From a Globe article:
But the Prime Minister wasn’t interested in explanations or the truth: It’s not about what you did. It’s about the perception of what you did that has been created by the media. The rules are inexplicable to our base.
If indeed Harper made the claims that Duffy above attributes to him, then I will say Harper shows astute insight into the intellectual capacities of his "base".
Why would anyone risk so much over a senator’s expenses?
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/national/would+anyone+risk+much+over...
Gotta love how the CBC conveniently omits the word Liberal in their headline
RCMP allege former senator Mac Harb committed fraudMounties seeking information on 2 of Harb's bank accounts
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/rcmp-allege-former-senator-mac-harb-comm...
Tory government becoming less and less adept at managing itself: Hébert
The Senate story was never going to go away quickly.
But this week it was the government’s handling of it that lifted it out of the Parliament Hill bubble and turned it into a topic for the water-cooler conversations of the nation.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/10/24/tory_government_becoming_l...
Norman Spector said yesterday that this whole thing may mark the end of Stephen Harper’s time as Prime Minister. I don’t know if that’s true, but I know this much about politics: if you corner desperate men, and if you give them no way out, they’ll do everything they can to kill you.
http://warrenkinsella.com/2013/10/laffaire-duffyharper-motive-is-everyth...
I think it's premature to write Harper's obituary at this time. One thing his supporters loathe is government spending on their own perks (salaries, pensions, travel, etc.) So, if no evidence comes up to concretely say that Harper knew of Duffy's mismanagement of his (Duffy's) perks and tried to sweep it under the carpet (via involvement with the Wright payment), then all he has to do is vilify Duffy and say, 'I took action on him' (had him suspended w/out pay). The other protestations of Duffy, Wallin, and Brazeau, that Harper is a big meanie who doesn't follow fair process when dealing with people who've (possibly) been pilfering from the public purse, will not affect Harper's popularity with his base -- in fact such claims will increase his popularity with his base. There needs to be some concrete evidence (IE, the emails that Duffy's lawyer mentioned) to state that Harper knew and tried to sweep it under the rug via ordering the 90K payment. Harper believes this doesn't exist, and will push the Senate to boot the three of them. And the Senate, I predict, will do so. Then, we will see if anything else is released from Duffy and/or his lawyer. If nothing is released, then Harper is fine (in the eyes of his supporters, that is).
Yeah, Harper can get out of this unscathed. Truthfully, it's kind of obnoxious to see the media criticizing him for slamming Duffy. Isn't that exactly what he should do? What would they say if he gave Duffy a free pass? The point is to focus on getting answers from Harper about what he knew and how much he knew, which means opening the government up to investigation.
Another stinging rebuke for Canada's tin-pot dictator. The clock is ticking - tick-tock, tick-tock.
Quebec court declares Harper government’s Senate reform plan unconstitutional
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/10/24/quebec-court-declares-harper-gov...
It is not as if any of the people involved are clean on this Senator rip-off situation, Harper, Wallin, Harb, Duffy, LeBreton, Trudeau, the whole lot of them.
What has Trudeau said about Mac Harb coming back into the Liberal fold?
And who does Harper suggest appointed these disgraceful Conservative Senators?
Who the fuck does our prime minister think he is kidding!
There is a due process issue invloved here, and which is significant, but who gives a shit about that when you are the PM and have a majority, eh!
Harper may well get away this time, but there is no question his credibility has been seriously eroded. He will not be the Leader of the Cons next time there is a federal election.
The PMO chief of staff, the senator and the $90 K cheque: A timeline
http://www.cbc.ca/newsblogs/politics/inside-politics-blog/2013/10/the-du...
What an absolute asshole!
Ottawa will explain new labour powers after they become law, minister says
he minister in charge of federal labour relations says the public will have to wait until the latest omnibus budget bill is passed into law before learning the precise details of what it will mean for collective bargaining.
In a terse exchange with a local Ottawa CBC radio host Thursday, Treasury Board President Tony Clement said it would be inappropriate to spell out how the government will use its proposed new powers for declaring which public servants are essential and therefore not allowed to go on strike.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-will-explain-new-lab...
What has Trudeau said about Mac Harb coming back into the Liberal fold?
Or Colin Kenny?
Harper may well get away this time, but there is no question his credibility has been seriously eroded. He will not be the Leader of the Cons next time there is a federal election.
