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.

Stealing Democracy Part X: How Far Does The Rot Go?

There is no doubt any more that Bill C-23 is deliberately designed to enable the CPC (or other political parties) to engage in the kind of electoral fraud that the CPC has attempted, and been caught out at repeatedly in the past.  Worse, it goes so far as to politicize the staffing of voting stations.  None of this can end well.

Consider the following list of malfeasance on the part of the CPC since 2006:

1. The "In and Out" Fundraising Scheme (Money Laundering Fraud) 2006
2. Dean del Mastro is facing charges relating to campaign spending in 2008
3. Peter Penashue forced to resign over campaign spending issues in 2011
4. Robocalls in 2011 (direct voter suppression)
5. Appointment of Mike Duffy to the Senate
6. Appointment of Pamela Wallin to the Senate
7. Appointment of Patrick Brazeau to the Senate
8. Bruce Carson - appointed to be an advisor to Stephen Harper in the PMO - facing criminal fraud charges.
9. Bill C-23 an act designed to undermine our elections system.
10. Bill C-24 which is designed to politicize immigration to an even greater degree, and can be used in conjunction with C-23 for voter suppression.
11. Massive government spending on propaganda campaigns at taxpayer expense.  (Economic Action Plan ads, Canada Job Grant ads, etc)

There's no doubt quite a bit more that has escaped my notice.  

In today's news, we have another addition to the list - Hubert Pichet, policy advisor to Conservative Senators, has been charged with fraud as a result of the RCMP investigation into the Senate.  

We have to ask ourselves how pervasive is the rot in Harper's government?  At the highest levels, appointees to very senior positions are being charged with fraud and other criminal activities.  This is a government that is unique in Canada's history.  Not only is it clearly corrupt, but it is passing laws designed to entrench its particular brand of corruption into our politics for the foreseeable future.

The Senate Expenses Mess Continues

So, a bunch more Conservative Senators have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

In one case, Senator Scott Tannas of Alberta billed $12,000 to taxpayers to fly himself and his wife in executive class to Ottawa for a two-day trip. 

Another senator, from Toronto, was one of the party's highest billers for travel despite being just an hour by air from the national capital.   

The pricey travel, found by a CBC News review, came at the same time as senators were debating whether or not to suspend three of their peers — Pamela Wallin, Mike Duffy and Patrick Brazeau — for questionable spending practices.

I don't object to paying the travel expenses for the Senators as they travel to and from Ottawa on Senate business.  I may not even object too much to paying for "Executive Class" (or whatever first class is called today) if there is a reasonable justification for it.

I do object to paying for the flights of spouses, and I also object to paying for first class simply as a matter of course.  A first class ticket is in excess of $3,000.  An economy class ticket for the same trip is between $400 and $1000.  There has to be a good business reason for that upgrade.

As for spouses joining you on a trip, that should be paid for by the Senator, not by Canadians.  In private enterprise, it is rare indeed for a company to agree to pay the travel costs for a spouse joining an employee on a trip.

Perhaps what is most offensive about all this is that it comes from the very people, Conservatives, who have brayed long and hard about how government should be run more like a business.  What do we find?  Their snouts firmly in the public trough, at a time when the Senate itself is already being rocked by the revelations of four of their number who apparently have badly abused the very expense system in question.  Surely these Senators have more sense than that!

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.

If Nigel Wright is a "Hero" ...

According to Christie Blatchford, Canadians apparently should revere Nigel Wright and his actions in the Senate Expenses mess.

I don't believe that Mr. Wright was acting in a knowingly criminal manner - I have always thought that he believed firmly that he was acting within the bounds of his job and responsibilities.

However, having said that, Ms. Blatchford's analysis misses a few things.

First, Mr. Wright was smack in the midst of a conspiracy to cover things up when there was a looming audit that was almost guaranteed to generate a lot of bad press.

Second, based on the evidence available to this point, the issue of repaying Duffy's expenses appears to have devolved to Wright after the Conservative Fund (headed up by Senator Gerstein) decided to balk at the amount to be repaid.  Whether or not Wright's action in giving Duffy a cheque for $90,000 were strictly legal, they certainly have the whiff of political cover-up at the very least and poor moral judgment on Wright's part.

