 year mandate, effectively rendering his own law absolutely irrelevant.

The first problem with legislative approaches like this is that they are a layer of legislation that rests on top of the foundation of the Constitution documents.  While drawing more detailed boundaries in law than those provided by the Constitution has a certain validity, the problem is that the arbitrary legislative boundaries seldom contain sufficient penalties to dissuade a politician from breaking them if it suits their political goals.

I'm going to digress a little bit into Harper's attempts to legislate changes to the Senate, in part because I want to review the legislation proposed as well as the history of those bills:

The first attempt to legislate changes in the Senate came at the end of 2006, with the government tabling Bill C-43, with a sister bill in the Senate, Bill S-4.  It got partway through the Second Reading process, but died on the table when Harper prorogued parliament for the first time in September, 2007.

An all but identical bill was then tabled by the Harper Government in November 2007 as Bill C-20, with a sister Bill C-19.  So, what happened to Bill C-20?  Good question.  It was referred to committee in advance of second reading in March of 2008, and was discussed in committee through to June of 2008.  It died on the order table when Harper called a snap election in September 2008.

During the 40th Parliament (elected in October 2008), the government tabled Bills S-7 and C-10.  Neither of these bills progressed beyond first reading before Harper's government fell on a non-confidence vote in March 2011.

Since winning a majority in the 2011 election, Harper has not pursued the matter of Senate reform via legislation, although the Conservative Party has repeatedly argued that the failure to reform the Senate rests on the opposition parties' shoulders "because they wouldn't let the legislation pass".  The lack of action on this front by Harper since winning a majority makes me believe that he was using the prior legislation while he had a minority government as a political club, rather than as part of an agenda of actually trying to make meaningful changes.

The legislation that Harper had put forward in the 39th and 40th parliaments attempted to enact two kinds of changes.  First, Bills C-20 and C-43 attempted to enact an electoral process for the selection of Senators.  Their sister bills attempted to create a regime where Senators could only sit for a maximum of eight years.  The obvious problem with the electoral process is that there was absolutely nothing in the legislation which bound either the Prime Minister or the Governor General in terms of actually appointing from the list of "selected" candidates.  In other words, at the end of the day, the choice for those appointments remains firmly in the hands of the Prime Minister and if the sitting Prime Minister doesn't like any of the candidates chosen by the electorate, well, there's nothing stopping them from ignoring the list entirely.  A weakness that renders the entire process of "electing" a senator as meaningful as Harper's "fixed election dates" law.

The term limits bills attempted to amend the Constitution Acts directly.  While not necessarily invalid, it starts to walk a very fine line, especially where the division of powers between federal and provincial responsibilities is concerned.

Section 44 of the Constitution states:

44. Subject to sections 41 and 42, Parliament may exclusively make laws amend- ing the Constitution of Canada in relation to the executive government of Canada or the Senate and House of Commons. 

However, because it refers back to sections 41 and 42, any such amendment appears to be subject to provincial consent before it would come into force.

In other words, ultimately, any substantive changes to the Senate and its operations ultimately has to be reflected in the Constitution Act, and is subject to the amending formula described therein.

Harper's approach has been to dance around the issue of actually amending the Constitution presumably because he doesn't believe that he can build a coalition of agreement with the provinces.  The net result has been a legislative approach which is at best window dressing.

Personally, I have no objection to the Senate as a legislative body.  In fact, I believe that it can serve a very valuable purpose in our government.  That said, it is going to take leadership and courage for any political leader to be willing to open the door to actually making material change to the Senate.  Brian Mulroney tried to make amendments to the Constitution and failed miserably because of the flaws seen in his proposals.  I imagine that it would be all the more difficult to amend the Constitution with respect to the Senate simply because there are many different views of what could be done.

As Harper has demonstrated, legislative window dressing is meaningless unless there are significant consequences for the politician who chooses to violate them.

