Bringing down Stephen Harper by a Senate scandal of his own making

Could it be that our very own Senator Mike Duffy -- if he can call P.E.I. home without having lived there for decades, surely we can tag the Round Mound of Sound for Amherst's CKDH radio a Nova Scotian for his 1960s stint as a disc jockey and news reporter there -- will succeed in doing what decades of NDP policy wonks have failed to do?

Bring down the Senate of Canada.

And, perhaps, a prime minister in the bargain.

It would be a delicious irony if Duffy -- who liked to be called "The Senator" long before he was one, who lobbied Liberal and Tory governments for his appointment to the chamber of entitled-to-their-entitlements and whose journalism career ultimately became one long suck-up, appoint-me-please job application/supplication -- should go down in history as the architect of its demise.

Even more delicious if Stephen Harper -- who began his political career as a Reform Party Senate reformer and who, as prime minister, refused to appoint any of his own until the 2008 faux threat of a Liberal-NDP coalition prompted him to name his own Gang of 18 in order to outvote the Liberals on the Senate floor -- should be brought down by a Senate scandal of his own making.

Harper's 18 new senators included Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau, the three at the heart of the current expenses scandal.

Harper didn't appoint Wallin and Duffy, both high-profile broadcasters, for their lifelong support of the Conservative party, of course, but so they could trade on their public personas to fill party coffers.

Which worked until it didn't.

Those same public personas have not only given the expenses scandal marathon legs but also offered the disgraced Senators an Everest-high pulpit from which to fight back after Harper decided to disappear them.

While Duffy will almost certainly lose his battle against expulsion this week, he will have succeeded in exposing the seamy, smarmy underbelly of Harper's PMO.

That -- coupled with an expected Supreme Court ruling keeping the constitutional bar for Senate reform unachievably high -- just might force Harper into a channel changing popular referendum on Senate abolition.

Which may be enough to force an end to the Senate, but not enough to save Harper.

Win-win. Thanks, Mike.

Original Article
Source: rabble.ca
Author: Stephen Kimber