"Cowardice asks the question...is it safe? Expediency asks the question...is it politic? Vanity asks the question...is it popular? But conscience asks the question...is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because it is right." ~Dr. Martin Luther King

Friday 8 February 2013

All The Queen's Men Couldn't Put Duffy Together Again

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "PREDATOTS IN SUBURBIA":

Learning Every Day
There are only 4 reasons to remove someone from the Canadian Senate. Lying, Stupidity & Insanity are not included.
You have to miss 2 Consecutive Sessions of Parliament
Swear an oath of Allegiance to a foreign power
Go Bankrupt or otherwise go broke
Or
Commit treason or be convicted of a Felony or any Infamous Crime

***************************

Humpty Dumpty 
Sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty
Had a great fall
All the Queen's  horses 
All the Queen's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again 

Mike Duffy occupied a stool in the lobby of  Parliament  for years.

CBC found  all kinds of politicians willing to  commend him for his  exemplary skills   It seemed  he was a friend to all.

The  bonhomie didn't strike me as a natural relationship between politicians and reporter. 

Whatever. He  wound up his journalist career with a plum  appointment  to the Canadian Senate.

Like Pamela Wallen

Like a boxer named  Brazeau.

Maybe Prime Minister Harper  put Duffy  in  the Senate  as a  mole to report ti him personally about Senate shenanigans. 

Whatever.  It seems he may not have been  popular in all  quarters.

Members of the press gallery and others  would have known  Mike Duffy's home was in Ottawa.  He made his living there for years.

Unlike an elected  parliamentarian, there was never a  need for him to maintain a residence  in a riding.

It wouldn't be hard for an astute reporter to spot a  false claim for housing in Ottawa because of a principal residence in Prince Edward Island. 

P.E.I. is not  large. Total population  is  less than a riding in Ontario that once included Aurora ,Richmond Hill  and Vaughan .

Maritimers are social beings. They know everybody's affairs.  Everybody's affairs are their affairs.

Apparently when  asked by a CBC reporter if Mike Duffy  lived there , people in the neighbourhood of the  neat and modest little frame cottage , had no problem saying he  definitively didn't . They knew him not.

So, Duffy is in deep doo-doo. 

Along with the former boxer Senator, name of Brazeau,  likely being charged this morning with domestic violence and already expelled by the Prime Minister  from the Conservative caucus. 

Duffy doesn't have many choices.

The Prime Minister on the other hand has a couple
He can launch an investigation or he can proceed on the evidence. 

Fraud  is  an indictable offence, potentially punishable by a term in jail. 

I think  thamight  make it a felony.

Which according to our commenter above  is reason to be dumped from the Senate.

It wouldn't be that much of a scandal .. Another person just resigned  recently. apparently well  past the sell-by date. 

A lot of people don't think the Senate should exist at all.

Including the Prime Minister before he became the Prime Minister
Afterwards, he expanded the Senate. Now it  accommodates a boxer name Brazeau and Mike Duffy and Pamela Wallen.

On the other hand it would save  taxpayers' considerable expense if the ill-gotten gains were paid back and Humpty were  just to go   away quietly.

Maybe this  nursery rhyme could acquire  modern historical meaning   

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The PM came into office saying the Senate should be abolished. Since then he has appointed 53 new ones and has only recently asked the Supremes for an opinion. But Senate Reform is now squarely back in his lap. This one may be the required impetus.

Anonymous said...


The person who made these Senate appointments should himself be booted from his office.

What great hypocrisy.

When Harper flew two bullet-proof vehicles (a Cadillac limousine and a large SUV) to India for his personal use and security at a cost in excess of $1million was this not rather more costly to the Canadian treasury than claiming some paltry thousands for property tax?

Maybe Deloitte should investigate the PMO's finances.

The Parliamentary Budget Office is already swamped with financial boondoggles perpetrated by this government.

Anonymous said...

There is a new edition of Anne of Green Gables. On the cover, she is represented as a shapely blond. Bye, bye, scruffy little redhead. I guess that's artistic license rather than integrity.

Anonymous said...

Mike Duffy is up the proverbial creek. He was born in Nova Scotia and has lived, paid taxes and voted in Ontario since 1977. The place in PEI is his summer cottage. He can claim to be a ' proud Senator from PEI ' but the paperwork is going to be fatal IMO.