The real question that should be asked is why bother with trying to hide the expenses of a single, errant senator?  What about Mike Duffy was so important to the party that they felt it necessary to go to these lengths to protect him from scrutiny?  Would it not have been far simpler to direct Mr. Duffy to his bankers to extend his loans to cover the amount in question?  Last, but far from least, the degree of Mr. Harper's involvement and awareness in this whole mess deserves scrutiny as well.

Mr. Wright is far from the "villain" in all of this.  He no doubt had been told by his boss to "make the problem go away".  He tried ... and failed.  Unfortunately for Mr. Wright, his choice of actions are at best a sign of poor judgment.  He may have acted as the lesser player in the entire mess, but that does not make him any kind of "hero".

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.

I'm No Expert On Aboriginal Issues ...

But I'm pretty sure that the Harper Government(tm) isn't doing it right.  

Carolyn Bennett has an excellent article on Huffington Post today on the subject in light of the most recent bunch of documents to be released from the RCMP's investigation into the Senate mess:

We now know the Conservatives' refusal to fund First Nations students attending school on reserves at the same level as their provincial counterparts is coming straight from the top. An internal PMO memo released as part of the ITO suggested language to the Prime Minister to reprimand the Conservative Leader in the Senate for not having better control over Senators and the work of Senate Committees. The memo specifically uses a Senate report calling on the government to "invest heavily in Aboriginal education" as an example of a failure to ensure "Government messaging and direction are followed." 

This is not just a shocking example of Stephen Harper's anti-democratic command and control style of government, but clearly demonstrates that the Prime Minister callously refuses to provide First Nations students with the equality of opportunity they deserve. The federal government only provides half to two-thirds of the per-student funding for First Nation schools compared to provincial schools and only one third of First Nations students are graduating high school. Rather than fixing the funding gaps highlighted by First Nations, the Auditor General and numerous other reports, the response of the Prime Minister is to simply clamp down on Parliamentarians trying to highlight the issue. Whether it is First Nations water systems, housing or education, the Conservative answer is to ignore funding shortfalls and download further responsibilities onto already underfunded First Nations with no additional resources.

 I don't know what the right answers are, but when our own government's internal communications is treating Canada's First Nations peoples as "adversaries", there is little chance that we will see meaningful reform and improvement of the lot of our First Nations under this government.

Canada deserves better than this, our First Nations deserve better.

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?

That Was A Tactical Error

Last night, Canada's Senate voted to suspend three of its members.

Senators were allowed to vote separately with these results: 

• On the motion to suspend Brazeau without pay, 50 yeas, 29 nays, 13 abstentions.

• On the motion to suspend Duffy without pay, 52 yeas, 28 nays, 11 abstentions.

• On the motion to suspend Wallin without pay, 52 yeas, 27 nays, 12 abstentions.

The suspensions are to last for the remainder of the session, likely until the next federal election in 2015.  

Looking at the vote, I'd say this is pretty much a "whipped vote" on the Conservative part.  Except for a handful of the most senior CPC caucus who are more confident in their posts than Harper's minions, the CPC caucus voted quite firmly to Harper's wishes.

This is a tactical error on Harper's part.  From his point of view, suspending these Senators is a way to bury a political issue.  Harper doesn't like being grilled in Question Period about it and the constant media scrutiny on Parliament, so he has opted for what he thinks will be the easiest way to bury this.

However, Harper has just made his problem worse.  No, he won't be seeing the media circus that happens every time Duffy, Wallin or Brazeau show up on the hill.  But, he's lost the control over the narrative that is implicit with allowing them to continue to sit in the upper chamber.  Parliamentary privilege and the structure of parliamentary process can be used as far more effective 'gag order' on the errant Senators than ejecting them from the house will ever be.

Both Senators Wallin and Duffy are experienced media personalities.  They are used to being in the public eye.  By ejecting them from the Senate, Harper has just given both of them the time and opportunity to work their stories unfettered by their responsibilities as Senators.

Duffy has already shown that he has rather a lot of material in his hip pocket.  Material which he is willing to release at moments which are going to have maximum public impact.  I can't say the same for Wallin or Brazeau on these matters - neither of them has given the kind of speeches in the Senate that Duffy has - only time will tell for them.

With Duffy's latest bombshells in Senate speeches, if the RCMP isn't knocking on the PMO's doors today, they will be soon enough.

If Harper thinks that ejecting a few errant Senators has "ended" this scandal, he's profoundly mistaken.  At the moment, he looks more like Wile E. Coyote with explosives.

