No, this is brand new news that just came out tonight. The senate committee has asked for an RCMP investigation into Duffy’s expenses while he was campaigning. This new, my friend.
Hmmmmm… No, and I don’t think anyone has suggested that. Harper is not in trouble for failing to check senator’s expenses. He’s in trouble because his chief of staff gave a sitting senator a “gift” of $90,000 to pay off a previous claim, and they tried to keep it a secret.
Again, no, and you rather seem to be missing the entire point here. I DO expect the prime minister to know when his Chief of Staff gives a sitting senator (that the PM appointed, and who was campaigning for him) a secret $90K gift, in exchange for a promise that the Senate Inquiry will “go easy on him”.
If Harper knew nothing, then he is incompetent. He defended Wright for 4 days after he supposedly “knew” about the gift. He is renowned to control every aspect of his office and caucus, and now he’s trying to play Sgt. Shultz and say “I know nuttink”. The public is not buying it.
You should try to catch up on this story - you seem ill-informed.
I’m afraid you are incorrect. The fact that the senate has called the RCMP in to specifically look at Duffy’s expense claims while he was campaigning is brand new. As in today. You may have heard speculation about this weeks ago, but now the RCMP are involved.
Yes, I do expect that he should know if his chief of staff is breaking the law by giving a “gift” to a senator. Especially when that senator was recently appointed by the PM. Especially when that senator was under investigation for improperly charging the senate for his housing expenses. Especially when that same senator was apparently charging the senate for campaigning for the PM’s party. Especially when that “gift” was intended to shut the investigation down so it would not uncover said campaign double dipping.
No insult intended. You just don’t really seem to have grasped the full story.
The cheque from Harper’s Chief of Staff was intended to stop the Senate inquiry into Duffy’s improperly charging the senate for campaign expenses that the conservative party should have paid. This has serious implications for the previous campaign finance limits. Penashue just lost his seat over something like this.
And the defense is that Harper knew nothing of this? Harper who controls every aspect of the party? It is to laugh.
Out here in Alberta, we’ve got privatized liquor sales. There are good points and bad points; and on a few occasions, I’ve found myself wishing we had an LCBO (LCBA? ALCB?). On others, I’m glad we have what we have.
On the good side, hours can be longer than I recall back in Ontario. My local corner liquor store is open until midnight on weekends, for example. Prices aren’t bad, compared to other provinces, and liquor stores can put items on sale (usually at very attractive prices), and advertise those sales. Stores can also stock things like ice and mixer. The province still gets the tax revenue, minors still get carded.
But on the bad side, there can be problems with selection. Stores cater to the neighbourhood demographic, so some stores are well-stocked with beer, and poorly with spirits and wines. Others have plenty of expensive wines and spirits, but very few moderately-priced products, and little-to-no beer (and what they do have are expensive microbrews). Or, stores don’t carry 40-ounce bottles of what you want; they only have it in mickeys. Some stores are attractive and clean, with knowledgeable staff; others are dumpy and dirty, with staff who have little clue what they’re selling (“Cabernet? Isn’t that a place like a nightclub?”).
In addition, liquor stores are still separate stores, much as LCBOs are. Alcohol retailing may be privatized, but you still cannot pick up a case of beer in the supermarket and pay for it with the rest of your groceries; you pay for your groceries and put them in your car, then you walk over to the liquor store and do your alcohol shopping there. The liquor store may be a standalone building in the parking lot, or a business a few doors down in the strip mall; it may be a separate business (e.g. Liquor Depot), or owned by a supermarket (e.g. Sobey’s Liquor, Safeway Liquor), but it is definitely separate.
If Ontario gets rid of the LCBO, it should study how to do it right. Otherwise, it will end up with the equivalent of the LCBO, only with longer hours and unpredictable selection.
OK. It depends how you parse it. We’ve known for weeks about the expense claims, and it’s now news that the RCMP are investigating.
Well, it would have been nice if he was consulted on the matter, but there’s no proof he was, and when he found out he asked for the Chief of Staff’s resignation. I don’t like what happened any more than you do, but that doesn’t mean the PM knew about it.
Yeah, I get it. But I still don’t know how you can jump to the conclusion that the PM knew about this. Wright and Duffy have known each other for decades. I understand fully the payoff was to keep the auditors at bay and I don’t like it either. But I can’t agree that the PM knew about this. Sorry. There’s no proof of that.
You know what, you’re right in the sense that we do not know for sure, or have objective evidence, that Stephen Harper knew about Wright’s gift to Duffy.
But I don’t believe him. I think he’s lying. I VOTED for Harper’s party, I have no partisan axe to grind, but I simply do not trust him on this. There’s too long a history of secretiveness, coverups, and central control here for to to swallow the incredibly unlikely story that Nigel Wright just up and gave Mike Duffy $90,000 of his own goddamned money out of the goodness of his heart without Harper knowing. It defies any reasonable credit.
Well, certainly, without any proof either way, we’re all entitled to our opinions on the matter.
I just think it would be an incredibly stupid thing for Harper to agree to.
Nigel: "OK Stephen, here’s what we’ll do. I’ll write a personal cheque for $90,000 to Mike. He’ll use that money to pay off his questionable expenses and then we’ll soften the wording in the audit report so Mike doesn’t come out looking so bad.
Stephen: “That sounds like a great plan!”
Na. I just don’t see it playing out that way. I could be wrong, but Harper would be more likely to just let Duffy suffer the consequences than to implicate his office in the scandal, especially since Mac Harb is also being investigated for improperly claiming a housing allowance.
It would be quite something if they found a smoking gun, but I don’t think they will.
