Both Harper and Mulcair were back in the House, and ready for another round. Mulcair began with giving Harper a chance to be “crystal clear” as to whether Nigel Wright resigned or was fired. Harper said that they agreed that his actions were improper which was why he was no longer working in the PMO. Mulcair pressed in French, but Harper dodged once again and repeated the answer in French. Mulcair asked how many cheques were issued to Duffy as “hush money,” which Harper called a false allegation and reminded him that parties help members with legal assistance. Mulcair wondered if a $90,000 payment was a valid legal expense, and Harper assured him that it was not a party expense, and that NDP MPs were also provided with “substantial legal assistance.” Mulcair wondered what was done by the law firm on behalf of the PM that was worth $13,000. Harper simply repeated the line about legal assistance, and further alleged that the NDP paid damages on Mulcair’s behalf in a lawsuit. With Justin Trudeau in Calgary to deliver a speech on energy, it was up to Ralph Goodale to lead off, and he asked when Harper first heard that his staff had counselled Duffy to lie. Paul Calandra got up in Harper’s stead and accused the Liberals of making victims of the three senators plus former senator Mac Harb. Goodale wondered why Harper took a weekend to decide that Wright needed to be fired after previously being called “honourable.” Calandra assured him that the PM was clear, and hey, pipelines! Goodale pressed one last time, and listed the many ethical lapses on Harper’s part. The Speaker warned him about veering into party business, but Calandra got up instead and regaled a parable about his children getting an allowance.
Tag Archives: MIke Duffy
Roundup: A record year for privacy breaches
The Privacy Commissioner tabled her annual report yesterday, including a separate audit of the Canada Revenue Agency, and it doesn’t have a lot of nice things to say – a record number of complaints, a record number of reported data breaches, and over at the CRA, lax controls allowed employees to access personal tax files for no appropriate reason.
QP: The Mulcair and Harper show
Thomas Mulcair launched QP with a bit of a soliloquy about how he was just in Brandon, Manitoba, where people were disgusted with the scandal and mess, and wondered why the PM kept changing his story. Harper rather demurely dismissed the notion that his story had changed, but asserted that those who broke the rules were no longer on the public payroll, as he hoped those senators would soon be. Mulcair pressed — Duffy said there were at least two cheques, and could he say what they were. Harper asserted, straight-faced, that the party regularly reimburses members of its caucus for legal expenses, but Duffy’s abuse of taxpayer dollars should be enough to have him removed from the Senate. Mulcair wanted to know who knew of this second cheque but Harper simply repeated his answer. For his final question of the round, Mulcair wondered somewhat rhetorically how many lawyers it took for “no legal agreement.” Harper asserted that he didn’t know what Mulcair was referring to. Justin Trudeau got up next, and brought up the contradictions once again and demanded that Harper testify under oath. Harper rejected the premise of the question, and went on a tear about how awful Duffy was and how he wanted him removed from the payroll. When pressed, Harper went further about Duffy’s sins and how he hasn’t paid back a single cent from his own funds, which was wrong. When Trudeau tried one last time to impress upon Harper the need to testify under oath, Harper returned to his earlier talking points.
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.
QP: Fired or resigned?
With none of the leaders present in the House, it was up to Megan Leslie to lead off QP for the NDP, where she asked about the contradiction about Harper claiming on the radio earlier in the morning that Nigel Wright had been fired whereas it was previously established that he resigned. Paul Calandra was up to respond, and said that to his credit, Wright had taken full responsibility for the payout to Duffy and no longer worked in the PMO. Leslie tried to press as to how many Conservatives were aware of the payout to Duffy, but Calandra insisted that it was all in the court affidavits. Nycole Turmel was up next to repeat the same in French, to which Calandra repeated his same talking points, and for her supplemental, Turmel brought up the deal that Senator Carignan offered to Braseau, and wondered if the PM was aware of it. Calandra said that they wanted them to take a measure of responsibility and called for the Liberals in the Senate to stand down and pass the suspensions (never mind the senators in the Conservative caucus who are opposed). Dominic LeBlanc was up for the Liberals, and returned to the same questions about the Prime Minister’s changing talking points, but Calandra didn’t veer from his same talking points, and again called on the Liberals in the Senate to stop their obstruction. LeBlanc closed the round by asking why Harper wouldn’t answer questions about the affair under oath, but Calandra’s talking points didn’t change.
Roundup: To amend or not to amend the motion
As we get ready for another sitting week of Parliament, we are no closer to finding any kind of clarity or resolution to the issue of the suspension motions in the Senate. In fact, there are different stories being floated in the media – some that the Conservatives there are open to compromises in the motions, based on comments that Senator Claude Carignan, the leader of the government in the Senate, made. The PMO, meanwhile, is standing firm that they want the suspensions without pay – not that they actually have a say in the matter, given that the Senate is the master of its own destiny and not at the beck and call of the PMO (despite what many – including a handful of senators who haven’t learned better yet – may think). So that leaves the state of play still very much in motion as things get underway. Justin Trudeau, for his part, wants everyone involved to testify under oath, feeling that’s the only way everything will be cleared up. While Senator Cowan’s motion to send it to a committee would give an opportunity to summon the current and former PMO staffers involved, Parliamentary committees can’t summons Parliamentarians and force them to testify (because of privilege), so the really key players may yet be spared from testimony if that is the case. Law professor Carissima Mathen talks to CTV about the legal arguments in the Senate suspension motions. Tom Clark writes about how this is playing with the Conservative base, and how the push for swift action in the backrooms and behind closed doors is starting to look more like the Chrétien/Martin way of doing things, which is what the Conservatives rode into Ottawa promising to clean up.