I agree that his credibility has taken a bit of a beating. I still think it's early to write his obituary, however, and if Duffy et al are suspended and nothing more arises from Duffy (IE, proof of Harper's involvement in trying to initially shield Duffy via the Wright cheque), then he'll be leader of the Cons come next election.
A Liberal's point of view
How the Liberals and NDP could win or lose the Duffy affair
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/how-the-liberals-and-ndp-co...
Another Stephen Harper coup that will of course show Canada in a good light
Canada failing to meet 2020 emissions targets
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-failing-to-meet-2020-emissions-ta...
The Harper government's most recent attempt at Senate reform has
been declared unconstitutional in a stinging court ruling rendered
Thursday.
The Quebec Court of Appeal has released an opinion that
the federal government had no right, under Bill C-7, to create Senate
elections and set term limits without seeking provincial approval.
So this has become the omnibus thread to talk about Harper, the Senate, constitutional matters, amendments to [url=http://rabble.ca/babble/canadian-politics/bye-bye-stephen-harper-you-are... laws[/url]...
Ok.
Can we at least close all the other ones?
Or something.
Thanks.
Looks like Mulcair has caught the Prime Minister in a L..
Split in Tory ranks deepens over bid to suspend disgraced senators
That $90,000 cheque was again a focal point down the hall during the daily question period in the House of Commons, where the prime minister's combative bluster from the day before was gone, replaced by a bob-and-weave defence.
Where Harper insisted in June that nobody but Wright and Duffy knew of the reimbursement scheme, he changed his tune Thursday, saying Wright "informed very few people" — all of them known to be key Harper confidantes.
"Mr. Speaker, I refer the prime minister to Hansard of June 5," retorted NDP Leader Tom Mulcair. "There was no 'very few' in there. It was 'nobody.'"
https://news.google.com/news?ncl=dwqwnrWH4z_pLgM3C5EuVfQ7bgifM&q=mulcair...
Harper is now changing his story - good work Mulcair, as it looks like you are eroding the Canada Teflon Man 's credibility.
Stephen Harper now says a ‘few’ people knew about Nigel Wright’s $90,000 cheque to Mike Duffy
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/10/24/stephen-harper-now-says-a-few-pe...
As the topic of the thread says: Bye, bye Stephen Harper.
'Very few people' aware of Wright-Duffy deal: Stephen Harper
http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/very-few-people-aware-of-wright-duffy-dea...
Come on boys and girls, stand up to our bully Prime Minister!
Fractures widen in Tory ranks over move to suspend senators
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/fractures-form-in-tory-rank...
For Canada's biggest politico, who micromanages everything, it's absolutely amazin' how much was going on in his office that he didn't know about! 
You can fool some of the people some of the time Prime Minister, but you can't fool all the people all.....
Stephen Harper says Nigel Wright told others about cheque to Mike DuffyPrime Minister Stephen Harper admits that, contrary to previous assertions, other people in his office besides Nigel Wright knew about Wright’s decision to write a $90,000 cheque for Sen. Mike Duffy.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/10/24/stephen_harper_says_nigel_...
Mulcair and Harper spar again over Senate scandal
Thursday's question period saw NDP Leader Tom Mulcair picking away at PM Stephen Harper's past statements about who knew what regarding a $90,000 payoff of Sen. Mike Duffy's expense claims
http://www.thestar.com/news/2013/10/24/mulcair_and_harper_spar_again_ove...
Harper's house of cards
In Prime Minister Stephen Harper's house of cards, who will go down next? When will it be the prime minister himself?
http://www.vancouverobserver.com/politics/commentary/harpers-house-cards
Senate scandal: Upper chamber makes a case for its abolition:
As it moved to rid itself of three embarrassments this week, our Senate was cementing its own reputation as our national embarrassment.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/10/25/senate_scandal_upper_chamb...
THe Conservatives desperately want this Senate scandal off the front pages before their convention next week in Calgary so these 3 senate rip-off artists will be done, as in turfed, soon.
Conservatives bruised by internal and external opposition:
Stephen Harper is more vulnerable than he was a short week ago, thanks to opposition, some of it inside his own party.
But Segal falls in another category. A lifelong Tory whose distinguished contribution to public service is testimony to the fact that it is possible to be both fiercely loyal to a party and principled, his appeals to the better instincts of the Conservative party will not be easily dismissed.