Canary In The Corruption Part II

The scandal surrounding Mike Duffy continues to produce more revelations.  Today's we learn that the Senate committee's "official" version of Mike Duffy's audit has been sanitized:

A confidential report obtained by CTV’s Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife shows the original version of Duffy’s audit found that the senator broke the Senate’s “very clear” and “unambiguous” residency rules. 

The report found that Duffy stayed in his Prince Edward Island cottage mostly during the summer months. He had listed it as his primary residence, which allowed him to claim an annual housing allowance given to senators who live more than 100 kilometres from Ottawa. 

Duffy’s air travel pattern also showed he lived in Ottawa and he had registered his address in the capital “for several official purposes,” according to the original report. 

The report also reveals that Duffy’s lawyers sought to have him exempted from the forensic audit.

Additionally, Harper-appointed Senator Pamela Wallin has chosen to sit as an independent in the Senate for the time being while her own expense claims are audited.  While Wallin's situation is different from Duffy's, it still looks as though she spent an enormous amount of time and money travelling.  This may or may not be necessary travel, I don't know - I will wait for the auditor's report before deciding whether Wallin has abused her privileges.

What I think we need to pay more attention to is the PMO and its denizens' actions in this whole mess.

On Friday, Harper’s former deputy chief of staff Keith Beardsley said Wright made a major mistake that will likely continue to dog the Conservative government for some time to come. 

As well, Eddie Goldenberg, former chief of staff to then-Liberal prime minister Jean Chretien, said Wright was “dead wrong” to cut Duffy a $90,000 cheque.

The Harper government was in full damage-control mode Friday, a day after Sen. Mike Duffy resigned from the Conservative caucus following new allegations he was claiming Senate expenses while campaigning for the Conservative party during the 2011 federal election. 

The prime minister, however, continues to stand by Wright, whose decision to give a $90,000 cheque to Duffy to cover improper Senate expense claims, is under review by the ethics commissioner.

I don't think I need to express further outrage at Duffy's hypocrisy.  Frankly it's out there for everybody to see, and Canadians should be outraged.   Not just with Duffy, but with the people at the top.  Even if the actions of Nigel Wright are deemed to be "ethically acceptable" by Parliament's Ethics Commissioner, they remain actions clearly designed to sweep the whole issue under the carpet.

Canadians should be asking themselves why the PMO is suddenly involving itself in paying off a Senator's debts?  Under Harper, the PMO has become something of a politburo - spending enormous amounts of money "managing the message", from centralizing government communications to actively spying on the utterances of MPs, both government and opposition.  The amount of power and control being exercised from this office since Harper came to power is truly disturbing.  That the members of his "personal office" believe that they are able to intervene directly in such a matter speaks to a sense of not just entitlement but invulnerability from scrutiny.  

Duffy Is The Canary In The Corruption Coal Mine

The story swirling around Mike Duffy changes faster than the Tory spin machine can keep up with.  A few days ago, Duffy had allegedly repaid the $90K in ineligible expenses.  Then yesterday it comes out that he hadn't actually repaid them himself, but rather someone in the PMO had handed Duffy a cheque for $90K.

But, let's dial back a ways to the beginning of this story, shall we?

Back in February, auditors were asked to investigate the residency claims of several senators, including Mike Duffy.

At that time, Duffy stated:

“As a Prince Edward Islander, born and bred, I am proud to represent my province and its interests in the Senate of Canada,” Duffy said in the statement.

“I represent taxpayers with care, and Canadians know I would never do anything to betray the public trust. I have a home in Prince Edward Island as required by law. I will have no further comment until this review is complete.”

Amusingly, a few days later, we learn that neighbors near Duffy's alleged "primary residence" on PEI hadn't seen him there very often at all.  Which, of course, raises questions as to whether or not Duffy is even eligible to sit as a Senator for PEI at all.

In march, Duffy promised to pay the expenses back.  In itself, that seems to be the honourable and appropriate thing to do.

