Senate Expenses Scandal

Wednesday April 8, 2015

Wednesday April 8, 2015Editorial cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday April 8, 2015

It’s not just Duffy – the Harper era is on trial

In the court of public opinion, Senator Mike Duffy may have already been found guilty. That verdict could well be shown wrong. Rules governing Senate housing expenses are vague, and Mr. Duffy has a crackerjack lawyer in Don Bayne.

Of course, it’s not the fate of Mr. Duffy that has created enormous interest in this trial. It’s the fate of the government. It is the morality, the integrity of the Conservative Party hierarchy, that is on trial.

Most of the accusations facing Mr. Duffy himself involve alleged little embezzlements relating to expense accounts. But abuse of the public trust by way of an alleged coverup operation involving top officials in the Prime Minister’s Office, as Mr. Duffy’s team claim, is much more serious.

It may well be shown that Prime Minister Stephen Harper didn’t know about the $90,000 payout to Mr. Duffy by former chief of staff Nigel Wright. But we know from an RCMP affidavit that many of his senior officials knew. Mr. Harper could try to claim he is not responsible for their actions, but that tactic is unlikely to succeed politically. When former prime minister Jean Chrétien faced accusations around the sponsorship scandal, it was never shown that he had personal knowledge of Montreal ad agency men running off with monies from that program. But that didn’t save the Liberals from damaging consequences.

More serious for the Conservatives is that the Senate scandal might reopen the vault on the larger abuse-of-power narrative that has dogged the Harper government. It may be seen as a microcosm of the serial breaches of the public trust: the undercover dirty tricks, the smear campaigns against opponents, the altering of official documents, the democracy-shredding omnibus bills.

If you wanted to go into detail, you could fill an entire page of news print with the ethical transgressions of this government that have undermined the democratic process.

They’ve become so common they hardly make news any more. A recent example is Bill C-51, the new and widely condemned security legislation that interferes with Canadians’ privacy. What did the Conservatives do? (Continued, Globe & Mail)

Posted to Yahoo Canada News

Mike Duffy refresher

Iced Camembert Photo MontageThe Senate Expenses Saga

A cartoon refresher on Senate silliness as Mike Duffy goes to trial. Senate Sloths to Pamela Wallin pillows to Patrick Brazeau living off reserve(d caviar), to Mike Duffy’s Peruvian love child, to Nigel Wright’s deep pockets, to Stephen Harper just wanting it all to go away.

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Saturday July 19, 2014

Saturday July 19, 2014By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday July 19, 2014

RCMP lay 31 criminal charges against Senator Mike Duffy

Mike Duffy’s fall from grace took another stunning tumble Thursday as Mounties charged the suspended senator with 31 counts of fraud, breach of trust and bribery in connection with the alleged misuse of taxpayers’ funds.

The charges set the stage for a dramatic trial involving a high-profile witness list that could include Nigel Wright, the former top aide to Stephen Harper, Conservative senators and perhaps even the prime minister.

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At the very least, the long list of criminal charges laid against the former Conservative senator will be an ongoing political headache for Harper in the run-up to the 2015 election. Duffy is due in court on Sept. 16, a day after Parliament is due to resume sitting following the summer break.

Months of investigation ended with the news that the former television journalist was facing a raft of criminal allegations of bribery, kickbacks and defrauding Canadian taxpayers — all related to his time as a senator.

“Investigators followed numerous leads and today’s charges are the result of a careful examination of the facts,” RCMP Assistant Commissioner Gilles Michaud told reporters at an Ottawa news conference.

In an unexpected development, the RCMP not only charged Duffy with fraud and breach of trust but added a charge of bribery in connection with the $90,000 cheque that Wright, Harper’s former chief of staff, wrote for Duffy to pay the senator’s questionable expense claims.

Questions about the $90,000 cheque have swirled around Wright and Harper, who has said he knew nothing about Wright’s decision to pay Duffy. Wright, who quit the PMO after it became known that he had written the cheque, had also been investigated by the RCMP. But police recently concluded there were no grounds to charge Wright.