Roundup: Nonsensical offers for backroom deals
Well, that was interesting. As the debate in the Senate over the suspension motions carried on, moving into the realms now of invoking time allocation and turning the motions from an independent one to government motions, something else completely weird and awkward happened. Senator Patrick Brazeau took to the floor and said that he had essentially been offered a backroom deal by the government leader in the Senate, Claude Carignan – that if he apologised to the Chamber and took full responsibility, then his punishment would be reduced. But none of it makes any sense, particularly when Carignan “clarified” that he was being too helpful and offered Brazeau options of how they could made amendments to the motion. But Brazeau doesn’t believe that he was in the wrong with his housing claims, and no amendments could have been moved because the Senate is still debating Senator Cowan’s amendment to send these three senators before a committee to have everything fully aired. Not to mention that Carignan said that suspension without pay still had to happen, so we’re not sure what could be negotiated other than perhaps the length of the suspension. And while the Conservatives in the House were demanding that the Liberal senators “step aside” and pass the suspension motions “for the good of the taxpayer,” the counter-narrative emerged that the Liberals were not going to be complicit in a cover-up – the notion that the only way all the facts will come out is before a committee where witnesses can be compelled to testify (and hopefully in a way that won’t interfere in the ongoing RCMP investigations). These Conservatives didn’t seem to remember that several Conservative senators are also against the suspensions – or are at least in favour of some better element of due process – though Harper took to talk radio in Toronto to urge those dissenters to vote for the suspension motions because it wasn’t about the RCMP investigations but about internal discipline – err, except there are some pretty valid arguments that at least some of these senators have been the victim of unclear rules and processes, and there are no established internal procedures for discipline this harsh, and they are very wary of setting a precedent that could be used against any others that the government of the day doesn’t like in the future. Not to mention that it is increasingly transparent that the Conservative brass wants this settled before their convention. And as for Senator Wallin, well, she continued to speak out, waiving her right to privacy with Internal Economy transcripts from in camera sessions, and tabling her own documents to help prove her case. Nothing is resolved, and the Senate returns Monday afternoon (which is another rarity, as normally only committees will sit on a Monday instead of the full chamber).
Roundup: Even the base doesn’t like the unfairness
The motions in the Senate around the suspension without pay of the three embattled senators remains unresolved, and the Senate will be sitting today – a rarity – in order to try to reach a resolution. As this happens, more cracks are forming within the Conservative Senate caucus, as Senator Don Plett – a former party president and not of the Red Tory wing – came out against the suspensions as being against due process and basic fairness. Oh, and if anyone says it’s about trying to please the party base, well, he is that base. Down the hall in the Commons, MP Peter Goldring also encouraged Conservative Senators to vote down the suspensions and wants the Governor General to step in if necessary. As the debate wore on, it not only touched on due process, the lack of guidelines for why this suspension was taking place, and even the definitions of what constitutes “Senate business,” which is something the Auditor General gets to grapple with. It is all raising some fundamental questions about the institution that it never really had to deal with before, and one hopes will help create a much clearer path for the Chamber going forward.
QP: Harper hits back — at the Liberals
It’s Thomas Mulcair’s birthday, not that he was really going to get any answers out of Harper as a gift for the occasion. Mulcair began by asking a rather lengthy question around the stonewalling around what Nigel Wright knew, but Harper insisted that Wright kept the whole affair to himself. Mulcair brought up Ray Novak and Marjory LeBreton’s alleged call to Mike Duffy telling him that the deal was off. Harper responded that Mulcair was buying into the story that Duffy was the victim rather than the fact of the misspending that got him booted from caucus. When Mulcair tried to clarify whether or not Harper had singled out Duffy at the caucus meeting in February, Harper said that the spending of the three senators was brought up in caucus and he made his emphatic statement then. When Mulcair asked when Harper did threaten to expel Duffy from the Senate, Harper reiterated that rule-breakers had no place in caucus. Leading for the Liberals was Dominic LeBlanc, as Justin Trudeau was speaking away speaking in Washington DC. LeBlanc asked why one former PMO staffer who was involved was promoted despite potentially criminal behaviour. Harper responded by calling out Liberal senators for holding up the suspension without pay of those three senators. LeBlanc pushed, bringing up or their questionable hires by the PMO, but Harper kept insisting that the Liberal senators were keeping those misbehaving from being punished (which is of course false, as they are simply looking to put it to committee to give it due process).
Roundup: Pamela Wallin and the conspiracy against her
Poor Pamela Wallin – that’s the story she would have us believe, based on her speech in her defence in the Senate today. Only unlike Mike Duffy, who was scorching the earth and taking the Prime Minister down with him, Wallin got personal with other Senators, naming Marjory LeBreton and Carolyn Stewart-Olsen as the architects of some kind of conspiracy against her, and gave the defence that the other Senators resented her because she was an “activist senator” – a bogus and self-aggrandising construct that presupposes that no other senator is also activist. Contrary to the myth of people who do no work and nap all day, most Senators are active in their activism around one cause or another. For most, it’s why they got appointed in the first place. In fact, most of their activism and causes are far more focused than Wallin’s, whose “activism” seemed to be largely about supporting the troops and being a motivational speaker on demand. For her part, LeBreton completely refuted Wallin’s accusations of conspiracy and of the campaign of leaks designed to “discredit” Wallin, and further added that she wasn’t responsible for Wallin’s expense claims. Because yes, those are still at the heart of the issue, and Wallin isn’t exactly offering contrition for anything on her part.