During April, Duffy claimed he was going to do nothing until the results of the audit were in only to turn around a day later and claim that he had already paid the amount outstanding back.  The Conservative politburo in the PMO has lost control of this story - it has spun so far out of control that they cannot bury it.  The most recent twist of a "gift" of $90K to Duffy from a high level PMO staffer just smells wrong.  Not necessarily strictly wrong, but morally and ethically suspect.  To claim that Harper didn't know about it seems less than believable, especially given Harper's known track record as a micromanager.  Paying the money back smacks of a cover-up (which it is), and the longer this goes on, the worse it looks for both Duffy and the credibility of the Harper government.

One might be tempted to look upon this as simply an individual Senator overreaching their privileges.  That is certainly easy enough to do, after all Duffy is but a singular senator, and one who comes from a background of considerable privilege both in his personal life and as a reporter on Parliament Hill before he became a Senator.

Then we have the revelation that he was claiming significant expenses on his Senate expense account whilst campaigning during the 2011 election campaign.

Social media and newspaper reports offer a glimpse of how Duffy's busy campaign schedule overlapped with the Senate business he reported to auditors:

— On April 5, Duffy spoke to the Kootenay-Columbia Conservative association in British Columbia. His travel claims indicated he was on Senate business.

— On April 8, candidate Sandy Lee tweeted that she was meeting Duffy in Norman Wells, N.W.T. Lee's campaign paid Duffy $209.01 in expenses. His travel claims indicated he was on Senate business.

— On April 21, Duffy was reportedly campaigning with candidate Scott Armstrong in Nova Scotia. Armstrong's campaign paid Duffy $409.91 in expenses.

— On April 28, Duffy appeared to have a busy day in the Toronto area, campaigning with candidates Maureen Harquail, Wladyslaw Lizon and Gin Siow. Lizon's campaign paid Duffy $169.45, as did Siow. His travel claims indicated he was on Senate business.

— On April 29, former cabinet minister Lawrence Cannon tweeted a picture of Duffy at an event outside of Ottawa that same day. The Deloitte audit listed Duffy as being in Ottawa on Senate business and claiming a per diem.

If Duffy collected daily Senate expenses while on the Conservative campaign trail, taxpayer may have paid twice: Conservative candidates who paid for Duffy's hotel stays would have received federal rebate money for those expenses.

Duffy's campaign events did not end there. On at least five other occasions documented in media reports, Duffy campaigned with Conservative candidates. He did not tell Deloitte about his campaign calendar, forcing Deloitte to list his activities as "undocumented."

In essence, taxpayers were paying for Duffy to travel around Canada campaigning for the Conservative party.

The first thing that comes to mind is that ALL Senators expense claims during the election campaign need to be reviewed.  If it is in fact a "normal practice" for Senators to claim travel expenses while on the campaign trail, that needs to stop.  Now.  An election campaign is not in any meaningful sense of the word "Senate Business".

However, this is but one thread in a much larger tapestry of Conservative dirty tricks during the 2011 election campaign.  Consider, for example the infamous Robocalls Scandal where Conservative telephone calls to constituency residents were used to direct voters to non-existent voting stations.  As if that were not enough, we also have Peter Penashue's resignation as a result of irregularities in campaign spending.  While there is no excusing Duffy's actions, he is in some ways the proverbial "canary in the coal mine".  He has been just naive enough that he has been caught out in a web of lies, deceit while his hand was firmly in the cookie jar.

Politics is a dirty sport at the best of times, and few if any politicians can claim to be entirely clean.  However, under Harper, things have sunk to levels far below those which Mulroney's government sank to in the late 1980s.  This is blatant corruption and pork-barrel politics at its worst.  While the events around the Airbus Affair certainly did not pass the smell test, they had a degree of ambiguity to them.  What we are seeing today is much more blatant in the degree and extent of the corruption and abuse of Canada's system of governance.

At the rate that he is going, Harper's legacy to Canadians will at its best be the redemption of Brian Mulroney.