Roundup: The tale of the second cheque

Boom! The ClusterDuff exploded yet again yesterday, with yet more revelations from Senator Mike Duffy, who took advantage of what could be his final days of the protection of parliamentary privilege, and laid out yet more accusations against the PMO. This after a morning where Stephen Harper took to the radio waves and declared that Nigel Wright had been fired, in direct contradiction to all previous assertions that Wright resigned. So while the Commons fixated on this contradiction, Senator Duffy took the floor in the Senate, and detonated his next bomb – that there was not one cheque, but two, and that the talk of an RBC loan was actually a script from the PMO that he had been made to deliver. That second cheque was from the Conservative party lawyer, Arthur Hamilton, which paid for Duffy’s legal fees – and this time, he provided documents to prove it. The party doesn’t deny covering the legal expenses, saying that they will sometimes pay the legal fees of their caucus members. This is likely an indication, according to John Geddes, that the party was still keen to defend him and by extension their decision to appoint him as a PEI senator, with their particular reading of those rules. While Duffy contended that there remains a whole other email chain in the hands of his lawyers that he wants to see turned over to the RCMP, though an envelope was later handed to the CBC which appeared to cast some doubt as to Duffy’s version of events – or at the very least was a good trial run as to his scripting around where the money came from. If there is one bright side to all of this it’s the level of engagement that the public is demonstrating, and the fact that senators are pointing to the number of emails they are receiving from people who want to see due process – and one senator that I spoke with this afternoon brought this up without prompting. And while these senators have zero sympathy for their three embattled peers, they at least want to ensure that there is process followed.

Not to be outdone, Senator Patrick Brazeau took to CBC’s Power and Politics to plead his own case, but also made a few more allegations – that the “backroom deal” offered to him by Senator Carignan was to reduce his suspension without pay from two years to just one, that his troubles began in caucus after he pushed on the missing and murdered Aboriginal women file and the lack of a national enquiry, and he even went so far as to say that Senator LeBreton doesn’t like Aboriginals (to which she replied that if that was the case, why did she make him deputy chair of the Human Rights committee). Brazeau also continues to deny that he broke rules (which may actually be technically true), and that the RCMP haven’t contacted him about his expenses. (No word about his tax filings, however).

Elsewhere, Laura Payton gives us a look at Conservative Party lawyer Arthur Hamilton, whose name is cropping up an awful lot these days. Jim Flaherty, meanwhile, rather incredulously declares that the Senate issue is a “distraction” from the economic agenda. Um, I’m not exactly sure how or why he can justify that particular statement, other than perhaps he feels that we should be focusing on the economy and nothing but the economy at all times (except maybe when a crime bill needs to be passed). Because apparently Parliament can’t multitask. Here is Kady O’Malley’s yet-again updated timeline of ClusterDuff events. Mark Kennedy looks at how these ongoing revelations will likely impact the Conservative convention this weekend. Paul Wells notes the way in which Harper treated this scandal as opposed to the time when there was political damage from indelicate comments that his staffer Ian Brodie made to some American journalists during the 2008 US primaries. Andrew Coyne enumerates the many ways in which this whole affair continues to defy belief – such as the PMO blackmailing Duffy into letting them pay his expenses, and the various lies thereafter. And it really does continue to defy belief.

Aaron Wherry lists the things that you may have missed last week while everyone was paying attention to the goings-on in the Senate. Also going largely unnoticed is the Quebec sovereignty issue unfolding in the Quebec courts as the challenge to Law 99 goes ahead.

Jim Flaherty insists that the deficit will be eliminated by 2015-16.

Emails obtained by Elections Canada are raising questions about the Dean Del Mastro case, and his claims that cheques weren’t backdated when there are emails indicating that they were. Del Mastro, meanwhile, took to the TV to proclaim that this is just an “accounting dispute.”

National Energy Board data shows a doubling of pipeline safety incidents over the past decade, which may be the result of aging infrastructure.

Former Supreme Court Justice John Major says that the laws around assisted suicide need to be updated. Major was on the bench for the Rodriguez decision, where he was on the side of the majority 5-4 side that agreed to uphold the existing law. He said that the decision was intended to be a message to Parliament to deal with the issue, but the continue to refuse to, twenty years later.

The Lobbying Commissioner has handed down her first ever suspension, which bans someone from lobbying for a period of…four months. On a related note, she may need her governing legislation strengthened.

Assistant RCMP Commissioner Randy Beck is in the Philippines to advise the government with establishing security forces in a war-torn regions with conflicts between Christians and Muslims. Beck’s experience in Canada, with three levels of government and our diverse populations including Aboriginals are seen as a boon to the needed expertise there.

And over in Toronto Centre, NDP candidate Linda McQuaig is playing the “just visiting” card with Liberal candidate Chrystia Freeland, who is not apologising for an international career or for relocating to the riding.