Even after the Senate showdown is over, Segal’s admonitions will continue to nag at the conscience of many of his fellow Conservatives, some of whom do not always like what they see when they look in the mirror these days.
That group won’t include the Conservatives who subscribe to the approach of an eye for an eye favoured by the prime minister. They will dismiss Segal’s inconvenient interventions as manifestations of a liberal-friendly bleeding heart.
But the psyche of those red-meat Conservatives also took a beating this week — albeit not in the Senate but in the House of Commons and at the prosecutorial hands of NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair.
It is fair to say that none of Mulcair’s recent predecessors could have delivered the performance that he gave in both languages this week as he meticulously tore sections of Stephen Harper’s thin Senate narrative to shreds.
This is a rare opposition leader who not only knows the difference between a bark and a bite but also does not let go once he has sunk his teeth into his opponent. (As an aside, that should make for quite a set of televised election debates in 2015.)
In different circumstances one might have felt sorry for the prime minister who had to submit to Mulcair’s relentless inquisition over the past week.
But as prime minister, Harper has added chapter and verse to the take-no-prisoner handbook. He mercilessly crushed Mulcair’s opposition predecessors into oblivion and routinely resorts to similarly hardline tactics to browbeat his Conservative colleagues into submission.
More than one cabinet minister has the bruises to show for the fact that Harper has no use for a velvet glove to drape over his iron fist.
Anyone who remembers his or her school days knows that few events do more to undermine the authority of a bully than a successful challenge to the notion that he has the complete run of the schoolyard.
It is too early to know which, of the appeals to conscience and principle of Segal or the Mulcair-inflicted dents in the battered armour of the prime minister, will result in the most lasting damage to Conservative morale but the combination makes for a more vulnerable Harper than a short week ago.
http://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2013/10/25/conservatives_bruised_...
Risky times for Stephen Harper
Seriously prime minister? You didn’t know Mike Duffy lived in Ottawa and was a let’s-pretend Prince Edward Islander when you appointed him? You never peered over your office balcony to see him hosting a politics show in the foyer of the House of Commons?
Willful blindness goes to the heart of the unfairness which bothers so many senators. The Prime Minister’s Office knew Duffy was pureblood Ottawa. They endorsed his collection of housing subsidies for a P.E.I. cottage. They didn’t object until it was a media story. And then they picked up pitchforks to drive him from office along with Senators Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau.
Deliberate ignorance explains a prime minister in the dark about the Nigel Wright payoff while at least a dozen of his staff hatch the scheme. But it cannot explain away the PMO’s blessing for Duffy’s housing subsidies.
Thus we have a government proudly promoting law, order and victims’ rights now practicing retroactive persecution without representation and harsh sentencing without appeal. In the cradle of democracy, an injustice is flourishing.
It’s entirely possible Harper will win the day. His non-negotiable imposition of capital punishment for three discredited members of a badly tarnished institution could be more popular than any leniency advocated by the Liberal side of the Senate.
But these are risky times for Harper. He has clearly laid down the law on firing offences. He has issued orders to the Senate he expects to be obeyed.
If those laws and orders aren’t followed, he could yet be a victim of his decree that political expediency trumps natural justice.
http://www.ctvnews.ca/ctv-news-channel/power-play-with-don-martin/don-ma...
To anyone who's following this, it's clear Harper's lying. But, like Ford in Toronto, Harper will survive this, I think. In fact, he's now employing some of the same tactics that Ford did. He recently appeared on AM radio (Newstalk 1010) to spew some vitriol on this issue. His message was to vilify the Senators and then deny any knowledge of efforts (IE, Wright's payment) to cover up. So, unless the video of Harper smoking crack cocaine shows up .... I mean, unless the emails alleged to exist by Duffy's lawyer that show Harper both had knowledge and was behind this shows up, Harper will survive this, I think.
What I would say and what Canadians would say is if you did that in your work, your boss would not wait for you to be convicted of a crime. Your boss would say that and that alone requires that some action be taken in terms of your job.
[..]
[regarding the Wright cheque...] I think I had every right to know. I should have been told. I think I clearly should have been consulted, I was not.
Uh huh. Sure you weren't. Duffy was a useful fundraising tool. So useful that when the base was upset at his pilfering of the public pie you decided to try to appease the base via the cheque scheme. When the base was not appeased you decided to cut your loses and ordered him beheaded.
