Eversince this past Monday,Oct. 21,2013,Canadian politics suddenly got a milestone/moment which I deem as memorable for years to come. Canadian politics mind you,mon ami, isn’t usually exciting nor sexy like U.S. politics but I guess, there’s always an exception. I’m sure the city of Ottawa(the national Capital (‘similar to Washington DC in the US) is shaking in their boots right now.
SenateGate in a nut shell involves 3 senators(Mike Duffy,Pamela Wallin,Patrick Brazeau) who allegedly had used a lot of loopholes to acquire mass amounts of taxpayer money through expenses presumably acquired by the privileges of the Canadian Senate. In Canada, the Prime Minister can appoint anyone to the Senate which is a position considered a lifetime position(actually up to age 75 y/o before retirement) with tremendous benefits,privileges and a salary I think amounts to CDN$130,000/yr.
This past Monday,Senator Mike Duffy’s lawyer Donald Bayne ,gave an explosive news conference insinuating that there has been a lot of political wrangling involving coverup,deceit ,etc. from the Prime Minister’s Office regarding the strong desire to expel the 3 senators in question because it would damage the political party brand of the current Prime Minister Stephen Harper of the Conservative Party.
This past Tuesday(Oct.22,2013), the Senate was supposed to make a vote to suspend the 3 senators without pay in spite of the fact that a formal hearing has yet to be scheduled. This runs the risk of a growing constitutional crisis if ever.
The first senator who showed up on that day to watch the deliberations and to give his side of the story was Senator Mike Duffy who gave really an explosive account implicating the Prime Minister directly as the one calling the shots to his minions to make sure his chances of reelection doesn’t get jeopardized as a result of SenateGate. With Mr. Duffy’s bombshell declaration of alleged conspiracy,coverup,intimidation,deceit,blackmail.etc. from the supposedly dictatorial Prime Minister Harper and his minions, it became DuffyGate for the Conservative Party.
Because of DuffyGate, Prime Minister Harper had to change his style from acting secretive and evasive in answering the questions from the opposition regarding his having any knowledge at all about these political undertakings to becoming feisty and confrontational yet still evasive to a certain degree in answering questions. Parsing the words is what I call it.
Up to today, the whole nation of Canada is still talking about SenateGate and DuffyGate and I doubt very much that it’ll go away very soon. It’s like watching a political thriller movie.
A separate police investigation is still ongoing regarding this fiasco and so far, initial findings involve unspecified yet substantial number of people involved in this political cloak and dagger scheme. I’m starting to see some Conservative party politicians getting queasy about voting off these 3 senators without the benefit of a formal hearing. It remains to be seen if all Canadian senators especially the Conservative Party Senators can act independently by making judicious political decisions and not be influenced by the alleged dictates from the Prime Minister’s Office.
Frankly, if it’s proven that misuse of funds is valid, proper punishment must be implemented.Now as to political duplicity,coverup,blackmail,etc. allegedly made by politicians at the top office, Canucks have a long memory which might go into play in the next election because no citizen likes a conniving and dishonest politician who’s supposed to represent and help their fellow citizens get their programs pushed through.
Ongoing discussions of either abolishing or reforming the Canadian Senate has been going on for years but surely gets magnified now due to all that has been happening lately.
If only all parties involved go through a lie detector test….it’ll save us a lot of time! Where’s Maury Povich when you need him?
Josie
josiesvoice 