His Luck Is Running Out

There's a scene in It's A Mad, Mad, Mad World where Jonathan Winters destroys a gas station and two of its attendants. As the Senate debacle unravels, the prime minister -- consumed with rage -- looks more and more like Jonathan Winters on a rampage.

At the end of the scene, having obliterated the building and its inhabitants, Winters hops in a tow truck and drives away, unscathed.

Lawrence Martin suggests that things will not work out that way for Stephen Harper:

But the list is long and Harper’s odds are not good. There is a common thread running through his governance, a pattern of subverting or attempting to subvert the system, the public trust. It has finally caught up to him.

The prime minister has been lucky. He has made a career out of blaming others for his troubles. But his luck is running out.

Abolish The Senate? You've Got To Be Kidding.

Mike Duffy's speech yesterday should have reminded all Canadians why we have a Senate. Mitchell Anderson  writes in The Tyee:

Harper's response to Mike Duffy's disloyalty has been thermonuclear: essentially to set a precedent where the PMO can unseat the same senators recently appointed at a whim and without due process -- relying on a legal anachronism dating back to 1300.

As Duffy told his colleagues yesterday, the Senate is the last brake on an imperial prime minister:

If successful, Harper would succeed in further advancing his incremental coup d'état of the PMO on our government institutions. The motion being rammed through the upper chamber would remove about the only good thing you can say about the job-for-life jackpot enjoyed by senators: tenured job security that could in theory counterbalance the ballooning power of the PMO.

Not surprisingly, when senators actually wanted to debate this motion, the government invoked closure -- perhaps worried their upper chamber caucus members are awaking from their stupor as obedient "Harper seals." 

What appears to be an old folks home for retired bagmen and women actually performs an important function. The Senate may need reform. But it should not be abolished:

The prime minister may also have inadvertently instigated Senate reform. Imagine if senators seized the opportunity to prove to the Canadian people that they actually have a vital role to play in our democracy. The job-for-life privilege Canadians find so egregious should be the very trait of the upper chamber that would allow its members to stand up to the unbridled power of the PMO. Canadians would cheer them on.  

Everything depends on what the Conservative majority does with the motions to expel Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau. They could simply suspend the resolutions pending the result of the RCMP investigation -- which would be standard operating procedure.

Of course, by that time, all of Mike Duffy's evidence will be made public -- and Stephen Harper will be looking for the exit.

'Til Death

Yesterday, in the Postmedia papers, Andrew Coyne wondered why Stephen Harper would risk so much over Mike Duffy's expenses. He ended his column by paraphrasing Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons: "it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world . . . but for Duffy?"

On the same day, in The National Post, Tasha Kheiriddin answered Coyne's question:

The only real option for Prime Minister Stephen Harper is to fight to the death — to shred Mr. Duffy’s credibility, and with it, his story. The Tories are masters of the attack ad and the research that goes with it, which makes it all the more likely they will do what they do best: throw their opponent under a shiny blue bus.

And when the issue of integrity is at stake, they won’t hesitate to sacrifice one of their own. Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, now Minister of Tourism, Maxime Bernier resigned from cabinet in disgrace in 2008 after leaving NATO documents at the home of his ex-girlfriend, who had been linked to organized-crime figures. Former Minister of State for the Status of Women Helena Guergis was turfed in 2010 on unspecified allegations regarding her conduct, fueled by news reports that her husband, former MP Rahim Jaffer, had consorted with con men and “busty hookers.” Former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney was hauled before a commission of inquiry in 2008 over his relationship with fraudster Karl-Heinz Schreiber.

When Duffy met with Wright and Harper, he was reminded that, like More, he served at the King's convenience. That meant that, if necessary, he had to take a bullet for the boss. Mr. Harper should have known when he appointed him that  Mr. Duffy would accept accolades, but he would not bow out, as Mr. Wright did.