Yet Duffy lawyer Donald Bayne questioned how Harper’s top aide could escape charges while the senator is now facing criminal accusations.

“I am sure that I am not the only Canadian who will now wonder openly, how what was not a crime or bribe when Nigel Wright paid it on his own initiative, became however mysteriously, a crime or bribe when received by Sen. Duffy,” Bayne said in a statement released late Wednesday.

“The evidence will show, that Sen. Duffy did not want to participate in Nigel Wright’s and the PMO’s repayment scenario, which they concocted for purely political purposes,” Bayne said. (Source: Toronto Star)

OTHER MEDIA

Illustrates a column in the Regina Leader-Post, July 22 2014 by Murray Mandryk “Duffy fallout may extend to Saskatchewan”.

Published in the Montreal Gazette, July 22 2014.

 

Thursday July 17, 2014

Thursday July 17, 2014By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday July 17, 2014

Mike Duffy is my father, Peruvian woman claims in a lawsuit

Beleaguered Senator Mike Duffy faced fresh controversy Tuesday after Maclean’s magazine published an interview with a Peruvian woman who claims to be his daughter.

The magazine reported that the woman, Karen Duffy, was born to Duffy after an affair with a convicted Peruvian drug smuggler who served time at a Kingston, Ont., prison.

The Maclean’s story says the alleged affair lasted for a few months in the early 1980s while her mother was on parole at an Ottawa halfway house.

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The 32-year-old woman told the magazine that she and her mother tried to reach out to the journalist-turned-senator over the past few decades, with no response. Karen ultimately decided to file a lawsuit in Peruvian court, determined to receive acknowledgement that Duffy is her biological father.

Karen, who has a family of her own, said she is not seeking money in the lawsuit and only wants “to have a relationship.”

“I want to meet him. I want him to know me, and share the things that are important to me,” the magazine quoted her as saying.

Her claims have not been tested in court.

Duffy, staying far away from the limelight he once occupied, had little to say.

“The Maclean’s story contains untrue allegations, made by a convicted narcotics smuggler, and which go back more than 30 years. I will respond to any legal process from Peru in an appropriate manner. I will have no further comment,” he said in a statement to CBC News.

Duffy was suspended without pay from the Senate for two years in late 2013. He is also currently facing an RCMP investigation relating to questionable travel and housing claims the senator made while in office, as well as a $90,000 cheque given to him by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former chief of staff Nigel Wright. Duffy has not been charged with any crime. The RCMP ended its investigation into Wright this past April, clearing him of any criminal wrongdoing. (Source: CBC News)

SOCIAL MEDIA

Reposted at Yahoo News Canada.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Patrick Brazeau, Mac Harb charged by RCMP

Suspended Senator Patrick Brazeau and retired senator Mac Harb have been formally charged by the RCMP with one count each of fraud and breach of trust related to inappropriate Senate expense claims.

RCMP Assistant Commissioner Gilles Michaud announced the charges at a news conference at about 11:10 am ET Tuesday.

“The RCMP has proceeded to charge Mr. Brazeau and Mr. Harb with one count each of breach of trust and fraud under sections 122 and 380 of the Criminal Code, ” Michaud said. “Both  Mr. Brazeau and Mr. Harb will be appearing in court at a later date.”

The Mounties allege Brazeau and Harb defrauded taxpayers by claiming travel and living expenses to which they were not entitled.

Brazeau was suspended from the Senate in October along with onetime fellow Conservative Senators Mike Duffy and Pamela Wallin. The three former Conservatives were suspended without pay following an outside audit of their expenses.

Harb, who was a Liberal senator until his spending came under scrutiny through an external audit, retired in August after paying back $231,000.

Both Brazeau and Harb, along with Mike Duffy and Pamela Wallin, were subject to a lengthy Senate investigation of their expenses claims and living allowances.

A Senate committee determined each of the four had claimed tens of thousands of dollars in expenses that they were not entitled to.
The Senate then passed its files to the RCMP.

The charges expected Tuesday against Brazeau and Harb are the first to flow from the RCMP’s own lengthy investigation of the spending scandal, underway since May 2013. (Source: CBC News)

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