Whispering
in the Wind – (November 4, 2013) WITW: 3
In the last
couple of weeks national politics has taken a turn for the worse with the
so-called Senate Expense Scandal. Politicians
and staffers on the government side are running for cover with truth taking a back
seat to a single conspiracy theory and a good number of cover-ups. Responsibility, transparency and
accountability are values that were so important to Prime Minister Harper in
2006, have all been sacrificed with misleading statements and basic
obfuscation. For the average Canadian
there is a great deal of confusion and a lot of frustration.
The Senate Expenses Scandal
The Senate
expense scandal has finally come to a kind-of conclusion with three Senators
thrown under the Conservative bus without due process – Prime Minister Harper
gave his final direction in a speech last Friday at the Conservative Policy
Conference in Calgary. In that speech he clearly insisted that Mike
Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau should be suspended from the Senate
without pay. I am pretty sure the Prime
Minister’s directive could bend a bit, if only to show that the Senate is
“independent” of his directive. So it
will now be up to the RCMP and the courts to determine the long term fate of
the three Senators. Stop the presses –
information made on Monday indicates that Senator Gerstein of the Conservative
Party was entertaining a payment of $30,000 to Mike Duffy for his residential
expenses using the Conservative Party of Canada Fund. When the expenses grew to $90,000 the offer
was apparently withdrawn. Stop the
presses again – it is now believed that the $90,000 given to Mike Duffy might
be a bribe, the RCMP are investigating – will the drama never end?
The Role of the Prime Minister
Lingering
questions continue to haunt Prime Minister Harper and the role he might have
played in the Senate Expenses Scandal.
His stonewalling of legitimate questions put to him (his refusal to
communicate or cooperate) is quite disturbing and leaves some to speculate that
he might be covering up something greater than simple mistakes or misdemeanors. As to advice for Prime Minister Harper and suggestions
as to what he should do or say; the best advice comes from former prime
minister Joe Clark who offered the following observations last weekend: “Right now, I think [Prime Minister Harper]
has to bring people into the facts ….he needs to tell the real story and I
think he needs to seek some advice as to what’s the most effective way to do
that ….”
Rebuilding the Senate
The
“parliament” of Canada
is made up of three extremely important components; the Governor General, the House
of Commons and the Senate. Of the three
pillars of Canada’s
parliamentary governance the Senate is in desperate need of repair. The Senate was severely damaged in the last
year or so but it is also a result of many decades of external neglect and internal
mismanagement. From my perspective I
think the broken Senate can and should be rebuilt and there are a number of
upper house models to choose from. For those
who wish to see the Senate abolished I suggest that they review the historical
importance of having a chamber that offers sober second, never mind keeping
exuberant prime ministers in check. Simply
put; if you get rid of the Senate at a time of majority government, you are
paving a highway to dictatorship – and that’s the threat.
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