The question is why. Why all this, why now? It’s not just about the metastasizing spectacle of the Duffy expense-claims mess, or the curious exploding contagion of ancillary scandals, or the sudden focus on debate in a Senate that has been catatonic for, oh, 150 years, or the clash of reactive positioning from opposition leader Tom Mulcair and Liberal leader Justin Trudeau.
What’s truly astonishing is the way in which, seemingly in a heartbeat, the daily question period in the House of Commons was transformed for the first half hour or so on Tuesday and Wednesday, from the usual sham of talking points and rote blather, into a legitimate, even gripping display of democracy. It was the Prince, called to account by the polity. How often have we seen that?
Critics of Canada’s Parliament often, and rightly, point to Westminster and wonder why British House of Commons exchanges are so much more intelligent, more telling and revealing, than those in Ottawa. We now have an answer: The politicians, specifically the opposition leaders, decide. They can make it better, any time they choose.
The transformation this week was wrought by one man, Mulcair, who set aside his wee lectern and his buckshot-loaded preambles, in favour of a surgeon’s scalpel. Both days, without preamble, he levelled a series of brief, dispassionate, factual questions at Harper, about every aspect of the Duffy-Wright affair. The opposition leader’s intensity was palpable: Though technically addressing the Speaker, he stared across the aisle at his foe. The PM, for his part, faced the Speaker. The effect was of Mulcair on the hunt, Harper the run.
When clear, forthright answers are not available, Mulcair has apparently discovered, there’s no premium on lengthy, front-loaded questions. Far better to pepper the reluctant interviewee with a hail of question-nuggets, so as to highlight his discomfiture as he repeatedly avoids answering. The repetition of avoidance over time can do more damage than a truthful answer would, even when the truth hurts.
Now, Harper did respond to some questions, though he appeared quietly enraged while doing so, especially on the second day. (Neither Harper, Mulcair or Trudeau was in the House Thursday). The PM insisted, for example, that he learned of the $90,000 payment from former chief of staff Nigel Wright to former Conservative Senator Mike Duffy, on Wednesday May 15th. That was the day after reports of the deal first emerged in the media. Presumably this line is intended to allay suspicions that Harper knew of or sanctioned the Duffy payment.
The difficulty: “I knew nothing” is not a happy answer, though it may be the least bad, optics-wise. As Trudeau pointed out in QP Wednesday, CTV’s first story on the Duffy deal was all over Twitter the evening of Tuesday May 14th – and that story included a comment from both the PMO and Duffy. Indeed the two released a joint statement that day, according to the initial CTV report by Bob Fife, saying “Mr. Duffy had paid back the expenses in question – and no taxpayer resources were used.” An unnamed PMO “senior official” then declines comment on whether Duffy received help repaying his improper expense claims.
If we’re to believe Harper’s account of the timing, therefore, we must first believe that not only Wright, but also PMO communications staff, did not warn their boss of the imminent cataclysm. If that’s true, then everything we thought we knew about Harper is wrong. Far from being a control freak, he’s a delegator of Reaganesque proportions. Except that no one in Ottawa believes that. This is a government in which all lines of power lead back to one office, and one man.
Which brings us at last to the why; why this cluster of scandal is rippling outward now, why the opposition leader has felt compelled and freed to toss his Commons playbook in the trash, why the usual Tory countermeasures — such as questions about Mulcair’s 17-year-ago envelope encounter with a disgraced mayor — aren’t getting much traction.
The answer, simply, is moral standing. That is the quality that causes others, be they friend, foe or neutral, to show mercy when you fall. It is also the deepest wellspring of political success. The Conservative party is home to many decent folk, and good, hardworking MPs. But as an institution, with Harper at its head, it has obstructed, deceived, attacked, maligned and bullied, in ways and instances too numerous to mention here.
So that now, when the prime minister most needs the benefit of the doubt, it is nowhere around him. Seeking trust that he did the right thing, he finds there is none. And the vicious spiral deepens.
Original Article
Source: vancouversun.com
Author: Michael Den Tandt
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