As Rob Ford found out this week, you can only get away with denial and lying about things for so long.  Harper's story has been changing on a near daily basis with respect to the Senate.  If he believes that this is "just going away" because he bludgeoned his appointed Senators into ejecting a handful who have become political liabilities, then more the fool he is.

Harper: "I'm Not Responsible"

Stephen "I'm All About Everybody Else's Accountability" Harper is trying to deflect responsibility for the actions of his PMO staff in the Senate Scandal.

“The Senate should do the right thing now and suspend those senators without pay!” Harper told a crowd of 3,000, according to estimates from Conservative party officials. 
“Canadians expect, I expect, that people be held accountable,” he said.

Well, yes, Mr. Harper, Canadians do expect people to be held accountable.  That includes _YOU_.

Ontario MP Bernard Trottier told reporters Saturday there was no need for the prime minister to apologize. Harper “is a man who is very ethical, so we need to punish the people who deliberately cheated with their spending,” Trottier said.
“If there were errors maybe it was in the hiring (of) people like Nigel Wright,” he said. “Men who have a good character but made errors, and we find that in all organizations.” 

It's convention week, everybody in the CPC is going to be trying to bolster Dear Leader.  I get it.

However, Mr. Trottier's statement shows us the latest talking points from the PMO.  Namely that the PM didn't do anything wrong, and it was all "under the table" by a bunch of wrongdoers in the PMO.

Harper is the man at the top - he sets the tone.  In the PMO, he sets the rules.  You cannot tell me that Wright acted entirely independently.  Harper set the tone and the rules in the PMO that would have allowed Nigel Wright to believe that his actions were appropriate.

Further, if we go back to this past spring, Mr. Harper was defending Mr. Wright's actions:

Fired or resigned. Acted in the public interest, or out of deception. These are just two examples of Harper's changing answers. And that makes the prime minister a key player in keeping the Senate scandal alive heading into a policy convention that was supposed to lift the party away from the Senate morass and into the orbit of priorities they can campaign on in 2015. 

Still, turning on your former chief of staff seems out of sync for a leader who demands absolute loyalty from his people, and a strict adherence to message control. 

When Wright first resigned, a number of his former colleagues praised his integrity, work ethic and honesty. They called his decision to personally repay Duffy's expenses a regrettable error. 

Those same people are silent now as Harper dismantles Wright's reputation. 

Oxford defines to deceive as to "deliberately cause (someone) to believe that something is not true, especially for personal gain." 

There's been no suggestion Wright was motivated by personal gain. In fact, just the opposite is true. He dashed off a payment in an attempt make a political problem go away for the prime minister.

Let me be clear, Harper's changing story tells us one thing:  he either has, or is, lying to Canadians on this matter.  The degree to which he was involved is not the issue - the fact is even if Harper can prove that he wasn't directly involved (which Duffy's revelations Oct. 22 call into question), he is still ultimately the man responsible for the goings-on in the PMO.

Following the PMO's advice, I ignored the media but the attacks from Postmedia continued and the political heat escalated. So after caucus on Feb. 13 of this year, I met the Prime Minister and Nigel Wright, just the three of us. I said that despite the smear in the papers, I had not broken the rules, but 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. 

I argued: I'm just following the rules like all of the others. But it did not work. I was ordered by the Prime Minister: Pay the money back, end of discussion. Nigel Wright was present throughout, just the three of us.

So, there were meetings where Harper was directly involved.  There is no valid way that Harper can claim that he was unaware of what was going on - starting in February.

Harper wants to take credit for the alleged successes of his government, then he is also responsible for the failures.  In this case, the failure has landed smack in the middle of his offices, and unlike many other political scandals it is quite clear that not only did he set the tone which allowed this mess to occur, but that the Prime Minister was centrally involved.

Why Harper Will Never Reform The Senate

Protestations aside, Harper will never reform Canada's Senate.

Harper's 45-minute remarks included only a brief reference to the main political headache that has shaken his party since May, the Senate expense scandal. He did not acknowledge the coverup allegation that has kept the controversy in the headlines. 

The party leader blamed the "courts" for standing in the way of Senate reform. He appeared to be referring to a recent Quebec appeal court ruling — the Supreme Court of Canada has yet to give its opinion on how to achieve change in the upper chamber. 

The appeal court said last month that the federal government had no right to create Senate elections and set term limits without seeking provincial approval.

