What Does Mike Duffy Know?

That's a legitimate question, Michael Harris writes. It's curious:

Mike Duffy is still a senator, but Nigel Wright is no longer the prime minister’s chief-of-staff.

One man tried to put out the fire; the other, who allegedly set it, is still toasting publicly-provided weenies in the flames.

In the past, when Harper wanted to dump someone, he did it quickly. Remember Rahim Jafer, Helena Geurgis and Garth Turner?  And there are mechanisms Harper could use to dump the Old Duffer:

If there is a finding of fraud, that is grounds for getting the boot from the Red Chamber.

The national police force’s own reputation rides on this crucially important investigation, likely to be conducted under Section 122 of the Criminal Code dealing with Breach of Trust.

And, as the Senate audit revealed, Duffy is not a resident of Prince Edward Island:

The rules don’t say you get appointed from the place where your heart is, or your summer cottage, or where your dog is buried. It is where you live, vote, pay your taxes, get your driver’s license and health card. For both Duffy and Wallin, it was rotten fish from the get-go. Even Patrick Brazeau was better qualified, under the criteria of appointment, for his calamitous Senate appointment.

Still Duffy remains in his seat. You have to wonder if Duffy is the J. Edgar Hoover of Canadian politics. It was Lyndon Johnson who once said of Hoover that it was better to have him "inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in."

Harper's record on appointments does not show a high regard for the law:

Bruce Carson, hired as a convicted man. Arthur Porter, put in front of the country’s deepest secrets as head of SIRC, now under arrest for fraud. Nathan Jacobson, photographed between Harper and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, awaiting extradition to the U.S. for $43 million worth of admitted money laundering. The PM’s parliamentary secretary under investigation by Elections Canada and under no obligation to step aside. Harper Senate appointee Patrick Brazeau up on assault and sexual assault charges. Duffy back in the news with more expense problems as outlined by Tim Naumetz in the Hill Times — and the ever-present odour of corruption from the ‘in-and-out’ affair, mingling with the deeper stench of the robocalls scandal. Through it all, one man has been at the helm — Stephen Harper.

You have to wonder what Duffy has on the man at the helm.

Broadcasting Despair

It is tempting to enjoy the downfall of the Ford Brothers -- most particularly, perhaps, because their troubles are of  their own making. But, Paul Saurette warns in today's Toronto Star, progressives need to understand the danger inherent in the Fords' ruination:

Even progressives who regret the damage the Fords have done to the municipal agenda and disdain the faux-populist affectations of a couple of self-entitled rich guys passing themselves off as regular joes, should mourn the events of the last few weeks and think carefully before indulging in too much schadenfreude. For although these scandals might ultimately topple one or two “Teflon” conservative politicians (which wouldn’t be a bad thing), the long term effects of scandals like these are likely to make it even harder for us to advance progressive political agendas.

Why might this be the case? The ease with which Doug Ford was able, devoid of irony, to demean the media by insulting politicians, is indicative of a political worldview that is both fantastical and real at the same time. It is a perspective that closely mirrors what Thomas Frank has termed “backlash populism.” 

The American Right -- particularly the Tea Party -- seeks to, in the words of Grover Norquist, drown government in a bathtub. Their goal is to sow cynicism; and their own incompetence does that nicely. You would think that citizens could see through the scam. But, Saurette writes:

Contemporary neuroscience has shown that sheer repetition is a powerful strategy of persuasion. Neurons that fire together, wire together, as they like to say. The constant repetition of these faux populist talking points actually works with lots of people. As Daniel Kahneman – winner of a Nobel prize for his pioneering work in behavioural economics – has shown, the more times you hear something (even if you don’t really believe it), the more familiar it feels. And the more familiar it feels, the more true it seems. Familiarity may breed contempt among some. But it also breeds acceptance among many others. And the faux populist story has been circulating in Canada in politics and the media for several decades.

So piling scandal upon scandal accomplishes Norquist's goal:

With each scandal, the bar of what we expect of our politicians is lowered farther and farther. It now takes truly absurd events to shock us. And so we become even more cynical about all politicians. If we can’t even trust the guys who yell loudest about stamping out crime; and if we have to watch even the hand of the guys who lecture longest about keeping the public till free from those who feel entitled to their entitlements, who can we put our faith in? 