Mike Duffy is no Thomas More. But his predicament is the same. After having remained silent all this time -- and with nothing left to lose -- he has spoken. In the end, this is all about the power of the King. And, in the end, either Mr. Duffy's or Mr. Harper's head will be put on public display.

From Contempt To Contemptible

In 2011, Stephen Harper was found in contempt of Parliament.  At the time, he defined contempt as "being outvoted." And, having won the subsequent election, he proceeded on the assumption that "contempt" was a meaningless concept. What mattered was winning.

After Mike Duffy's speech in the Senate yesterday, Mr. Harper will be forced to re-examine his definition of contempt. For, as Michael den Tandt writes, his house of cards is falling apart:

Here’s where this leads: If Duffy’s story is true, and he can indeed prove it, then the entire senior Conservative power structure in Ottawa is on trial. And if, as [Duffy's lawyer, Donald] Bayne has hinted, there’s evidence the prime minister knew of the Wright-Duffy deal before May 15 — when he has said repeatedly he did not know — then Harper himself will be irreparably damaged.

Den Tandt believes that the only way out is a public inquiry, where all the principals -- including Mr. Harper -- must testify under oath:

There’s just one way to get to the bottom of it. The principals — including Wright, Duffy, former PMO director of issues management Chris Woodcock, LeBreton, former PMO lawyer Benjamin Perrin and indeed Harper himself, as well as Brazeau and Wallin — must tell their stories under oath, in a public forum. Emails and documents must be made public. If there’s been lying or other wrongdoing, those responsible must take their lumps — up to and including the PM himself.

But that's the last thing Stephen Harper wants. He knows what the Gomery Inquiry did to the Liberals. Without it, Stephen Harper would not be prime minister. And Mr. Harper is not one for testifying under oath. He will do anything and everything to make sure that doesn't happen.

One thing is certain. The prime minister is going to be schooled in the difference between "contempt" and "contemptible."  And, this time, he's going to be on the receiving end.

That Big Mouth

On the day Stephen Harper returned to Question Period, planning to crow about his new trade deal, Donald Bayne crashed the party. Mike Duffy's lawyer took direct aim at the Prime Minister's Office and at Stephen Harper himself. Andrew Coyne writes:

Donald Bayne may not have succeeded, in the course of Monday’s press conference, in lifting his client clear of the muck. But he has certainly dragged the rest of the Tory hierarchy down into it.

And the muck keeps getting deeper. This story is no longer about Mike Duffy:

Duffy has long since ceased to be the issue. Certainly if the excerpted emails and memos his lawyer read out are indicative, he was indeed counseled on several occasions by senior Tories, including Sen. Marjory LeBreton (the former government leader in the Senate), Sen. David Tkachuk (the former chairman of the Senate internal economy committee) and Nigel Wright (the former chief of staff to the Prime Minister) that he was entitled to his entitlements.

But it’s what they did after that is of more particular interest. Duffy is aggrieved that, having first encouraged him, party grandees then abandoned him, and have now moved to suspend him (along with senators Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau) from the Senate without pay. But the story he has begun to tell — and threatens to tell further — promises to do them far greater harm.

Contrary to the picture the PMO has put about, of a lone Wright, acting on his own and without consultation, suddenly deciding to pay Duffy’s expenses out of his own personal fortune, Duffy offers further evidence that it was part of a sustained exercise in damage control of which a good many top Conservatives either knew or took part, among them — according to Wright’s lawyers — three officials in the PMO, including Benjamin Perrin, then the prime minister’s legal counsel. 

The story is now about the prime minister's inner sanctum -- and about the prime minister himself. He and they tried to make unpleasant facts disappear. Mr. Harper is learning -- as his mentor Richard Nixon learned -- that the cover up is what does you in.

 And that "the biggest mouth in Ottawa" would not stay shut for long.

Making Duffy An Enemy

John Ivison compares Senator Mike Duffy to Kevin Spacey's character in the recently released film, House of Cards:

Frank “The Whip” Underwood was speaking from experience when he said: “Friends make the worst enemies.”

