In Act 2, denial and indecision reign as details emerge and the consequences become clear. Conflict rages as alliances are tested and loyalties strained. The audience wonders whom to believe.
Then all is revealed in Act 3, when sacrifices are made along with putative acts of contrition. Punishment is rendered, the lights go up and the audience applauds or jeers. For many, opinions have shifted on the merits of the characters.
That all happened in Nova Scotia in 2010. Public money induced MLAs to commit unethical acts, but attempts to hide the sins were foiled. The news got out and under scrutiny, the cover stories slowly fell apart. The police arrived to charge four shame-faced miscreants. Contrition followed in the criminal courts.
Many Nova Scotians are still angry about the expense scandal here and many Canadians won’t forget the tragicomedy in the Senate.
It’s pretty clear that Act 1 in the Senate drama has been completed. We’ve had the actions which set the story in motion: the expense and housing claims from four senators. We’ve had the tracks-covering, which cost Nigel Wright $90,000 and his job. Secrets were revealed about the vain and entitled central characters.
Once exposed, the fabric of the cover story disintegrated as the participants, Wright and Sen. Mike Duffy, got their lines confused and told conflicting stories. Their revelations emerged over many days, lengthening the suspense while the audience grew.
As in Nova Scotia, Act 2 began with denials. Prime Minister Stephen Harper insisted, with apparent piety, that he had no knowledge of anything significant. He was “frustrated and sorry and angry.” But it was hard to tell what he really felt, perhaps because he was far offstage in Peru.
Of the central players, one — Wright — is already gone. Duffy and Sen. Pam Wallin are out of the Conservative caucus, their fates uncertain. The RCMP, itself at a low in public trust and needing to appear lily-white, has people on the case.
That brings us to the damage-control and denouement of our narrative, Act 3.
The Senate sent the Duffy matter back to its opaque, secretive Internal Economy Committee, the same Conservative-dominated cabal that whitewashed the problem in the first place. Remember, they consulted the Prime Minister’s Office, including Wright and communications staff, before censoring the original Duffy report.
The committee’s Liberal minority now feels compelled to cause trouble for Duffy and the Tories. The Conservatives will try to hold the line, or at least give up territory an inch at a time while maintaining a moat of deniability around the prime minister.
Maintaining that moat is getting harder with the revelation that the PMO staff was deeply involved as the Senate audit unfolded. So there’s a certain desperation in the air, not to mention implausible argument and rhetorical bombast, as the plot heads toward resolution.
The government leader in the Senate, Marjory LeBreton, embodied the latter two, claiming that it was actually the Conservatives who had “flung open the door and revealed what was going on.”
She then fell back on the tired Tory complaint of media bias.
“I am a Conservative and I know more than most that around this town populated by Liberal elites and their media lickspittles ... that we are never given the benefit of the doubt,” she complained.
Comments like that show why this whole sorry matter needs a public airing, and not just in the media. Even Duffy seems to support that. Then Canadians could see for themselves whether the Harper Conservatives stand for accountable government or whether they’re just acting the part.
Original Article
Source: thechronicleherald.ca
Author: DAN LEGER
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