The left must give Canadians something to believe in. Stephen Harper and the Fords are hell bent on broadcasting despair.

Looking The Other Way

Over the last two days, Stephen Harper has tried every trick he knows to distance himself from Mike Duffy and Nigel Wright. But, Andrew Coyne writes, the quagmire in which Mr. Harper finds himself is about much more than those two men:

The government’s multiplying, metastasizing scandals — from Duffy’s improper expense claims to the efforts, apparently coordinated between the Prime Minister’s Office and senior Tory Senators, to cover these up, to the robocalls affair, to the arrest on charges of fraud and money laundering of Arthur Porter, the prime minister’s choice for chairman of the Security Intelligence Review Committee — are not, in my view, wholly unrelated. Rather, they stem from a culture that has taken root among the Conservative hierarchy — a culture of expediency.

For Stephen Harper, being found in contempt of parliament was merely a matter of being outvoted -- and winning a majority meant being able to do whatever he pleased. Those two propositions are the source of the government's problems, which is to say, all roads lead back to who Harper is:

People don’t make ethical choices in isolation. They take their cues from those around and above them. Maybe Duffy’s expense padding had its roots in the Senate’s historically lax culture: indeed, given the absence of controls on senators’ expenses, it would be astonishing if only a couple of senators had succumbed to the temptation this presented.

But the efforts to cover this up, like the obstruction of the robocalls investigation or the curious lack of due diligence in the Porter appointment, are suggestive of something else: a habit of looking the other way at bad behaviour, if not actually encouraging it; and, when it is brought to light, of denying, and minimizing, and explaining it away.

And that is what Mr. Harper is trying to do -- explain it away. It's a strategy that has worked for the last six years. And it may yet work again. Coyne believes we will probably never get the answers the opposition keeps demanding.

But, then again, Canadians may refuse to look the other way and just throw the bums out. That's usually how it works.

Harper's Perfect Storm

It's easier to deal with returning chickens -- or kids -- if they don't all come home at the same time. During the Mulroney years, Michael Den Tandt writes, scandals had the good sense to occur annually:

It’s not like it was in the Mulroney years, when the government parceled out its catastrophes at a leisurely pace, on average one a year. That was so 20th Century. In 2013 everything happens at full throttle ­- especially, it seems, when the wheels come off what was previously a well-oiled, ruthlessly efficient machine.

Now the man who sold himself as distant but competent is watching, as the consequences of all his mistakes hit the fan at the same time:

First of course is robocalls, a pattern of gerrymandering first unearthed by my Postmedia colleagues Glen McGregor and Stephen Maher in February of last year. Last Thursday Federal Court judge Richard Mosley ruled that in the May 2, 2011 election, electoral fraud occurred in ridings nationwide, albeit not to a degree great enough to change outcomes. While he did not point fingers at any individual or party, the judge found the perpetrator or perpetrators had access to the Conservative Party’s CIMS database. The fraud was high-tech and widespread. Elections Canada continues to investigate.

Next is the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and its patronage-tainted hiring of Kevin MacAdam, a former staffer of Defence Minister Peter MacKay. Monday the Halifax Chronicle-Herald reported that a Public Service Commission draft report on the 2010 hiring was edited to delete a paragraph suggesting political interference. The edit was done at the behest of MacKay’s office, according to the account by the Chronicle-Herald‘s Paul McLeod.

Moving from patronage back to alleged fraud, one-time Stephen Harper appointee Arthur Porter is back in the news. Porter, whom the Harper government named chairman of the Security Intelligence Review Committee in 2010 and who resigned in 2011 following a National Post investigation into his dealings, was arrested in Panama this week and charged with fraud. As head of the SIRC, Porter had access to state secrets.