The problem is that Harper will NOT engage with the provinces.  He has avoided the conferences between Ottawa and the Premiers like the plague since day one.  Yet, to make any material changes to the Senate, he must do this.  The amending formula in the Constitution is quite clear on the matter.  (To the point of obviating the need for the current reference question before the position)

General procedure for amending Constitution of Canada

38. (1) An amendment to the Constitution of Canada may be made by proclamation issued by the Governor General under the Great Seal of Canada where so authorized by(a) resolutions of the Senate and House of Commons; and(b) resolutions of the legislative assemblies of at least two-thirds of the provinces that have, in the aggregate, according to the then latest general census, at least fifty per cent of the population of all the provinces.Marginal note:Majority of members 

(2) An amendment made under subsection (1) that derogates from the legislative powers, the proprietary rights or any other rights or privileges of the legislature or government of a province shall require a resolution supported by a majority of the members of each of the Senate, the House of Commons and the legislative assemblies required under subsection (1).Marginal note:

Expression of dissent(3) An amendment referred to in subsection (2) shall not have effect in a province the legislative assembly of which has expressed its dissent thereto by resolution supported by a majority of its members prior to the issue of the proclamation to which the amendment relates unless that legislative assembly, subsequently, by resolution supported by a majority of its members, revokes its dissent and authorizes the amendment.Marginal note:

Revocation of dissent(4) A resolution of dissent made for the purposes of subsection (3) may be revoked at any time before or after the issue of the proclamation to which it relates.

If you go back and take a look at The Harper Government(tm) factum, much of their approach to the questions is essentially to ask the Supreme Court if the proposed amendment can be done without resorting to the General Procedure.  I may not be a lawyer, but I don't believe that any substantive change to the Senate, including abolition as Pierre Poilievre was musing about.

Poilievre said if the Supreme Court rejects the reform bill, then it will be up to the provinces to make changes. 

"The provinces have to pursue abolition. If that's the option, we believe seven provinces representing 50 per cent of the population have the power to pursue abolition, and we would not stand in their way if they should so decide."

Harper's unwillingness to engage with the Premiers is at the core of the problem for him.  While he is willing to meet with premiers individually, in a conference setting he knows full well that he cannot foster the kind of consensus needed to get an agreement on a constitutional amendment.  Harper is not exactly the kind of leader who builds consensus - he dictates what he wants.

In short, if he can't do it by a straight act of Parliament where he can hold a substantially large club over the votes of his caucus to get his way.  He has always been "my way or the highway", and he whines like a stuck pig when something happens like the courts ruling against him.

Unless Harper can build real consensus among the premiers, he will get nowhere on Senate reform.  Poilievre's musings about abolition are interesting in that he is basically saying that the provinces will  "pursue abolition" - pushing away responsibility for the Federal Government's role in this matter.  Abolition is the simple question, but I think that the legal advisors to any premier would correctly point out to the premiers that moving to abolish the Senate would naturally entail additional changes to ensure that the legislative and executive branches of our government are appropriately held in check - especially in an era where so much power has become concentrated in the PMO.

The second problem that would show up almost immediately is that the required legislation still has to be drafted by and passed in Parliament, as well as in the provinces.  For those of us who remember the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords, which were be far less contentious than Senate reform would be, getting that passed at all levels required is a process that requires significant involvement at all levels of government.

Harper is simply not capable of fostering the kind of environment needed to achieve this.

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.

More On Duffy and Conservative Corruption

I must admit that while I really don't much like Mike Duffy and the seemingly endless stream of evidence of corruption with him at the root of it is fatiguing to read about all the time, it is still an important issue.

I am not going to argue about Senate Reform in this post - I remain unconvinced that the Duffy/Wallin/etc expenses scandal really points to an urgent need to overhaul the Senate - in fact, I am much more of the opinion that framing the expenses scandal in those terms is a red herring intended to distract the public from the real problems.

So, what are the issues then?  Corruption.  Starting with a Prime Minister who has created an environment in his party that encourages cheating, disrespects the structure and processes of parliament and by definition encourages abuse of the public trust.

Let's take a step back in time, shall we?  Remember 2006, when Paul Martin's minority government fell and an election sent the keys to 24 Sussex to Stephen Harper and his Conservatives?  I thought you might.

In 2006, we got the first overt clues as to Harper's agenda and what he has fostered in the CPC since becoming the party leader.  

The first clue was the "In-and-Out Scam", a thinly disguised money laundering scheme that Harper's campaign people dreamed up to sidestep campaign spending limits.

