One person’s tragedy is another’s travesty.
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Ran out of scotch to he’s making a ruckus. To quote the loquacious and disgraced Mike Duffy: “Words are important.” In that spirit, let’s take a careful look at Nigel Wright’s resignation press release to see if it can shed light into this whole affair: In light of the controversy surrounding my handling of matters involving Senator Duffy, the Prime Minister has accepted my PM Stephen Harper’s chief of staff Nigel Wright resigned early Sunday following last week’s revelation that he cut a $90,000 personal cheque to cover Sen. Mike Duffy’s fraudulent Senate expense claims. The announcement has set the Twitterverse on fire. “Mr Wright’s resignation doesn’t end the matter – how and why was this deal done,” tweeted former Liberal leader [...] The post Sen. Mike Duffy’s Scandal Torpedoes Nigel Wright: Canadians React appeared first on The Canadian Progressive. What dirt does Duffy have on the Prime Minister, that would have had him order his Chief of Staff to cut Mike Duffy a cheque for more than $90,000? Mike #Duffy and Nancy Greene, #senators raising money for CPC. Corruption and sponsorship #cdnpoli #revolting. en: youtu.be/FJUCugE8ZZQ— Susan (@SusanFelicity) May 19, 2013 It’s not this video with Duffy and climate change denier Greene-Raine fluffing the Olympics for partisan gain. Is it this one that has a clue in it? Did the Prime Minister promise a journalist (Duffy) a Senate seat if he helped throw the election? Remember the unconventional (Read more…) From the day it emerged that Stephen Harper’s chief of staff Nigel Wright cut a $90,000 personal cheque to cover Sen. Mike Duffy’s fraudulent Senate expense claims, the Conservatives tried desperately to kill the scandal. On Thursday, they tossed Duffy overboard, and on Friday, Sen. Pamela Wallin. Also on Friday, the PMO vowed that Wright [...] The post Statements: Resignation of Harper’s Chief of Staff Nigel Wright appeared first on The Canadian Progressive. An infinite number of monkeys using an infinite number of typewriters will eventually produce the Kirby report on health care reform. This is not a sound argument for spending hundreds of millions of public dollars on monkeys with typewriters. Plenty of others have had loads to say about the scandal surrounding Stephen Harper, Nigel Wright, Mike Duffy and the Senate generally – with Wright’s resignation today serving as just the latest chapter of a story with plenty left to be told. But I’ll add a couple of notes to the mix. First, I’m not sure some commentators (especially those thinking that “the cheque” is the real story) have noticed the significance of this juxtaposition of events: A senior government official told Postmedia News on Thursday that Wright wrote a cheque to Duffy’s lawyer “in trust.” The official, who (Read more…) Assorted content for your weekend reading. - Not surprisingly, plenty of commentators have weighed in on the latest set of Senate scandals engulfing Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin, Nigel Wright and Stephen Harper among others. Diane Francis takes the opportunity to point out that the Senate is an institutional anachronism (a point with which I of course agree). Murray Mandryk notes that the Cons’ story involves the belief that their clan can do no wrong, Chantal Hebert sees the Cons having simply changed the party name in the Liberal culture of entitlement they once claimed to despise, while Andrew Coyne (Read more…) Assorted content to end your week. - Paul Krugman draws a much-needed connection between austerity politics and Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine: What Smith didn’t note, somewhat surprisingly, is that his argument is very close to Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine, with its argument that elites systematically exploit disasters to push through neoliberal policies even if these policies are essentially irrelevant to the sources of disaster. I have to admit that I was predisposed to dislike Klein’s book when it came out, probably out of professional turf-defending and whatever — but her thesis really helps explain a lot about what’s going (Read more…) By: Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive: Scandal-plagued Sen. Mike Duffy quit the Conservative caucus Thursday after his fraudulent Senate expense claims threatened to engulf the Harper government. Duffy, appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2009, now sits as an independent. “It is clear the public controversy surrounding me and the repayment of my [...] The post Beleaguered Harper-appointed Sen. Mike Duffy Quits Conservative Caucus appeared first on The Canadian Progressive. 