All of this, of course, was prequel to the Duffy-Wright Affair. And, Den Tandt writes, if the Keystone Pipeline goes down, that will be the coup de grace. It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Now Is The Time

From the day he took power, Stephen Harper -- like Rob Ford -- has viewed the parliamentary press corps as maggots. Edward Greenspon writes in the Toronto Star:

When he came into office, Harper threw out long-held rules of government-press engagement. He sowed fear and showed favouritism. Access was severely restricted and doled out based on perceived friendliness of given journalists. Public servants were forbidden from providing background on serious policy matters. A system was introduced by which the PMO, rather than the gallery, decided who could ask questions at press conferences. The List, as it came to be known, was an early flashpoint. The PMO refused any compromise. A Fourth Estate short on self-respect quickly folded. In time, a number of Ottawa reporters were subjected to harassment and vilification and PMO minions exerted pressure on publishers to reign in recalcitrant reporters and editors.

But with the ascension of Justin Trudeau, the tide began to turn:

Ottawa reporters scoffed instead of quaked at the Conservative attack ad and derided the prime minister for stepping out of Margaret Thatcher’s funeral to put his personal stamp on the ad. The Twitterverse derisively jumped on his pronouncement not to “commit sociology.” These reactions are not the work of Liberal lickspittle-ism, as Senate majority leader Marjory LeBreton suggested last week, but the natural by-product of the gallery reclaiming its indispensable adversarial role.

And now it is absolutely essential that the press reclaim that role. As yesterday's Question Period illustrated, the Harper government has retreated into the bunker. They have no intention of providing any answers. They will certainly not call a public inquiry, as Paul Martin did. They know full well that it was public scrutiny which paved their path to power.

Greenspon singles out two reporters -- CTV's Bob Fife and Andrew Coyne -- for their exemplary work. But the entire Ottawa press corps must follow their lead. Greenspon warns:

It is pure folly to dismiss Stephen Harper. For sure, his loathing of the media predisposed him to underestimate the brewing Senate scandal as the frothing of gallery members envious that some in their ranks had been elevated to a higher calling. But as prime minister he has repeatedly proven to be most lethal when seemingly down and out. And he knows how to play out the clock.

Now is the time for all good journalists to come to the aid of the country.

Dr. Freud Would Be Fascinated

When historians sit down and -- with the advantage of hindsight -- evaluate the Harper years, they will certainly mention the Wright-Duffy Affair. They may conclude that it was the beginning of the end for Stephen Harper. But they will also point out, as does Lawrence Martin, that Wright-Duffy was only one of the prime minister's serial abuses of power -- the Afghan prisoners episode, the F35 debacle, and Harper's two prorogations of Parliament.

When they put these incidents in context, they may conclude that prorogation was Harper's prime directive. Paul Wells wrote in Maclean's last week that Stephen Harper's legacy really is the number of government agencies he has shut down:

Since the 2011 election, Harper has shut down the Health Council of Canada, the National Council of Welfare, the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, Rights and Democracy, the First Nations Statistical Institute and the National Council of Visible Minorities. The Millennium Scholarship Foundation, the Council for Canadian Unity and the Canadian Council on Learning were shut down a little earlier. The end of the mandatory long-form census was only the beginning of sharp cuts at Statistics Canada.

But Harper has preferred not to announce most of that. His goal is to last long enough in power to durably limit the federal government’s ability to intervene in Canadian public life. The only part of the job that seems to interest him is the part that involves wandering around Ottawa, boarding up old government offices. And it’s work he’s reluctant to admit to.

Harper has moved beyond policy into the murky realm of pathology. He came to Ottawa to get even with a lot of people. First on his list was Pierre Elliott Trudeau.  But there are darker demons which drive the man.

He would fascinate Dr. Freud.

Selling Their Souls

The Harperites have always pushed the envelopes of campaigning and governance. The Wright-Duffy Affair has provided us yet another example of how they govern. But, last week, Mr. Justice Richard Mosley reminded us yet again of how they campaign. Tom Walkom writes:

A federal court judgment on the so-called robocall affair provides an even more telling example of the blurred border between hardball partisanship and outright illegality.

In its broadest sense, the May 23 ruling by Justice Richard Mosley went against the eight citizens who brought the case.

But a careful reading of the judgement suggests that the bad news just keeps coming for the Harper government:

First, Mosley found that electoral fraud did take place. Someone was trying to subvert the election act by misdirecting voters.

