Duffy beats the rap on 31 criminal charges - the Mounties went after the wrong man.

Rivers 100x100By Ray Rivers

April 22, 2016

BURLINGTON,ON

Ray Rivers has been writing an opinion column for the Gazette for more than three years.  He is currently on a personal research assignment in the Ukraine doing background for his next novel.  While out of the country Rivers has kept abreast of current events and could not miss the opportunity to comment on the trial of Mike Duffy.

Duffy + Judge

Duffy, left, listens as Justice Charles Vaillancourt reads from his ruling in an Ottawa courtroom on Thursday. Illustration by Greg Banning.

Of course the judge is right about Harper and his henchmen (aka PMO). It’s what we expected from a Prime Minister who distinguished himself by displaying irreverence for the political institutions and the processes he had been elected to protect. In fact as the Duffy case has shown it is more than disrespect – it’s abuse of power and presumption of privilege. He used the Senate as a chess board and the senators as pawns, to paraphrase Justice Charles Vaillancourt.

Duffy home in PEI

What was really a summer cottage, this Prince Edward Island house was declared to be Senator Duffy’s prime residence.

Mike Duffy was never qualified to be the Senator from PEI. He knew that and more importantly so did Mr. Harper who appointed him. They should have understood the inappropriateness of claiming residential expenses, despite Senate bureaucrats telling Duffy it would be OK. It was Duffy who had to sign his name at the bottom of all those claims.

And even if the Senate is a political animal, headlining partisan fund-raising events at public expense is also inappropriate. Again Duffy must have known that, and so would the big guy who ordered him to attend. Parliamentarians are not allowed to use public money for partisan purposes. Have we forgotten the Sponsorship scandal so soon?

And this cheque he was given to pay back the money he’d falsely claimed. It may not have been a bribe, but it was intended to keep Duffy quiet and sweep this messy business out of public view, again paraphrasing the judge. And who is going to argue with the PM’s right-hand person? And especially when the cheque he is offering will keep you out of the poor house at the time?

Duffy and the PM

Former Prim Minister Stephen Harper in conversation with Mike Duffy

This whole messy affair also says a lot about the Justice department and their shoddy performance. It almost appears that they too were under Mr. Harper’s thumb. And did this process really cost $30 million dollars? Minimal cross examination, never asked Duffy about the famous cheque, and never called the PM to the stand. As the judge’s decision implies, the crown had the wrong fellow in the dock. This time the mounties really didn’t get their man.

This whole affair is a sad comment on Canadian politics. We should all be embarrassed by what we’ve allowed to happen. But then the judge let Duffy get away without so much as a slap on the wrist. Maybe not guilty, but he was hardly innocent. It’s no wonder that the Globe and Mail barely mentioned this story in their on-line version last night. And yet a year ago it was hot in the news.

AppleMark

The Senate.

The Canadian Senate is an historical mistake that just keeps on giving. One can only hope that Mr. Trudeau’s efforts to transform the Senate into a non-partisan camp works. At least no Senator need be fund-raising for a political party, if he/she is truly non-partisan. And hopefully a non-partisan appointment advisory committee will do a better job at finding people to represent PEI, among people who actually live in PEI.

Mr. Duffy was a victim of his own ambition and a Prime Minister who used him for his own purposes. I’d like to think of the chamber of ‘sober second thought; as filled with intelligent and ethical Canadians whose first priority is to serve the public. I’d have a hard time saying that about Mike Duffy. I just hope his Senate days are over.

Rivers-direct-into-camera1-173x300

Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking.  Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington where he ran as a Liberal against Cam Jackson in 1995, the year Mike Harris and the Common Sense Revolution swept the province.  Ray has published one book and is working on a second.

 

Background links:

Trial Decision BlogTrial DecisionMike DuffyVindication of the Man

 

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4 comments to Duffy beats the rap on 31 criminal charges – the Mounties went after the wrong man.

  • C Jester

    The “Duffer” is overly ambitious, Mr. Harper is a hypocritical control freak and the Senate is a useless place of patronage lackeys. We needed to spend $30 million to learn this?

  • Victor Stephens

    What an embarrassment for all Canadians! An obvious review of this exoneration-trial is that the legal profession is grossly incapable of judging itself. Whether or not some variant of internecine warfare between the PMO and the courts was a factor, we will never know. It is a hard argument today to make that the decision exemplifies impartial decision-making.
    That should not be a surprise. We see billions of dollars wasted yearly as the medical profession prescribes diabetes and cholesterol drugs that they know won’t work. We have seen sports bodies like FIFA behave as if they felt they were beyond moral or legal constraints and we have seen our investment industry degrade to be little better than insider-trading-by-degree.

    It is sad to realize that in the “me-and-me-only-world”, self-governing bodies are archaic and ill-fitted to our times. It is only through the use of a competent and truly-external review that we have some hope for social bodies to re-develop the sense of a moral-compass. Could any individual from any other walk-of-life have botched this trial more? Can you imagine a world where all our laws would need to be re-written in plain-speak to eliminate the loop-holes that have made politicians, lawyers and accountants wealthy all these years? Oh, but we can dream!

  • Gary

    The “old Duff”, I knew he would come through. Hats off to his lawyer who will be dining off Duffy for many years to come.

  • From a Beachway resident – 10 years…lol

    Think again!!! Just did big cosmetic reno. Yeah…not going anywhere. Current staff at City and Region who have this on their now mandate won’t see that happening during their careers.