Kevin Spacey’s menacing character in House of Cards is intent on bringing down all those on his own team who betrayed him when he was passed over for high office.

 The vindictiveness, if not the malevolence, bears a striking similarity to a certain former Conservative senator, who feels he has been thrown to the wolves by his former colleagues, in the interests of political expediency, while innocent of all transgressions.

Duffy had obvious connections within the Conservative Party. But he has more connections within the Ottawa press corps. And information keeps leaking out to the media. Bob Fife's recent revelations that Nigel Wright acted with the assistance of Senators  David Thachuk and Carolyn Stewart Olsen in arranging the $90,000 payment and whitewashed audit of Duffy's expenses blows a hole in the prime minister's story that Wright acted on his own.

And Fife's revelation that former Harper director of communications Angelo Persichilli informed Duffy that the Conservative Party would turn against him "if he didn’t repay the money" makes the Wright payment look anything but benevolent.

Harper seems to have forgotten that Duffy has been around Parliament Hill for thirty years and he knows how to play the game -- which means he knows how to get even. Ivison writes that, if the case and Stephen Harper go to court, there will be two different stories:

The suggestion is that the course of events recalled by Mr. Duffy do not tally with the version put on the public record by the Prime Minister — a tantalising prospect that would surely have repercussions on Mr. Harper’s grip on power were he to add to, or change, his story under oath.

That's why Harper's acolytes are asking Duffy to resign. Don't count on it. They have made a one time friend an enemy.

Enemies Within

Michael Harris suggests that, despite Stephen Harper's recent attempt to list his enemies, his real foes are inside his own tent. That may be the real story behind the the sound and fury over Mike Duffy:

Could the answer be that the deal was the brainchild of the PMO, and that Senator Duffy was forced to agree to the payback for reasons not yet known? If so, what could those reasons be?

“Maybe someone who didn’t owe anything was forced to go along with this scheme against his will,” says a player with personal knowledge of the events surrounding the Nigel Wright payment to Duffy — not for direct attribution. “Wouldn’t it be interesting if the RCMP were to question people about threats against a sitting legislator to get him to plead guilty to a non-crime for political purposes? Wouldn’t that be interesting?”

It's been obvious for some time now that the Conservatives' dysfunction  has nothing to do with fringe players. The bad guys aren't rogues. They reside in the Prime Minister's Office. Harris suggests that  an audit of Duffy's expenses would ultimately lead back to the 2011 election:

The government also was labouring under the shadow of dirty tricks in the last election, from robocalls that had Elections Canada investigating 56 ridings where voter suppression had been alleged, to the use by the CPC in 14 Conservative campaigns of the U.S. firm Front Porch Strategies, an campaign organizing group with close ties to the Republican Party. The law is murky on whether it is legal for foreigners to campaign on the ground in a Canadian election, as Front Porch did in the campaigns of Julian Fantino and Rick Dykstra.

The Conservatives know exactly how they won the last election. And they are working furiously to make sure that the public never discovers the skeletons they left behind. The real enemies are those within the party who know where the skeletons are buried.

It's Happened Before

Documents released yesterday indicate that, contrary to what Stephen Harper says, there were more people than Nigel Wright involved in the pay off to Mike Duffy. Most interesting of all is the revelation that Senator Irving Gertsein, who controls Conservative Party funds, was prepared to pony up $30,000 to help Duffy pay his bill -- until Gerstein discovered that Duffy's tab was three times bigger than that.

Paul Wells writes that this isn't the first time party money was used to try and make a problem go away:

At the beginning of the campaign for the 2006 election, an Ottawa lawyer named Alan Riddell stepped aside as the Conservatives’ nominated candidate in the Ottawa South riding. The party wanted to run Alan Cutler, a public servant who had blown the whistle on the Liberal sponsorship scandal, in the riding. Besides, as a candidate Riddell was, to some extent, less than ideal. He had run for the Conservatives in 2004 and lost after the Ottawa Sun ran an embarrassing story about a prank Riddell had played in his student days. (He’d dressed up as a character from Hogan’s Heroes, and I don’t mean Corporal LeBeau. A bit of a no-no, in retrospect.) After he lost the Sun retracted much of its story, but the damage was done. So, under some pressure from the party in 2006, Riddell dropped out, the party thanked him for his efforts, and Cutler became the candidate.