Who committed that fraud? The judge, quite reasonably, said this question was impossible to determine.

But he also said that the “most likely source of information used to make the misleading calls” was a computerized database “maintained and controlled by the Conservative Party of Canada” that had been set up to monitor voting intentions.

In short, whoever committed this fraud almost certainly had access to the Conservatives’ carefully guarded computers.

Second, the judge found the Conservatives to be unduly obstructionist, at one point referring to their delaying tactics as a form of “trench warfare.”

The Conservative Party itself, he noted, made “little effort to assist with the investigation at the outset.”

It's all part of a pattern. What the pattern suggests is the Conservatives know they can't win the debate. That's why they have omnibus budget bills. It also suggests that they know they can't win elections by the accepted means.

So they game the system -- just as they game Senate audits. The end result is that they squander whatever integrity they used to have. They have sold their souls.

The Fords Hit The Fan

The day after Rob Ford publicly denied using crack cocaine, The Globe and Mail runs a story claiming that his brother Doug used to traffic in hash:

Ten people who grew up with Doug Ford – a group that includes two former hashish suppliers, three street-level drug dealers and a number of casual users of hash – have described in a series of interviews how for several years Mr. Ford was a go-to dealer of hash. These sources had varying degrees of knowledge of his activities: Some said they purchased hash directly from him, some said they supplied him, while others said they observed him handling large quantities of the drug.

The sources are unidentified; and local police don't seem to recall any of the details. But in his youth, the Globe reports, Doug was a member of a local group called the RY Drifters:

But long before he took over the family business and pursued public office, Doug Ford’s circle of friends was a group of young people who called themselves the RY Drifters, after the Royal York Plaza, a strip mall many of them frequented.

They came from prosperous families. But money and comfort did not mean they did not have problems:

But the prosperity disguised a disturbing trend among many of the area’s young adults – an attraction to crime that went beyond typical teenage rebellion. Former Ford associates interviewed for this story identified at least 10 RY Drifters who became heroin addicts, some of whom turned to break-ins and robberies to support their habits.

It's not an unusual story. Lots of boomers -- including me -- grew up in comfort. The problem the Fords face is the same problem that Stephen Harper faces. People are beginning to think that they are not who they say they are.

Conservatives like to say that they stand for the primacy of the individual. But rampant individualism leads to a shipwreck. Mayor Ford's ship is on the rocks.

The Phony Conservative

For anyone who has been paying attention, it's been evident for a long time that Stephen Harper is a phony. There has always been a chasm between what he says and what he does. The Duffy-Wright Affair has once again illustrated that chasm. Michael Harris writes that Harper is no conservative:

Stephen Harper has forgotten that real conservatives care about values lived, not values espoused. They detest dishonesty, sleaziness and abuse of office. All three of those traits drip from the PMO/Senate scandal like poison from a boil. Before scurrying away to an insignificant Perrier-fest in Peru, the prime minister failed to drain that abscess.

Harper defines conservatism as blind loyalty -- to him. He does not, however, display any sense of loyalty to his underlings.

Consider the prime minister’s ride down the slippery pole of changing stories. When the Mike and Nigel story first broke, the PM’s chief of staff was practically canonized — you know, a saintly friend paying back improperly-claimed taxpayers’ money that a semi-penitent Conservative senator could not repay himself. Why, Pierre Poilievre himself said it. So it had to be true, right?

Then Dubious Duffy morphed into Bad Duffy when he contradicted Nigel Wright’s version of that $90,000 cheque. Out of caucus he went. Next, when it became obvious the St. Nigel story was coming across as bogus stigmata, the PM’s “full support” turned into blaming his former chief-of-staff. It was all Nigel’s fault now and the PM knew absolutely nothing about anything.

Harper has played Canada's real conservatives for fools -- and he has done it for a long time. The backbench should do some thinking. When things got tough, Harper left them to shoulder the burden. If they continue to do that, they truly are fools.

Michael Corleone In Ottawa

Stephen Harper says he knew nothing about Nigel's Wright's cheque to Mike Duffy. That's probably true. But Harper's plea of ignorance does not preclude his giving Wright instructions to make Duffy an offer he couldn't refuse.

