We here in Canada are in the midst of a criminal trial regarding a politician who has been charged with bribery, fraud and so on.
But we do not have scandals like they do in so many other parts of the world – in the case at hand – the politician a Senator, in our no longer esteemed Senate, paid back the Senate some $90, 000 he allegedly improperly had taken.
The 90 grand was given to him by our Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff – one Nigel Wright, but the bottom-line here is the fact that the taxpayer was fully compensated for this Senator’s moral lapse.
Before I get into this there was a recent case where an MP was taken away in irons because …he had overspent his election cap by $20 k which dear reader was his own money which he donated to his campaign.
So you get the idea that we do scandals differently here in our boy scout /girl guide country.
That is not to say we are lily white – indeed we have a rogue Liberal Province – Ontario where scandal after scandal involving lost taxpayer dough go unchallenged. They say that there are ongoing provincial police investigations but the officers on the case are beginning to die off from old age. It could have something to do with the fact that these same cops openly supported the Liberals in Ontario in the most recent election.
But let’s get back to Wright or Wrong.
This case is not just about taxpayer money being repaid. It is also about a senior official in the Prime Minister’s Office paying this politician money to see that a draft report was amended before being released. The amendment would drop the politician’s name from the list of those being investigated for fraud.
The 90 grand payment did the trick – the report was whitewashed and the Prime Minister was spared having on of his appointees to the Senate dragged though the media mud which in turn would reflect badly on the Conservatives.
Nice work, but it is most illegal to do, that is to say – to pay even your own money to a politician in order to gain a benefit which the Prime Minister and his office most certainly gained.
Wright is also a highly educated lawyer – he knew what he was doing was Wrong and he should have been charged along the errant Senator.
The greater issue though is whether Prime Minister Harper knew and if he did know – why he did not stop the payment.
The answer to this question is even more important today since Canada finds itself in the midst of a General Election with the 3 major parties statistically tied at 30%.
I have written previously that I fully believe Harper, the control freak, knew of this payment well before it was made and I continue to believe that despite Wright’s testimony this week that he made the payment on his own without the knowledge of Stephen Harper.
I won’t go into my reasons why I believe as I do – they are on record in previous blog (s) if you are inclined to look them up.
I will though reiterate that even if what Wright says – i.e. that Harper did not know of the payment – Wright should be charged.
Nor is Harper now in the clear.
I say that because the focus to date has been on the $90 thousand – and as long as Wright is willing to stick to his story – Harper may well be in the clear in regard to that but …
There was also the sum of $30,000 bandied around. The fundraising arm of the Conservative Party had agreed to bail the greedy Senator out for that amount but balked when it was discovered the money to be repaid was 3 times that amount.
The amount may be a third of what Wright ended up giving the Senator – but the issue remains the same in both.
So is Harper saying that his top guy in the Fundraising Arm too was going to give away donor money without his knowledge.
And emails say that his current Chief of Staff was also in the know about all this.
Seems like Harper was the only one who was not in the know.
It is very clear to me – how about you?
As I see it…
‘K.D. Galagher’