 Abolish The Senate, Canada, Canada Politics, Canadian Figures, Conservative caucus, Conservatives, Featured, Government, Inside Ottawa, mike duffy, Nigel Wright, OBERT MADONDO, opinion., parliament, Politics News, resignation, Senate, Senate Expenses Scandal, Senator Mike Duffy, Senators, The Ugly Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s chief of staff Nigel Wright wrote a personal cheque worth more than $90,000 to pay back Senator Mike Duffy‘s living expenses, Harper’s office confirmed Wednesday. “Mr. Duffy agreed to repay the expenses because it was the right thing to do,” Harper’s spokesman Andrew MacDougall said [...] The post Harper’s chief of staff paid off Mike Duffy’s Senate expenses appeared first on The Canadian Progressive. This and that for your Thursday reading. - Duncan Cameron is the latest to weigh in on the Cons’ distorted sense of priorities in directing public research money toward private profits: Publicly available research is important. Since no one knows where discoveries or advances in knowledge will lead, the entire scientific community needs access to new research. There is no other way to maximize potential societal benefits. Learning is cumulative, innovative thinking flows from research building on public research. Now with the privatization of research findings, discoveries and knowledge become industrial secrets, unavailable to Canadians who have paid for it, (Read more…) By: Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive: Our Senatorial soap opera entered a new chapter on Tuesday. Independent Sen. Patrick Brazeau informed the media that he’ll defy the Senate’s order to repay the $48,744 in living and travel expenses he fraudulently claimed from Canadian taxpayers. “Senator Brazeau has fulfilled his obligations in forwarding all relevant [...] The post Sen. Patrick Brazeau defies Senate order to return housing allowance appeared first on The Canadian Progressive. Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. - Michael Harris tears into the Cons for their latest set of Senate abuses: It is time once more to throw up on your shoes over the Senate. We all did that when Liberal Senator Andrew Thompson went missing in action for a decade at public expense — our man in Mexico. This stable of political studs put out to pasture at public expense for party loyalties costs Canada $92.5 million annually in salaries, senator allowances and administrative costs… Each lottery winner in the Senate receives a base annual salary of $135,200. The (Read more…) 90% of Americans support universal background checks for guns yet on Wednesday the American Senate struck down that legislation. That’s not very democratic, is it? Those in Canada who fervently cling to the idea that voting will make our Senate democratic almost completely ignore the problems that come with it, such as the lobbyists and interest groups, like the National Rifle Association, that frequently override public opinion. Contrasted with the American example, it is the Canadian appointed Senate that actually represents its citizens, because in not being elected the Senate recognizes the public does not empower it to drastically change (Read more…) defeat bills from the House of Commons. And when the Senate does, in the rare times, reject bills from the elected house, it is to protect the interests of minorities and Canada’s regions, as it did in 1991 where it defeated a bill to re-criminalize abortion. Considering the . . . → Read More: The Scott Ross: The Undemocratic Elected Senate & The Democratic Appointed One Unelected? Check. Unaccountable? Check. Unethical? Check. Senator Mike Duffy announced today that he hasn’t paid back the federal government any of the housing allowance he collected for his Ottawa home since it was revealed in February 2013 that he was pilfering from the public purse. In fact, Mike Duffy now doubts paying back the $33,000 he’s collected annually since 2010 is required. By: Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive: Apparently, Isabelle Lapointe no longer works for her lover, Harper-appointed Conservative Senator Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu. Man, that was lightning fast. Brutal too, I suppose. Exactly eight days since various media reported the office romance around March 5. OK, I blogged about it but then forgot to keep an eye on it. [...] The post Isabelle Lapointe Dumped Conservative Sen. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu Already? appeared first on The Canadian Progressive | News & Analysis. Mike Duffy is quite eloquent. Watch the video below. What a jackass! Taxpayers pay him $134000.00 in annual salary and another $403,392 for expenses. “During his first three months in the red chamber, Conservative Senator Mike Duffy racked up more than $100,848 in travel and office expenses, more than double the average of what the other three Island senators spend in a typical quarter……Sustained over a year, Duffy’s expenses would come in at $403,392.” Expensive Senator. Average KXL Amendment Co-Sponsor has Taken 2.5 Times More Money from Industry Than Non-Sponsors, New Research Shows By: Oil Change International | Press Release: WASHINGTON – New research from Oil Change International today (March 22) found that the 10 Senators co-sponsoring the pro- Keystone XL Pipeline Amendment (Hoeven Amendment 494) in the Senate [...] The post 10 KXL Amendment Co-Sponsors Took $8 Million from Fossil Fuel Industry appeared first on The Canadian Progressive | News & Analysis. Assorted content for your Friday reading. - Jennifer Ditchburn reports that the Harper Cons are making ample progress in their goal of removing Canada from any list of socially-developed welfare states, as Canada has dropped from being the world’s leader in the UN’s Human Development Index to a position outside the top 10 countries by that measure. - Peter Penashue’s resignation in the wake of a campaign financing scandal will open up plenty of lines of discussion – as well as an opportunity to flip a seat into opposition hands. But let’s ask another question arising out of his stepping . . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links Bert Brown today, trying to justify the public footing a nine-figure annual bill for a cesspool of patronage and corruption: “It’s one of the five major institutions of the Canadian government and if you were to take that away, you’d just be creating a dictatorship,” Brown said in an interview in his office overlooking Parliament Hill. “Anytime you get a prime minister that won’t listen to anything but his own advice, you get some of the crazy things that we’ve seen.” Bert Brown less than two years ago, explaining his own belief that Senators should avoid questioning . . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Juxtaposition Assorted content to end your week. - Public Interest Alberta takes a closer look at that province’s rhetoric about taxes, and finds that in fact most Albertans pay more income tax than they would under the more fair and progressive systems applied in other province: “Albertans who believe the myth that we pay the lowest taxes in Canada will be surprised to see that they are paying more income tax than if they lived in BC or Ontario. At the same time, people in Alberta with very high incomes are paying tens of thousands less in income tax than in . . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links Conservative Senator Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu in spotlight over reports he is in romantic relationship with one of his employees on Parliament Hill. By: Joanna Smith | Published by Toronto Star on Tue Mar 05 2013: OTTAWA – A Quebec senator is in the spotlight over reports that he is in a romantic relationship with one of his employees READ MORE By: Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive, Mar 4, 2013: The New Democrats today repeated their call for the abolition of Canada’s scandal-ridden “useless, expensive, undemocratic appendage of government”, the Senate. The Official Opposition’s MP for Toronto-Danforth, Craig Scott, issued the following statement earlier today: In order to address the irresponsible conduct of the unelected Senate, NDP Democratic and Parliamentary Reform Critic Craig Scott READ MORE Thanks to Harper’s Pork Barrel program Mike Duffy can drink all the beer he can and eat as much pork chops and bacon he desires. |
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