Harper learned long ago that, like any good don, he had to insulate himself from his operatives. It's all part of what Leo Strauss called "the noble lie." Don Lenihan writes that the concept is diametrically opposed to the populism which was the bedrock of the old Reform Party:

While the new party appropriated the language of accountability from the old Reform Party, it did not embrace the values and culture on which it was based. The reasons take us back to Stephen Harper’s break with Reform in 1997. The rupture was caused by tensions between Preston Manning’s populism and Harper’s commitment to conservative principles.

Harper has always been a Straussian:

In Strauss’ view, successful democracies are led by an elite group which can make the right decisions for the public, even though these will often conflict with what the public would expect or accept. Enlightened leaders bridge this gap by telling the public a story it can accept — what Strauss called a “noble lie.”

The unavoidable conclusion from the last few weeks is that the culture in the PMO is decidedly Straussian rather than Reformist, elitist rather than populist. Indeed, the Conservatives appear to have their own well-crafted version of the noble lie. It rests on the claim they remain true to their Reform roots, especially the commitments to transparency and accountability.

In reality, the communications machine crafts the government’s messages, and then foot soldiers like [Michelle] Rempel are called on to deliver it. Under Harper, this has become an elaborate system of governance. The party uses sophisticated data systems and research to tailor its messages to the public’s mood. Voters are told what the government wants them to hear and the gap between what is said inside and outside the PMO is protected by a wall of secrecy.

And now word has gone out that omerta will be strictly enforced. We can only hope that there are members of the Conservative Party willing to stand up to The Don.

Their Howard Beale Moment

Yesterday Stephen Harper held a pep rally and beat it out of town. He gave no answers. He thinks it will go away. But, as Lawrence Martin wrote yesterday in the Globe and Mail, the integrity issue is reaching a critical mass. It's not about Mike Duffy or Nigel Wright anymore. It's about Stephen Harper himself, for the government and the man are one:

Mr. Harper and his band might be able to make people forget about the Senate scandal, and other affronts to the integrity of the system. But there’s simply too much out there for this government to escape the reckoning – a dire one.

Yet the Harperites still think they can avoid that reckoning:

It’s remarkable what this government thinks it can get away with. The Canadian Press is reporting that Team Harper is buying ads on the taxpayer dime to promote a job grant program that doesn’t yet exist. The ads began running in prime-time slots this week. Peter Van Loan, the government House Leader, described the Canada Jobs Grant program as a “proposal that needs to be fleshed out and developed fully.” Thus far, it hasn’t even got the approval of the provinces. Yet, our money is being used to advertise it.

Last week, The Globe and Mail revealed the Conservatives withheld tens of thousands of documents it was obligated to disclose as part of a human-rights case in which it’s accused of discriminating against indigenous children. Now, according to The Globe, the government is using its failure to hand over the files to try to get the proceedings put on hold.

We’ve learned the Tories can’t account for $3-billion from the security and anti-terrorism budget. Before this, before their attacks ads, we saw the Speaker of the Commons, himself a Tory, issuing a ruling that, in effect, repudiated Mr. Harper’s gagging of his own MPs. One wonders where Nigel Wright was on some of these abuses. Maybe he tried to do something but was rebuffed.

Three times before, when Harper's arrogance threatened to torpedo his government, he created a diversion. In 2008, when he ended public funding for political parties, he prorogued Parliament and came back with a stimulus program which he is still advertising today. In 2009, when he refused to hand over documents concerning the detention of Afghan prisoners, he again prorogued Parliament. In 2011, when Parliament found his government in contempt, he raised the bogeyman of a "separatist coalition" and scared enough Canadians to win a majority.

This time the bogeyman is in his office. And it is real. Harper will probably try to shut things down again. But Canadians have reached their Howard Beale moment.

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.