Then, we learned that the CPC had written and distributed a manual for their MPs to disrupt the business of parliament.  This is particularly concerning when you realize that this manual was part of the operating procedures for a party that was now in power.

Fast forward to 2008, and we have Prime Minister Harper calling a snap election - a snap election which flies in the face of his vaunted "fixed elections dates" law.  Now, per se, Harper didn't entirely break his fixed election dates law, because it did not place any limits on the Prime Minister's ability to approach the Governor General to dissolve parliament.  However, he did violate the spirit of his own law, which was the result of long standing complaints by the Conservatives (and the forerunner Reform party) about the "political game playing" around election calls.

Then, in 2011, we see the worst possible forms of electoral fraud taking place - voter suppression tactics.  On top of that, Harper has seen several of his MPs pay the price for breaking campaign finance rules - most notably Peter Penashue, but several others as well.

So, when you find yourself looking at Harper's ill-behaved Senate appointees and wondering what's going on, I think you need to look back at Harper.

I have no problem with a discussion around Senate reform, but let's make it a constructive discussion that isn't coloured by a knee-jerk reaction to corruption instigated by a Prime Minister whose acts have created an environment where corruption, undermining and fraud are the rule.

The Rot Starts At The Top

Regular readers of this space will know that I am no fan of Prime Minister Harper.  

Yesterday's revelation that a "boot camp" for new Conservative Senators explicitly told the new Senators that partisan travel was a legitimate expense makes me downright furious.

Three former Conservative senators at the heart of a spending scandal were given clear directions from their leader in the upper chamber that they could bill for certain partisan — that is, political — travel when they first arrived in the Senate. 

The directions were given during a two-day “boot camp” for new Tory senators that outlined expense-claim dos and don’ts, expectations for senators, and a warning to be careful with how they spent Senate money. 

Let me be abundantly clear here:  The Senate, and the House of Commons, exist for conducting the business of this country.  NOT the business of the Conservative Party of Canada or any other party.  That the Harperites would give explicit instructions about this tells us a lot - and none of it is acceptable.

First, that they would even state that any kind of partisan travel is an acceptable expense is plain wrong. It speaks to a degree of intent to abuse the system.  In essence, the new Senators are being told "break the rules, but don't get caught - nudge, nudge, wink, wink".  I suspect that if Duffy or Wallin had only done one suspect trip in a year, nobody would be particularly outraged.  It would fall under the "cost of doing business" kind of logic that most of us understand.  However, that isn't what happened.  Instead, these two Senators were put into a position where suddenly they were doing a lot of travel on questionable business, and apparently the CPC machinery wasn't willing to invest some of the millions it raises in donations every year into funding this travel.

Second, this is little different to me than the "How to Disrupt Parliament" manual that Harper handed out to his MPs back in 2006.  It speaks to a clear intent to abuse the privileges and rights of power for partisan gain.  Make no mistake about it, the tone in the party that makes this kind of abuse of parliament and taxpayers starts at the top - look in the direction of the PMO when assigning responsibility - the man at the top should be held accountable for this.

Like the Economic Action Plan ads which are really little more than CPC propaganda, what we have here is another example of a government which is willing to abuse taxpayer funds for partisan purposes.  Canadians are paying for Harper to publish partisan propaganda - no more, no less.  Now we find out that Harper's Senate appointees are being given specific instructions on how to abuse the funding of the Senate so that they can further their partisan work.  Makes one wonder just how much of the same kind of thing is going on in the House of Commons with his caucus.  (I know that I seldom see anything from my MP except for the occasional leaflet which is completely devoid of actual content)

More so than any Prime Minister before him, Harper has gone to enormous lengths to corrupt Parliament from the ground up.  From clear violations of Canada's election laws (remember the "In-and-Out campaign financing in 2006?), to electoral fraud in 2011(yes, I hold the CPC responsible for the Robocalls mess - their database was used for it, and I do not accept the "it was hacked" line), a manual for MPs on how to disrupt parliamentary business, a steady rebranding of Canada's government using CPC colours, and now we learn that the Senate has been instructed on how to abuse the finances provided to run that body.

I have seen a few apologists for the Harperites point to Mac Harb and a couple of other Liberal Senators and claim that "the system has been broken for years".  Yes, it has - no argument there.  The issue is the lengths to which Harper has abused the system, especially when he was elected in 2006 on a promise to provide Canadians with more open and accountable government.  He has provided anything but.  In fact, the corruption under Harper is far, far worse than what we have ever seen on any previous Prime Minister in living memory.

