A new name has been added to the government’s enemies list: the balloon’s creator, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
While the government tries desperately to change the channel to Senate reform, the blimp obscures all and will continue to until some real answers are given to the country. So far, there has only been strategic posturing.
Senator Mike Duffy says his actions in taking a $90,000 gift from the prime minister’s then chief-of-staff Nigel Wright to pay off improper expenses “do not merit criticism”.
The Prime Minister’s Office says it is “co-operating” with the criminal investigation into Duffygate by the RCMP.
It is hard to decide which statement is more absurd, or when the public will start asking the obvious questions.
Starting with the Senator, how could it possibly be true that Duffy did nothing wrong when his own colleagues in the Senate have already nixed his expenses?
The body count alone – senators Tkachuk, LeBreton and the prime minister’s chief-of-staff, suggest there is more than a whiff of blameworthiness, if not illegality, in this matter.
The stench will get a little stronger if Senator Gerstein, one of the architects of the In-and-Out scandal, is drawn in. Since he was in charge of the Conservative Party Fund that was initially to be used to pay off Duffy’s expenses, it is hard to imagine how he will not be. Two other senators have already been interviewed by the RCMP. Senators George Furey and Carolyn Stewart-Olsen were the ones who offered the Duffy- sensitive report in the matter of the Deloitte audit – though they claim they did no dry-cleaning.
The only reason Senator Duffy could have for his alleged blamelessness is that he feels justified by reference to a higher authority than his Senate colleagues. That is a tough sell.
There is no way to claim that he didn’t take the money in return for immediately paying off the improper expenses and keeping quiet about it – and receiving the benefit of tender treatment in the matter of the Deloitte audit. These were considerations that senators Brazeau and Harb did not receive. The only thing left to justify Duffy’s otherwise outlandish claim of innocence is that the deal was sanctioned by the PMO, that he had permission. Perhaps the former TV star can even prove that. But that would merely implicate others, not wipe away the stain.
As for the PMO co-operating with the RCMP investigation into Duffygate, that is pure hokum.
When you know there is a criminal investigation into a matter where you hold important evidence, you don’t wait for investigators to formally request it, you hand it over. You go to the RCMP, the way the prime minister did with the spurious charges against Helena Geurgis, the way that Nigel Wright did when he discovered other dubious expenses from Duffy beyond his improperly claimed housing allowance.
A cooperative PMO is a proactive one, not a tiresome alibi machine uttering lame excuses about not having been asked for a crucial email believed to elucidate details of this deal. That is not cooperation: that is minimal compliance. Robert Fife of CTV News had it right: the PMO was withholding evidence from the police.
There is nothing new in the PMO passing off minimal compliance as cooperation. Federal Court Judge Richard Mosley may be the best person to cite on the sincerity of this government’s claim that it has always been the soul of cooperation when it comes to inquiries into possible wrongdoings by the Conservative Party of Canada.
In a case brought by the Council of Canadians, the judge found that fraudulent robocalls had indeed been made during the last federal election, aimed at deliberately and systematically subverting the democratic process. Those calls, which did not materially affect electoral results, relied upon accessing Conservative Party records stored on the party’s Constituency Information Management System computer, (CIMS) a resource with tightly held, jealously guarded access.
Both the PMO and the CPC have feigned cooperation in the Robocalls Affair. Why wouldn’t they? If their story is true, and they had nothing to do with the calls, then someone has broken into their database with a view to stealing a federal election. Not only that, but they managed to erase the record of the access to the query-based system and the download of the non-supporters list at the same time. Serious stuff. The government, more than anyone, should want to find out who, if only to secure the highly confidential information in their system.
But the PM did not call a public inquiry, as the lawyer for the only person charged in the Robocall Affair, Michael Sona, requested. Instead, Harper battened down the hatches the way a suspect might.