Nixonian

In an attempt to put Nigel Wright's resignation in perspective, Paul Wells returns to a passage he and John Geddes wrote two years ago:

Someone who was there paraphrased Harper’s message to his ministers at his first cabinet meeting in 2006: “I am the kingpin. So whatever you do around me, you have to know that I am sacrosanct.” Harper was telling his ministers that they were expendable but that he wasn’t. If they had to go so that his credibility and his ability to get things done were protected, so be it.

It wasn’t personal,” this source said. “It was his office.”

If you work for Stephen Harper you're expected to take the blame. That's what Nigel Wright did yesterday. The talking points will be: "This was Nigel's mistake. He paid the price. Case closed."

But this is Stephen Harper. We know the man well enough by now to understand that the $90.000 cheque was not just Wright's idea. His statement yesterday hints that there was more going on behind the scenes:

“I did not advise the Prime Minister of the means by which Sen. Duffy’s expenses were repaid, either before or after the fact.”

Harper didn't know the means. He didn't want to know. But who hatched the plan? And why? Surely the answer must have something to do with information Harper wanted to bury. That's not surprising. Stephen Harper works hard to make sure information he does not approve goes down the memory hole. Wells writes:

It’s really sweet that Stephen Harper believes he cannot win a fair fight of full information in the light of day, but as an operating principle it is getting tired. The desire to bring every debate to a screaming halt rather than engage the debate is one of this prime minister’s two or three most obvious defining characteristics. It’s obvious even where scandal is not involved. As one example among many, the Supreme Court reference on Senate reform this autumn will hear three days of public arguments the Harper government did everything to avoid, first by stalling for years on the very notion of a reference, and then by asking the Court, pathetically, to bypass public argument and go straight to delivering an opinion.

We will see more of that in the days ahead. It is easy to predict, based on long observation of this prime minister, that any question about what this government did, what this prime minister’s Senate appointees did, how Harper’s office handled it, and what will be done to fix these attitudes in the future will be answered with, “Nigel Wright gave up his job. Isn’t that enough? It’s time to move on.”

Wright's resignation is supposed to put an end to the matter. It's all very Nixonian. But, as that president discovered, the cover up is worse than the crime.

The Wrong Kind Of Attention

Last week, Toronto Star columnist Rick Salutin compared Joe Oliver to Willy Loman, the woefully misguided drummer in Arthur Miller's play, Death of A Salesman. In Canada's ongoing pipeline saga, Salutin wrote:

Resources Minister Joe Oliver is the Willy Loman of this drama, without Willy’s panache. His attacks on climate scientist James Hansen or Al Gore are ludicrous; those two lack any personal, financial interest for undermining Canadian oil; their sole motive, wrong-headed or not, is saving the planet. Weak sales strategy, minister.

Willy was not much of a salesman. But he was a legend in his own mind. And his inability to see who he was -- and the harm he caused -- was at the heart of Miller's tragedy. The Harper government's insistence -- from the beginning, and again last week at the Council on Foreign Relations -- that the Keystone Pipeline is a "no brainer"  has generated a continent wide backlash. On Friday, Rick Smith -- the Executive Director of the Broadbent Institute -- wrote, also in the Star:

Simply put, Big Oil is reaping what it sowed. In a country where due process is respected, where people want to have their say, the heavy-handedness and arrogance of oil companies and the Harper government turned a previously obscure environmental issue (I mean, who really paid any attention to pipelines up until the last year and a half?) into a much more potent concern regarding the erosion of democracy and fairness.

Like Willy, the Harperites believe they can sell anybody anything. But the truth is that they -- like Willy --  are pathetic salesmen. Stephen Harper continues to insist, like Willy's long suffering wife Linda, that "attention must finally be paid." The trouble is, it's the wrong kind of attention.

A Culture Of Entitlement

Following the news that Pamela Wallin has resigned from the Conservative caucus, Andrew Coyne takes a hard look at the Mike Duffy fiasco:

So Duffy’s behaviour is not the issue. The issue is the culture that enabled it. The Tories may find it expedient to disown him now, but it wasn’t five minutes ago they were cheering him to the rafters, inviting him to campaign in their ridings and defending him in public, long after his misconduct was known. Expelling him from caucus at this late date changes nothing. The time to discipline him was when when he was first caught out, not after every alternative had been exhausted. Indeed, he should never have been appointed, if for no other reason than that he was legally ineligible: to be the senator from PEI, you have to be from PEI.