Then a CBC reporter asked Riddell why he had pulled out of the race so late. Riddell replied that the party made it easy by agreeing to cover his campaign expenses. He put the cost at about $50,000. Reporters following Harper on the campaign trail promptly asked him about the deal with Riddell. “In fact there is no agreement and he hasn’t been paid anything,” Harper said. When asked again later that day — it was the end of 2005 and Harper was still the kind of guy who might deign to scrum twice in one day — he repeated himself: “The party does not have an agreement to pay Mr. Riddell these expenses, and Mr. Riddell has not been paid anything to date.”

Unfortunately for Harper’s version of events, there was an email trail, which somebody on Riddell’s campaign promptly leaked to reporters. Riddell wound up suing the party for his expenses. On January 11, 2007, Judge Denis Power of Ontario Superior Court ruled “that Alan M. Riddell and the Conservative Party of Canada entered into a binding agreement on November 25, 2005.” He could hardly reach any other conclusion. Among the evidence produced in court was a November 25 email from Mike Donison, the Conservatives’ former director general, to Riddell’s lawyer. The email read, in part: “There is now a binding agreement between Mr. Riddell and the Conservative Party of Canada.”

And, of course, there was that story about Chuck Cadman -- another candidate who Harper had dumped -- who ran as an independent and was re-relected in his riding. Harper needed Cadman's vote to bring down the Martin government in 2005. The story making the rounds was that the dying Cadman was offered a large insurance policy to take care of his widow. But Cadman could not be bought.

Mr. Harper has denied any and all suggestions that he had anything to do with such nefarious schemes. The pattern is pretty clear. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Who They Are

Beginning with his caucus meeting today, Stephen Harper will try to wash his hands of The Duffy Matter. But, Andrew Coyne writes in The National Post, this stain will not wash away. To begin with, Nigel Wright's claim that his personal cheque was charity to a friend in need simply does not wash:

It is impossible to believe that Nigel Wright, a man with two law degrees and substantial experience of both politics and business, could have been unaware of the dangers — political and legal, to his party and to himself — involved in such a transaction. Whether in fact it broke any laws, it crosses all sorts of ethical red lines that, as a matter of prudence if nothing else, anyone with any sense would wish to avoid.

Yet, if we are to believe the (latest) story we are being told, in “a moment of weakness,” Wright gave in to Duffy’s pleas — either out of pity for his impoverished state or a desire to spare the taxpayer or both — and wrote him a personal cheque for $90,000. The story, on its own, is preposterous. There is no evidence Duffy was hard up for money, and if he were, there were a dozen other, better, simpler remedies than having Wright pay him out of his own funds.

But, even more than that, there is the Harper government's own record -- beginning with reports that the late Chuck Cadman was offered a one million dollar insurance policy in exchange for his vote to bring down the Martin government. The pattern was set long ago:

People who have made the kinds of compromises, moral and otherwise, that this government has made over the years; who have learned to justify to themselves the kinds of behaviour that are this government’s signature; whose first instinct in this, as in previous episodes, is not to clap their hands to their faces crying “my God, what have we become?” but to think of every possible way to spin and dissemble their way out of it; who have grown so spectacularly deluded as to publicly suggest, in the words of Calgary Centre MP Joan Crockatt, that the current wave of resignations shows how high their ethical standards are — such people are not capable of altering course in the way suggested. That is not who they are.

Who they are has been obvious from the very beginning. From the Cadman Affair, to David Emerson crossing the floor, to the Duffy Matter -- there is nothing new here. What is surprising is that they have gotten away with it for so long.