Senator Mike Duffy’s scorched-earth campaign continues as the CBC has obtained a letter the RCMP wrote last Friday, seeking documents from the PMO that were all mentioned in Duffy’s address to the Senate last week. Because that is something that these kinds of statements under privilege can do – direct the police where to continue their investigation. PMO, incidentally, says they’ve not received any such letter. But it has to be said that it would seem to shift the focus of the investigation from Duffy’s misspending to an attempt by the PMO to bribe, or otherwise influence a sitting legislator – a distraction that Duffy likely welcomes as he seeks to keep attention away from his own actions.
Tag Archives: The Senate
How Stephen Harper’s high-minded neglect damaged the Senate
A great many things have been said about Senate independence of late, and most of them wrong. Stephen Harper stood up in the House last week to say that the Senate is independent, otherwise those three Senators would be out of a job. This is mostly true. Evan Solomon crowed loudly that the Duffy emails about Marjory LeBreton’s office coordinating with the PMO “shattered the myth” of Senate independence. That is largely untrue. Senator James Cowan, the Liberal leader in the Senate, told Don Martin last week that he doesn’t take direction from Justin Trudeau, but they do consult – which is actually more the model of how things should be run. But the underlying issue is that currently there is a problem with the independence of the Upper Chamber, but the bulk of the responsibility for this lies at the feet of Stephen Harper.
Roundup: Wallin in the RCMP’s gaze
Oh, Pamela Wallin. Hours before Stephen Harper went on stage in Calgary to make his big address to the party faithful came news that the RCMP have indeed been investigating Wallin for fraud and breach of trust, and that Senate administration have had concerns about her spending since 2009 – the very year she was appointed. They allege that her Toronto condo is her primary residence, which she uses for functions outside of her Senate duties, and that she has been filing fraudulent expenses. We also found out that the audits for those four senators cost just a little more than they all repaid, of which Wallin’s audit was the lion’s share. But remember, we’re supposed to look at this price tag in the broader context of public accountability and trust. And if anyone thinks that the Auditor General could have done it essentially for free, they need to be reminded that the AG doesn’t do forensic auditing.
Roundup: Kenney and Rajotte back Wright
More signs of independent thought emerge within the Conservative caucus, as Jason Kenney has proclaimed that he’s still going to defend Nigel Wright’s character while Harper has taken the route of demonizing him in the wake of the whole ClusterDuff affair. Later in the day, James Rajotte joined that chorus. That Kenney, a minister, has a message deviating from Harper’s, is the third minister now who has had a different message from the boss, which John Geddes points out, is a blow for the notion of cabinet solidarity, which is a pretty fundamental notion in Responsible Government as the executive needs to speak with one voice. I’m not sure what it all means yet, but it’s certainly interesting – especially on the eve of a party convention where unity in the face of adversity will no doubt be the message that they are trying to put forward.
Roundup: No closure, new motions
There remains no resolution to the issue of the proposed suspensions in the Senate, as the Conservatives there found their attempt to impose closure to be out of order and they have pulled the motions in favour of a new one, which ties things up even further. Oh, but apparently their ham-fistedness is the Liberals’ fault, because they won’t stand aside and just pass it. Because yeah, that’s how things work in our parliamentary system. As it stands, those motions may not see a vote until Friday, but may stretch into next week. Glen McGregor checks Mike Duffy’s speech against his speaking notes, and where the deviations from Hansard were. Joe Clark doesn’t think too much of Harper’s handling of the whole Senate situation. Paul Wells dissects Harper’s role in the mounting problems facing him with the Wright/Duffy affair, and how his usual stubborn streak is playing out – in spades. Chantal Hébert wonders about Nigel Wright’s silence in the face of his demonization by Harper, and how he may be the one to bring Harper down. Andrew Coyne bemoans the way in which the Conservatives are chucking away the conventions that govern our parliamentary system.
Roundup: To amend or not to amend the motion
As we get ready for another sitting week of Parliament, we are no closer to finding any kind of clarity or resolution to the issue of the suspension motions in the Senate. In fact, there are different stories being floated in the media – some that the Conservatives there are open to compromises in the motions, based on comments that Senator Claude Carignan, the leader of the government in the Senate, made. The PMO, meanwhile, is standing firm that they want the suspensions without pay – not that they actually have a say in the matter, given that the Senate is the master of its own destiny and not at the beck and call of the PMO (despite what many – including a handful of senators who haven’t learned better yet – may think). So that leaves the state of play still very much in motion as things get underway. Justin Trudeau, for his part, wants everyone involved to testify under oath, feeling that’s the only way everything will be cleared up. While Senator Cowan’s motion to send it to a committee would give an opportunity to summon the current and former PMO staffers involved, Parliamentary committees can’t summons Parliamentarians and force them to testify (because of privilege), so the really key players may yet be spared from testimony if that is the case. Law professor Carissima Mathen talks to CTV about the legal arguments in the Senate suspension motions. Tom Clark writes about how this is playing with the Conservative base, and how the push for swift action in the backrooms and behind closed doors is starting to look more like the Chrétien/Martin way of doing things, which is what the Conservatives rode into Ottawa promising to clean up.
