Two of Stephen Harper's senate appointments have been shoved out of the Conservative caucus. The Senate was their reward for doing the Prime Minister's dirty work. But one of life's axioms is that what goes around comes around.
Patrick Brazeau helped Stephen Harper kill the Kelowna Accord. It was Brazeau, the deputy national chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, who supported Harper during the 2006 election. The Assembly of First Nations backed Paul Martin and the Accord. Michael Harris writes:
It was the age-old battle over reserve and non-reserve aboriginals and the differing treatment they receive from the federal government. Harper got his first minority government in 2006 in part because Brazeau, then CAP’s deputy-national chief, helped kill the Kelowna Accord. Two years later, he was in the Senate.
Mike Duffy also performed an essential service for Harper during the 2008 election. Lawrence Martin reminds his readers that:
Duffy has been a favourite of the PM’s. He was viewed as having done the Conservatives a great favour in the 2008 election. At the end of the campaign, when momentum could have tilted either way, Liberal leader Stephane Dion stumbled in responding to a CTV question he couldn’t understand. The CTV reporter promised Dion he wouldn’t run the clip — but Duffy turned around and made a major story of it. The Conservatives later acknowledged it really swung votes their way in the final days. It wasn’t much later that Duffy was named a senator.
Stephen Harper would not be where he is today without the assistance of Brazeau and Duffy. But henchmen come with their own baggage. Mr. Harper operates on the assumption that he exercises complete control over his minions. The problem is that minions eventually screw up. And men like Brazeau and Duffy screw up big time.
Henchmen are their own curse.
14 comments:
Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.
Go over to the Kinsella blog to see the Con-Troll Kool-Aid Brigade out in force to bully, sweep under rug, swell their chests and generally say 'nothing to see here, move along."
However, now, in 2013, the woim may have toined.
Nemesis can be very sweet, Owen, although I am sure it is a concept the Harper cabal will know only through experience, not education.
I have to admit to liking some of the jabs Brazeau took at Paul Martin, although I disagreed with him.
But I thought that whole thing with Dion was cruel, unfair, insensitive and stupid.
I didn't know Duffy was behind it. That useless, incompetent hack should go to prison for defrauding Canadians.
At the very least he should be out of the Senate by the end of today. why isn't he at least suspended?
Thanks for the tip, Anon. One hopes Canadians will finally cotton on to the snake oil salesmen.
Bruce Carson should have taught them a lesson, Lorne. But, obviously, they are slow learners.
Because these folks protect their own, thwap. They have gone to extraordinary lengths to protect Duffy.
I was listening to the CBC radio phone-in re the Duffy situation at noon today and people actually seemed to be angry and upset. It's the first time I've seen that on MSM. It's also the first time I've seen the CBC allow people to express such indignation. Mostly callers like these are edited out before they get on the air. God, it's taken long enough for the obvious to get through people's thick heads. Maybe now I won't be lectured on my negativity every time I mention the political situation.
There's always a tipping point, Fighting. Sometimes it takes a long time to get there.
I suspect that Duffy simply looks too fat and too comfortable -- particularly when the people he supposedly represents are being accused of Employment Insurance fraud.
Apparently Duffy has secluded himself at the cottage in PEI.
I really, really hope his wife is a safe with him because we know he's a booze hound who's life has just fallen apart.
That is almost never a recipe for calmness or peacefulness.
It's rather late to confront his demons, Dana. But perhaps this is all for the good -- for Duffy and the country.
Oh Owen, it's absolutely all to the good. She married him - she can deal with it too.
My wife is my better 3/4, Dana. I wouldn't be surprised if the mathematical situation wasn't the same in the Duffy home.
Duffy will be expendable. Harper will still be in office. He will simply annoint another one of his ilk to do his work. Harper has an agenda and nothing is going to slow him down. There is nothing too low to stoop to. He is the one who annointed Gordon Campbell, former premier of B.C. to his high commission position in London. That was most likely his reward for imposing the HST ON B.C. voters. Campbell did a great deal more "wrong" than Duffy has done. Campbell gave the children of B.C. the highest rate of child poverty for yrs on end. His political friend and CEO of CN got B.C. Rail, etc.
Harper has his majority and will do as he likes. His party will not move against him because those M.P.s could well be out of a job. He calls an election, they maybe toast. Where else will they have jobs which pay this well, with the pensions they receive. The Tories are stuck with Harper, just as we are stuck with him. He will not go until he is voted out of office. He has much work to do to rework Canada in the image he thinks it needs to be.
The man has said we won't recognize Canada when he is through, e.a.f.
I don't recognize the country anymore; and Harper is far from through.
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