In addition to his finding of voter fraud in the 2011 election, Judge Mosley wrote that lawyers for the CPC did their level best to block the Robocalls hearing by bringing forward motions aimed at derailing the case. He also found that despite “the obvious public interest in getting to the bottom of the allegations”, the Conservative Party did not assist in the investigation into the matter despite early requests from Elections Canada. In other words, except rhetorically, they weren’t cooperating, If they were the injured party, the victim, why not?
And they are not cooperating now, for obvious reasons. Like Michael Sona in Robocalls, Senator Mike Duffy is not the alpha and the omega of the expenses scandal. (Coincidentally, both men have hired the same law firm, Bayne Sellar Boxall, to defend themselves.) The PMO is engaged in a containment operation to prevent the corruption of Duffygate from seeping under the door of the prime minister and the Conservative Party. Everything now depends on the probity of the RCMP investigation.
If the force pursues this case as it would any other investigation into fraud and breach of trust, they have quite a to-do list ahead of them. So far, their investigation has focused on Nigel Wright’s personal bailout of Senator Duffy. The prime minister is betting the farm it stays that way.
After all, his former chief-of-staff has told the police that the prime minister did not know of the “means” used to rescue Duffy, and the party, from an embarrassing expenses scandal. But Harper was acutely aware of the problem, though, in part because he discussed it with Wright, and also because Duffy had buttonholed him after a mid-February caucus to personally discuss his financial dilemma.
If the prime minister was “adamant” that Duffy pay back the money himself, as his office claims, you would think that it would have been a matter of some small interest to find out how the matter was discharged. Stephen Harper, king of the micro-managers, apparently didn’t bother to ask. Strange in itself, but stranger when you consider he personally cast his eye over Senator Pamela Wallin’s expenses before pronouncing them appropriate.
But what about the initial plan to pay off the senator’s improper expenses with party funds? Did Stephen Harper know that that was being contemplated? Did Jenni Byrne over at party headquarters or her dutiful number two, Fred DeLorey, have any involvement?
The story being given out is that the decision not to use party funds was based wholly on the size of Duffy’s debt. If that is true, that means the CPC was willing to underwrite an abuse of office exactly as Nigel Wright eventually did, but only for a third of the $90,000 Duffy owed the taxpayer.
Who was in on the decision to ante up $32,000 and why did that change merely on the basis of the amount? If it is allegedly fraudulent for Senator Duffy to have used other peoples’ money to retire his expenses while claiming he himself had paid them off, wouldn’t it also be fraudulent for the Conservatives to offer party funds for such a false and secret arrangement? Or are we to believe that when it comes to sleazy and possible illegal transactions, size matters?
The least plausible part of the prime minister’s story is that Nigel Wright was not acting for him or the PMO when he put the Duffy expenses affair to bed. Of course he was.
In order for the deal to have worked there had to be ongoing communications between the Conservative Party, the Senate, and the PMO. The Conservative Party, because the initial plan was to use its funds to pay off Duffy’s expense. The Senate, because sub-committees of the Internal Economy Board were writing the report on Duffy’s expenses from the Deloitte audit. And the PMO, because Nigel Wright had to coordinate matters. Remember the deal: money and “going easy” on Duffy in the Senate report in exchange for immediate repayment of the debt and media silence.
So it all boils down to how well an RCMP wracked with internal dissent and accusations of political interference in its management structures carries out its investigation. The choice of an investigator is encouraging. Corporal Greg Horton is one of the best, currently assigned to Sensitive and International Investigations, responsible for looking into matters of significant risk to Canada’s political, economic and social integrity. This file certainly qualifies for that.
By mere coincidence, the investigation into Duffygate began in March, the same month that then-public safety minister Vict Toews declared that all RCMP activity had to be reported to his office so that he he could know “exactly what the RCMP is doing and saying”.
Following on the heels of RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson’s orders that senior Mounties have to seek permission before meeting with MPs or Senators, it was not comforting news. The Commissioner explained that permission had to be sought because interviews with parliamentarians can have “unintended and/or negative consequences for the organization and the government.”
Indeed. With governments as with balloons, one never knows when the hot air will escape.
Original Article
Source: ipolitics.ca
Author: Michael Harris
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