The Harperites went to great lengths to protect Duffy. They offered Patrick Brazeau no such protection. The question -- the elephant in the room -- is Why?

The revelations of recent days suggest one reason: because of the sorts of things the auditors were likely to uncover, had they been allowed to do their work. And, perhaps, because of the many other rocks that might be overturned as a result: for example, Duffy’s alleged lobbying on behalf of Sun News. (Who was the “Conservative insider with connections to the CRTC” Duffy is reported to have approached? What could possibly have led him to believe his efforts to influence a quasi-judicial tribunal would be fruitful? Did he do this entirely on his own? Unprompted? Unpaid?)

Duffy was a Conservative Party operative on the public payroll. He wasn't the first. And the problem certainly extends to senators  from other parties. But this party -- this government  -- came to office railing against the corruption in the House of Sober Second Thought and in government in general. Rather than insisting on accountability, the Harperites have hopped on the bandwagon. Michael Harris  reminded us of the numbers last week: "By October 2015, 62 per cent of the 105-member Senate will have been appointed by Stephen Harper."

And Harris simply stated the obvious this week. Mike Duffy may be gone. But Stephen Harper is the one who should be roasted. It is he who drives the current culture of entitlement.

The Henchman's Curse

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.

That Vision Thing

Tom Walkom's analysis of the BC election is interesting.  In the end, he writes, British Columbians were asked to choose between two negatives:

On Tuesday, B.C. voters were left with two negative questions: Did they hate the Liberals enough to get rid of them? Or did they fear the New Democrats enough to avoid them?

In the end, they chose fear over hate.

Fear seems to be the operative word these days. It was fear that was at the heart of Adrian Dix's campaign. Like Stephen Harper, Dix didn't offer a vision. He simply portrayed himself as an incrementalist:

Throughout the campaign, Dix did his best to reassure voters that the new New Democrats had been thoroughly defanged. Unlike the NDP governments of Dave Barrett in the 1970s and Glen Clark in the ’90s, he insisted it had no plans to do anything remarkable.

This time, however, the NDP was determined to portray itself as bland. Dix may have been Glen Clark’s chief of staff during the tumultuous ’90s. But his campaign motto this time was minimalist: “one practical step at a time.”

His promises — such as one to ensure that nursing home residents receive two rather than just one bath a week — were underwhelming.

That strategy gave Stephen Harper a majority government. Now Canadian corporations are sitting on $500 billion of dead money.Tom Mulcair and Andrea Horvath should be taking notes. Canadians are looking for what the first President Bush called "that vision thing."

 

Time To Ditch The Duffer

Tom Walkom writes that when it comes to residency, Senate rules are unambiguous:

The constitution act is crystal clear on this. It says a senator must be at least 30 years old, own $4,000 worth of real estate in the province he represents and be “resident in the province for which he is appointed.”

And, try as he might, the Artful Dodger can't dodge certain facts:

As the Senate’s own internal economy committee found, Duffy does not hold a P.E.I. health card. He does not pay income tax to P.E.I. He spends only 30 per cent of his time in the province. How then can he be resident in P.E.I.?

And if he’s not resident in P.E.I., he cannot be a senator from that province. Indeed, the constitution act specifies that if a senator is found not to live in the province he was appointed to represent, his seat is deemed vacant.

The Senate has always been a home for political partisans. But, under Stephen Harper, the Senate has become the last defense against the will of the House of Commons. Micheal Harris reminds his readers that it was the Senate which enforced Harper's denial of climate change. It was the Senate which killed

by stealth Bill C-311 after the House of Commons had passed the climate change bill. And this under a prime minister who once promised that he would never allow an unelected Senate to go against the will of the majority of Members of Parliament.

Walkom puts the case succinctly:

Mike Duffy came from P.E.I. It is a heritage of which he is justly proud. He vacations on the island. But he doesn’t really live there any more. And because of that, he cannot — by law — represent P.E.I. in the Senate.