I must be the exception because my parents sent me a parcel of books (Expedited) and a b-day card for my son at the same time. The parcel arrived in three days and the card in six. That was from London, ON to Cold Lake, AB. For all the crying about how inefficient the PO is I’ve only seen them lose one piece of my mail in thirty years, which is a damn sight better than FedEx, DHL, Purolator and Loomis, which have given me grief at least 20% of the time. I do a lot of ordering online.
As far as the LCBO goes I do agree, though. In Alberta at least, the gov’t still has it’s hands in the pot as all the privatized stores can only order through the same gov’t distributor, which is ridiculous.
I found that the solution to getting my mail delivered to me was to send a package each week to Deepak Chopra containing other people’s mail that had been mis-delivered to me.
The problem began when Canada Post changed everyone’s addresses in a few municipalities in my neck of the woods. For several months, most letters addressed to me were not being delivered to me, but I received a lot of mail addressed to other people. Writing “DELIVERED TO WRONG ADDRESS” and tossing them back in the mail did not help. Speaking to the delivery person did not help. Calling Canada Post repeatedly did not help. Going to the post office in person a few times did not help. Trying to speak to the district manager did not help because that person had quit and had not been replaced. Quite simply, Canada Post was utterly incapable of solving the problem through its regular procedure.
Although Deepak Chopra saw to it that I now receive my mail and seldom receive other people’s mail, the change in addresses is still causing problems for other people. Last week I was consulted by a person who is unable to receive municipal mail (including municipal tax and utility bills) due to this same address change problem, for the municipality refuses to recognize the address designated for the person by Canada Post, and Canada Post refuses to recognize the address designated for the person by the municipality.
What it comes down to is that bureaucracies may be very efficient most of the time, but can still be incapable of solving simple problems.
We’ve known for 2 weeks that Duffy accepted a $90,000 gift from Wright to pay his fraudulently obtained HOUSING expenses. It is only recently that it has been confirmed by the Senate that his expenses while campaigning were also suspect.
Again, you seem to not be fully aware of what has gone on here, and the timing.
May 14 - CTV news reports chief of staff Nigel Wright had secretly intervened to help Sen. Duffy with a $90,000 gift. CTV contacted the PMO, and was told " no taxpayers resources were used."
May 15 - the date that Harper claims he first found out about the Wright cheque. Curiously, his own office seemed to have known about it the night before. Is Harper this out of the loop from his own office?
May 17 - "The Prime Minister had full confidence in Mr. Wright, and Mr. Wright is staying on,” - Andrew MacDougall, Harper’s director of communications
May 19 - Harper accepts Wright’s resignation.
To think that Harper knew nothing of the payment to Duffy, and the subsequent deal to have Duffy clam up and stop cooperating with the Senate committee (presumably to cover the OTHER bogus expenses while Duffy was campaigning)… Well this just defies logic. You would have us suppose that Harper knows nothing about what goes on in his own office. He is known to be in control of every detail - yet now he pleads that he’s just a simple figurehead who knows nothing. Sorry, not buying it.
By all accounts I have read, Wright and Duffy were NOT close friends, and may have known OF each other but that’s it. If you have any information that contradicts this, bring it.
The PM’s veneer of deniability is wafer thin at this point. I’m sure he’s smart enough to have destroyed any electronic or paper trail that will lead directly to him, but most Canadians are not naive enough to believe him.
“I did not advise the Prime Minister of the means by which Mr. Duffy’s expenses were repaid, either before or after the fact,” he said."
Parse those words carefully. He did not advise the PM of THE MEANS by which the expenses were repaid. He is choosing his words very carefully, is he not? Wright is by all accounts a very smart man. He would not give a statement without carefully parsing each word.
“The means by which”
I can certainly envisage a scenario that goes like this:
Harper: This Duffy situation could blow up. Nigel, we need you to fix it.
Wright: How exactly?
Harper: I don’t want to know the details. Just make sure that Duffy is able to promptly repay what he owes, and quickly. We’ll look after him. Is that clear?
Stop telling me what I’m not aware of. I read the same stories you do.
I believe initially the PM found out it was a personal cheque only, but when it became clear that the audit results were altered after the fact then it became an issue. Otherwise it was a personal cheque. No I don’t think that was a good idea either.
How do you know he’s in control of every detail? And anyway does this cross over into the personal life of his employees?
I said they’d known each other for decades. I didn’t even use the word friend, let alone close friends.
Really, we should just go have a few beers together. We could have a good chat.
That was a great read. The problem we have with civil servants is completely predictable; you give people the ability to set their own wages and conditions, and they set themselves up right nice. That’s human nature.
I’m still reading that book (“The West Vs. The Rest etc.”) and I’m learning that we’ve had scandals much like this since pretty much Day One. The only thing that changes is the players.
When I kept on receiving the same letter over and over (I knew it was the same one because it already had my hand-written note, “Not at this address” on it), I found that blacking out the bar code meant that they would stop delivering it to me.
I gave up last week after 1:37 because no one would answer. I’m trying to settle a bill.
So, I’m back at it now and have been on hold for, let’s see, 45 minutes. This is ridiculous. “Our wait time is over 3 minutes” is what it originally said.
I do, and I remember how controversial was the clinic he opened on Harbord Street in Toronto in the early 1980s. There were daily protests and at least one police raid, as I recall.
How things change! Certainly an influential and courageous Canadian. He will be missed.
I was just thinking of this when watching old episodes of ‘Barney Miller’. They had one show where they arrested a guy dressed up in woman’s clothes. He was just walking in public. Apparently, it was a crime back then.