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]

On The Ongoing Senate Scandal

As the summer wears on, more keeps dribbling out about the misdeeds of various Senators.  Whether we are talking about Wallin, Duffy or Brazeau the outrage that we direct towards these senators for their individual misdeeds should be directed in equal measure towards the man currently residing at 24 Sussex Dr. in Ottawa - Stephen Harper.

Remember, the key figures in this scandal were all appointed by Harper, and two of them served key roles during the 2011 election campaign - a period when it is suspected that Duffy was billing the Senate for the bulk of the travel expenses that could rightly be considered campaigning, and I have little doubt that Ms. Wallin's expenses are equally suspect during that same timeframe.

There is little doubt that Wallin and Duffy were appointed to the Senate by Harper because of their "star power" as part of the party fundraising apparatus.

The 2011 election is among the most controversial to ever take place in Canada.  Not only do we have an election where voters were deliberately misdirected away from the correct polling stations by "robocalls" which are widely understood to have been driven by data from the CPC's own voter information database, but now we are learning that Canadian taxpayers were effectively bankrolling CPC campaigning and fundraising efforts during the campaign through CPC Senators charging campaign related travel back to the Senate (presumably for "meeting with the community" over dinner or some other nonsense to justify the "Senate Business" aspect of their trip).  There have also been a number of CPC candidates whose campaign finances have been deemed suspicious - at least one a former cabinet minister who has since resigned and lost a byelection bid to regain his seat.

In short, the 2011 election gave Stephen Harper a majority not because he had the better platform, but because he lied, cheated and ultimately stole victory - and democracy - from Canadians.

My point?  Mr. Harper has fostered a culture of deception and entitlement within his party.  His "power at any cost" approach to things has created fertile ground for avarice and greed to become the dominant forces in his party.  Is there any surprise that we are finding CPC Senators with their snouts firmly in the public trough?  Mr. Harper is plainly responsible, and Canadians should rightly be absolutely furious with him for duplicity, dishonesty as well as picking our pockets.

While Senate Reform is a laudable objective to pursue, it cannot be credibly pursued by Stephen Harper - a man who has so clearly abused the trust of Canadians to such an extent.

Remember this next time you stand in a polling both with a pencil in hand and a ballot before you.

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.

The Duffy Scandal Keeps On Giving

In some respects, what is coming out regarding Mike Duffy this week is not really a big surprise.  However, it is important.

First up, we have a set of court document filings that bring out some very interesting points regarding timeline, and in particular how that timeline relates to the story that Harper has related to Canadians.

1. The documents reveal the RCMP is investigating Duffy over not just one, but three separate fraud allegations:

• For expenses perhaps fraudulently claimed for Ottawa housing and per diem costs, because Duffy said his primary residence was in P.E.I.
• For possible fraudulent per diem claims submitted while he was vacationing in Florida or while he was campaigning for the Conservative Party in the last federal election.
• For accepting, perhaps fraudulently, a payment from Nigel Wright, the prime minister's top aide, in exchange for a deal that would allow him to pay back his inappropriately claimed expenses quickly and without protest and for a promise a Senate report would "go easy on him."

2. Amid opposition party demands for an investigation, the RCMP, of its own volition, began investigating Duffy in March. That was two months before a Deloitte audit of Duffy's residency, commissioned by the Senate, was made public, and before a Senate committee voted to refer Duffy's expenses to the RCMP.

3. Although Duffy claimed his primary residence was in P.E.I., the documents reveal he's lived in Ottawa since 1971. However, he applied for a P.E.I. driver's licence on Dec. 22, 2008 — the same day it was announced he had been selected for appointment to the Senate.

4. In passport applications in 2007 and 2012, Duffy gave his Ottawa address as his permanent residence.

5. The documents reveal the Conservative Party initially believed Duffy owed only $32,000, an amount the party was apparently willing to pay. This amount may refer to the $34,000 the Deloitte report calculated Duffy had claimed in housing costs in Ottawa and per diems during the 18-month period of Deloitte's examination.

It is not clear why the party didn't know that Senator David Tkachuk, at the time chair of the Senate committee on internal economy, had written Duffy on Feb. 27 telling him he actually owed $90,172.

