Mike Duffy.
And the “Duff” will likely take him down.
In all of this, it is passing strange that Stephen Harper – one of Canada’s greatest critics of the Senate, could well end up falling on his sword for appointing Duffy and a few others as Senators.
After all, it was Harper who desperately wanted the Senate to be either an elected body or go the way of the Great Dodo. (The Provinces blocked him in the former while the Liberals stood against him in the latter).
From the very beginning Harper pledged Senate Reform and even promised not to appoint another Senator unless he or she was elected in their province of origin. When but a couple came forward, he was forced to get into the appointment business since to do otherwise would leave his party’s agenda at the mercy of Liberal Senate Majority.
So from my perspective Prime Minister Harper has the cleanest hands of all when it comes to doing something with the current Senate and its bunch of ne’er-do-well hangers-on.
That leads me back to the Duff.
Today he came out to blame his female staffer – “suffering from post partum depression” as the reason his accounts were improperly filed. I am not speaking about his housing expenses – since I concede that there is much ambiguity surrounding that issue.
Rather I am speaking about his apparent charging both the Conservatives and the Senate for his travel expenses at the time of the last election.
I am also referring to his “disabled friend” whom the Duff paid $65k for in the words of that friend “doing nothing”.
Many are coming out now in defence of Duffy saying he is being scapegoated – the same who said just a week earlier that Harper had to get rid of Duffy et al to restore the integrity (?) of the Senate.
You cannot have it both ways – you cannot stand in Harper’s way when he initially set out to reform the Senate and then later demand he jettison certain wayward Senators – and once done – be critical of the doing. It is absurd.
It unfortunately, is also the way politics works.
And Mike Duffy knows this fully as well as the fact that one is appointed for political purposes and can be summarily dismissed for those self same purposes.
I suffered a similar fate earlier in my governmental career but I was dumped for the sole fact that I was deemed to be a Tory when a Liberal Government came in.
I digress.
As I have said in an earlier blog – I think Mr. Harper may have slipped up.
He announced soon after it was revealed that he had no prior knowledge that his Chief of Staff had given Duffy the tidy sum of $90k to repay the Senate. (You remember this – Duffy first telling the media that it was his own money and that he and his wife had decided to voluntarily pay back the Senate etc etc).
As I said in my earlier Blog – I find it difficult to believe that the Prime Minister did not have advanced knowledge of this questionable loan.
I said then and I stand by it, Mr. Harper is entitled to the benefit of the doubt.
I fear though that given subsequent revelations that several in his office knew in advance – along with Duffy’s now apparent vindictive attitude, we may be on the verge of a startling revelation.
One that could very well spell the end of Harper’s Prime Ministership.
It would be too bad since, in all of this, Harper – despite what you may think of him on a personal level – is one of the very few good guys left on the Hill.
And I will tell you something else – if worse does come to worse for Harper – he too knows how the game is played – and I predict he will accept his fate without a whimper.
As I see it…
‘K.D. Galagher’
