Under fierce grilling in the House of Commons this week, Harper claimed to know nothing of a decision by his former chief of staff Nigel Wright to cut Conservative Sen. Mike Duffy a cheque for $90,172 to pay back improperly claimed expenses, until CTV News broke the story. He said “to my knowledge” there was no legal agreement between Wright and Duffy.
Harper also said he has “no information” about anyone in the Prime Minister’s Office telling Duffy to clam up after getting the money and to stop co-operating with auditors who were poking into his dubious expense claims. And Harper claimed no knowledge of efforts to have a Senate subcommittee whitewash a report on the Duffy audit.
These lame responses, his first response in Parliament and couched in language only a lawyer could love, have just added fuel to the fire. Canadians want answers, not sand in their eyes. Just three weeks ago Peter Van Loan, the government leader in the Commons, was praising Duffy’s “leadership” in repaying his improperly claimed expenses.
Time and again, Harper has dodged New Democrat Leader Tom Mulcair’s simple demand that he publicly release all documents related to Wright’s deal with Duffy, including the infamous cheque and an email Wright is said to have sent to Duffy. Harper has also been less than fulsome when Mulcair asked whether the Duffy deal was ever discussed in cabinet, saying only that the deal was never a matter of “public business” at any point. And Harper dodged questions as to who else in the PMO apart from Wright was aware of, or involved in, the cheque affair, and who liaised with Tory senators who whitewashed a report on Duffy’s expenses.
Needless to say, Harper has been mute as a carp over the Senate rules that prohibit senators from accepting sizeable gifts.
Given this serial hedging, Harper’s effort to redirect the public’s attention to the Senate and its belated cleanup effort won’t wash. There’s still concern that the PMO interfered with a Senate probe into Duffy’s expenses in order to prevent politically embarrassing facts from surfacing. The opposition needs to keep up the pressure to get to the bottom of this.
As the Senate internal economy committee has just shown, the Conservative government and its partisans don’t willingly give up their shabby secrets. Government Senate leader Marjory LeBreton may want the public to believe that some senators “betrayed us,” but the Senate didn’t go out of its way to rein in the miscreants until they became a public scandal. Senators finally held a rare open session Tuesday to consider Duffy’s expense claims, and a glimpse of the way they operate was revelatory.
With Canadians watching them, the full internal economy committee, chaired by Sen. David Tkachuk, promptly reversed a decision to go easy on Duffy in a Senate report on his expenses. For Tkachuk and fellow Tory Senator Carolyn Stewart Olsen, it was a humiliation. They dominated the three-member subcommittee that altered the report in a way that seemed to exonerate him. Their reasons for doing so have never been convincing.
Alert to the rising furor over Duffy’s expenses the full committee also moved to insulate the Senate by inviting the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to take an interest in the case.
Senate clerk Gary O’Brien and director of finances Nicole Proulx also revealed that Duffy had a pattern of claiming living expenses “that raises concerns.” During 2011 and 2012 Duffy repeatedly claimed to be in Ottawa on Senate business, and claimed expenses, when in fact he was outside the city. Senate officials rejected many of his claims but never raised an alarm. The question now is, why not? Just how much impropriety does the Senate wink at when no one is watching?
Yes, the Red Chamber is now under more scrutiny, and that’s a good thing. But that doesn’t let Harper and the PMO off the hook. The Conservatives claim to be all about accountability and transparency. We’re nowhere close.
Original Article
Source: thestar.com
Author: Editorial
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