Citizens, Not Consumers

Natalie Brender writes in The Toronto Star that, if disasters such as the factory collapse in Bangladesh are to be avoided in the future, we are going to have to stop acting as consumers and start acting as citizens. Private initiatives by non governmental agencies aren't enough:

As usual, the reason for this state of affairs is that things are complicated. The locations, actors, incentives and pressures involved in today’s global supply chains are so diverse and complex that uncoordinated action from any number of angles isn’t enough to make a major difference.

If private voluntary initiatives aren’t enough to produce consistent results, another solution is to weave them more closely together with governmental regulation. Getting government involved with buyers and suppliers across a given commercial field has the potential to ensure that all firms abide by common rules. Accordingly, new kinds of public-private partnerships are emerging. In some, national or regional governments work with the private sector to develop goals and metrics for compliance with environmental and labour standards. In other cases, a government might encourage corporate compliance with regulations by offering lighter penalties for violations in return for corporations’ transparency and disclosure.  

The assumption, of course, is that governments act not only in their own workers' interests, but in the interests of workers across the world. And the present Government of Canada is going to do no such thing. It has firmly planted its flag in the employers camp. Trade deals are written to protect international investors; and -- as far as the Harperites are concerned -- citizens are consumers.

Brender's colleague at the Star, Susan Delacourt, has done a lot of work lately documenting the Conservative take on citizenship. In the Harperian universe, everything -- including the self respect of the Conservative caucus -- is for sale. The workers of Bangladesh and other Third World nations will continue to suffer as long as the present Government of Canada remains in power.

Stiglitz On Higher Education

Joseph Stiglitz writes in this morning's New York Times that, just as America is beginning to recover from the crisis which rocked the world financial system, another storm is about to hit:

The crisis that is about to break out involves student debt and how we finance higher education. Like the housing crisis that preceded it, this crisis is intimately connected to America’s soaring inequality, and how, as Americans on the bottom rungs of the ladder strive to climb up, they are inevitably pulled down — some to a point even lower than where they began.

Just as home owners found themselves with mortgages they couldn't repay, American students now find themselves with debt they can't repay:

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, almost 13 percent of student-loan borrowers of all ages owe more than $50,000, and nearly 4 percent owe more than $100,000. These debts are beyond students’ ability to repay, (especially in our nearly jobless recovery); this is demonstrated by the fact that delinquency and default rates are soaring. Some 17 percent of student-loan borrowers were 90 days or more behind in payments at the end of 2012. When only those in repayment were counted — in other words, not including borrowers who were in loan deferment or forbearance — more than 30 percent were 90 days or more behind. For federal loans taken out in the 2009 fiscal year, three-year default rates exceeded 13 percent.

And the aftermath of the Great Recession has made things worse:

Like much else, the problem of student debt worsened during the Great Recession: tuition costs at public universities increased by 27 percent in the past five years — partly because of cutbacks — while median income shrank. In California, inflation-adjusted tuition more than doubled in public two-year community colleges (which for poorer Americans are often the key to upward mobility), and by more than 70 percent in four-year public schools, from 2007-8 to 2012-13.

With costs soaring, incomes stagnating and little help from government, it was not surprising that total student debt, around $1 trillion, surpassed total credit-card debt last year. 

It's a depressingly familiar story. Caught in the jaws of a financial system which piles up profit for the few, the economy stagnates -- because, faced with a mountain of debt, students neither form families nor buy homes:

Those with huge debts are likely to be cautious before undertaking the additional burdens of a family. But even when they do, they will find it more difficult to get a mortgage. And if they do, it will be smaller, and the real estate recovery will consequently be weaker. (One study of recent Rutgers University graduates showed that 40 percent had delayed making a major home purchase, and for a quarter, the high level of debt had an effect on household formation or getting further education. Another recent study showed that homeownership among 30-year-olds with a history of student debt fell by more than 10 percentage points during the Great Recession and in its aftermath.)

It’s a vicious cycle: lack of demand for housing contributes to a lack of jobs, which contributes to weak household formation, which contributes to a lack of demand for housing.

The Masters of the Financial Universe have given birth to a vicious, not a virtuous, cycle. They really aren't the sharpest tools in the shed.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.