Roundup: Even the base doesn’t like the unfairness
The motions in the Senate around the suspension without pay of the three embattled senators remains unresolved, and the Senate will be sitting today – a rarity – in order to try to reach a resolution. As this happens, more cracks are forming within the Conservative Senate caucus, as Senator Don Plett – a former party president and not of the Red Tory wing – came out against the suspensions as being against due process and basic fairness. Oh, and if anyone says it’s about trying to please the party base, well, he is that base. Down the hall in the Commons, MP Peter Goldring also encouraged Conservative Senators to vote down the suspensions and wants the Governor General to step in if necessary. As the debate wore on, it not only touched on due process, the lack of guidelines for why this suspension was taking place, and even the definitions of what constitutes “Senate business,” which is something the Auditor General gets to grapple with. It is all raising some fundamental questions about the institution that it never really had to deal with before, and one hopes will help create a much clearer path for the Chamber going forward.
Roundup: Duffy’s scorched earth policy
Well, that was…interesting. After Senator Carignan, the leader of the government in the Senate, spent over an hour laying out the case against Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau, and after a couple of other Senators from all sides expressed their reservations about this move and the lack of due process – let alone the setting of dubious precedents – the real bombshell dropped. Senator Duffy got up to speak to his defence, and he took the scorched earth approach, crying that he didn’t want to go along with this conspiracy “foisted” upon him, that he should have said no, that his livelihood was threatened, and that it all led back to Harper and the Senate leadership. If anything, it made it harder for Harper’s version of events to stand up to scrutiny, which the NDP spent the evening gleefully putting press release after press release about. It’s also going to make QP later today to be quite the show. Of course, what Duffy neglected to mention was his own wrongdoing. He protested that he hadn’t done anything wrong – which is not the case. Both the Deloitte audit and the subsequent RCMP investigation have shown that his residence is not, in fact, PEI, and that’s a constitutional requirement, no matter what LeBreton or Wright told him. A retired constitutional law professor from PEI says that Duffy never actually met the residency criteria, given that when the constitution says a Senator “shall be a resident of the province for which he is appointed,” and that shall means “must” in legal terms, Duffy’s qualification never was valid to begin with, which is how this whole sordid affair got started in the first place. While Duffy may be trying to play the victim, he is still under investigation, no matter that the cover-up has now become worse than the alleged crimes. The same with Brazeau, though there wasn’t really much cover-up there. We shouldn’t forget that, no matter the speeches they gave.
Roundup: By-election dates announced
Stephen Harper has finally called those four by-elections in Toronto Centre, Bourassa, Brandon-Souris and Provencher for November 25th. Toronto Centre NDP candidate Linda McQuaig has put out a YouTube video challenging Chrystia Freeland to a debate. Pundit’s Guide updates the lay of the land in the four ridings here.
Alison Crawford looks at five ways in which the impasse over Justice Nadon’s appointment to the Supreme Court can be resolved, including declaratory legislation, which is a novel approach that I hadn’t yet heard mentioned before.
Roundup: Signing CETA
From Brussels, Stephen Harper signed the draft Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, opening up agricultural and automotive markets while eliminating almost all tariffs, though a couple of trade-offs will mean pharmaceuticals will get two added years of patent protection. The agreement will spend the next couple of years being ratified by both the various provinces in Canada and the member countries of the EU. The full text isn’t available yet either, but so far the notes are positive – even from the opposition parties including the NDP (though their language was much more cautious than the Liberals’). CBC has some numbers of what this affects, PostMedia looks at potential winners and losers, while Maclean’s Econowatch has ten things to know about it. Maclean’s also has a look at how Jean Charest got the ball rolling on the agreement. Paul Wells notes that this really is a big win for Harper, and will probably be what he becomes known for once he leaves office. John Geddes is reminded of the portents of doom that the Canadian wine industry faced with the original free trade deal with the US – which turned out to be false – and instead heralded an upturn for the industry as they took the need to compete more seriously and got rid of their crappy vines in favour of top hybrids, which is a lesson to the whinging dairy industry. Andrew Coyne says that consumers will be the ultimate winners of CETA.