6. Lawyers for Nigel Wright, the prime minister's former chief of staff, told the RCMP that when Wright gave Duffy $90,000 he didn't know about any fraudulent claims on Duffy's part. But Wright was in contact with Senator Tkachuk during the time Deloitte was preparing its report, and it was Deloitte that discovered Duffy had claimed per diems for being on Senate business while on vacation in Florida.

7. It is not clear why the chair of the Conservative Fund, Senator Irving Gerstein, thought it was OK for the party to bear the cost of $32,000 for Duffy, but not $90,000.

8. Wright, in a statement given when he resigned, said he accepted "sole responsibility" for the decision to give money to Duffy. But the documents reveal that Wright's lawyers told the RCMP that three other senior people in the Prime Minister's Office knew about the $90,000 cheque, as did Gerstein.

At Huffington Post, they took the time to go through the documents and compare the timeline in the court filings with the version of the story that Harper has been trying to convince the public is "the real story":

Under intense questioning about the affair throughout the spring, Harper repeatedly insisted that his chief of staff, Nigel Wright, acted on his own when he decided to give Duffy $90,000 to reimburse the Senate for invalid expense claims.

"Those were his decisions. They were not communicated to me or to members of my office," Harper told the House of Commons on June 5.

But the RCMP, which has launched a criminal investigation into the matter, says in a court document that Wright recalls telling three other senior people in the Prime Minister's Office about the transaction.

Wright had not been interviewed by the Mounties at the time the document was filed in court by lead investigator Cpl. Greg Horton, on June 24. But the document recounts a June 19 meeting with Wright's lawyers, Patrick McCann and Peter Mantas.

The lawyers told the RCMP that Wright recalls telling his assistant, David van Hemmen; Harper's legal adviser, Benjamin Perrin; and Chris Woodcock, director of issues management in the PMO, about his intention to personally give Duffy the money to reimburse the Senate.

Anyone who believes that Harper was not fully briefed on what was going on in his own offices has to be either deluding themselves or they would believe someone trying to sell them the Brooklyn Bridge on the street.

Beyond Harper lying to Canadians about this whole fiasco, is the emerging evidence that Senator Duffy was not, and is not today, a resident of the region that he is supposedly representing.  This isn't just a matter of recently moving either.  Duffy has lived in Ottawa since 1971, and two passport applications list his Ottawa address as his permanent residence.

Why is this significant?  Because it calls into question whether Duffy should even be permitted to sit in the Senate as a representative of Prince Edward Island.

Referring to the Constitution documents for Canada, we find the following qualifications for a Senator:

Qualifications of Senator
23. The Qualifications of a Senator shall be as follows:

1. (1)  He shall be of the full age of Thirty Years;
   
2. (2)  He shall be either a natural-born Subject of the Queen, or a Subject of the Queen naturalized by an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain, or of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, or of the Legislature of One of the Provinces of Upper Canada, Lower Canada, Canada, Nova Scotia, or New Brunswick, before the Union, or of the Parlia- ment of Canada after the Union;
   
3. (3)  He shall be legally or equitably seised as of Freehold for his own Use and Benefit of Lands or Tenements held in Free and Common Socage, or seised or possessed for his own Use and Benefit of Lands or Tenements held in Franc-alleu or in Roture, within the Province for which he is appointed, of the Value of Four thousand Dollars, over and above all Rents, Dues, Debts, Charges, Mortgages, and Incumbrances due or payable out of or charged on or affecting the same;
   
4. (4)  His Real and Personal Property shall be together worth Four thousand Dol- lars over and above his Debts and Liabilities;
   
5. (5)  He shall be resident in the Province for which he is appointed;
   
6. (6)  In the Case of Quebec he shall have his Real Property Qualification in the Electoral Division for which he is appointed, or shall be resident in that Di- vision. (13) 
   

At the time he was appointed to the Senate in 2008, he didn't even hold a driver's license from PEI.  In other words, all of his legal documentation likely showed that he resided in Ottawa.  I don't think that this has changed one iota.  For the sake of appearances, Duffy applied for a PEI Driver's License in 2009, but a subsequent passport application in 2011 listed his Ottawa home as his permanent address.

In short, Duffy fails the residency test in the first place.  Given that the Governor General appoints Senators on the advice of the Prime Minister, I think it is fairly clear that not only is Duffy's seat in the Senate highly suspect, but further that Harper is complicit in a fraudulent appointment.