This series may be interesting:
http://abacusinsider.com/politics-public-affairs/conservative-party-finished/
Thanks nicky, it looks interesting.
But not one word about this on the front page of today's Vancouver Sun. Talk about being a rotten scum propaganda tool for the right. Journalism my ass!
Senate scandal: Brazeau reveals ‘backroom deal’ to go easy on him Latest twist comes as Harper tells a Toronto radio show he has no intention of backing off his drive to have three embattled senators suspended without pay.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/senate_scandal/2013/10/25/senate_scan...
And you gotta wonder how much eavesdropping the Canadian government under Harper is doing as well.
Thanks to Edward Snowden, we know democracy’s greatest threats are internal
http://www.straight.com/news/516561/ross-urquhart-thanks-edward-snowden-...
Think the corruption amongst the Harper appointees in the Senate stinks? Do you want to get rid of this crooked institution? Then smarten up and vote NDP.
Duffygate’ scandal brings disgust and disappointment
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Letter+Duffygate+scandal+brings+disg...
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1378
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H2rO4HC8s8]This little Disney clip may remind you of someone[/url]
Harper begins to lose his iron-fisted control
For the first time since Stephen Harper became prime minister there is open dissent in the Tory caucus — not widespread but enough to hurt him.
The political damage is already done, as it should have. Harper will find hard to escape it, even if the Senate suspends the three senators this week, in time for the Conservative Party’s policy convention in Calgary next weekend.
It is poetic justice that a prime minister who has been getting a free ride for years with his phony campaign of “reforming the Senate,” something he constitutionally cannot do without provincial approval (as the Quebec Court of Appeal rightly ruled Wednesday), has been tripped up by that same body and by the people he had hand-picked for it.
Harper’s iron grip on his caucus has been loosened. There’s open dissent — not widespread but enough to hurt him. There’s public sniping between prominent Tories — again, involving not too many but enough to crack open the façade of unity.
A prime minister does have greater leeway than an American president. But the parliamentary system can expose his authoritarianism in ways that can spell the beginning of his end.
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/2013/10/26/harper_begins_to_lose_his_iron...
If the prime minister sets the standard, why has this standard been so inconsistent?
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/prime+minister+sets+standard+this+st...
So will the RCMP be investigating whether or not Harper was in the know about the Duffster's rip-off of Canadians and the plot within the PMO, Harper's own office, to scuttle it from being in the public domain? And if not, why not? Or are only some people subject to the laws of Canada? In other words, is Stephen Harper above the law?
The Senate story: Last week's dramatic moments; next week's lookahead
http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/the-senate-story-last-week-s-dramatic-mom...
She must really take Canadians for fools, just like Harper does!
'We want to get this out of the way,' LeBreton says of suspension motions
“We’re not motivated or being driven by the Conservative convention,” LeBreton said. “We want to get this out of the way, the public is demanding this.”
http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/we-want-to-get-this-out-of-the-way-lebret...
Was just watching RDI and Chantal Hebert was saying Harper has definitely been damaged this week by 2 things.
One is that the Con people who are speaking about against this Senate whichhunt are mainstream Cons, not the kooks. and
The other reason is because of the damage Mulcair did to Harper in Parliament.
The NDP has chosen by far he best possible leader to replace Jack Layton, and Mulcair is probably the only politician in Canada skilled enough to bring Harper down..
Pamela Wallin and Mike Duffy tossed aside after helping Stephen Harper's Conservatives win election
http://www.straight.com/news/518256/pamela-wallin-and-mike-duffy-tossed-...
Keep it up Steevie!
Stephen Harper denies he knew about Mike Duffy cheque, takes swipe at former chief of staff
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/10/25/stephen-harper-denies-he-knew-ab...
How is Jason Kenney managing to hide and stay out of sight throughout this mess?
Seems like cxowardly behavior to me, with a little help from the press of course.
Stephen Harper spanked by public opinion over Senate mess
Bruce Stewart | October 26, 2013 |
Prime Minister Stephen Harper addressing the national caucus of the Conservative Party. Photo: Stephen Harper/Facebook.
Stephen Harper and Conservatives starting to look like Chretien/Martin and Liberals
Stephen Harper is in trouble. The kind of trouble politicians don’t recover from. And the timing – two years from a general election – couldn’t be worse for him or the Conservative Party.
First there was the ducking for cover this spring over the Senate expenses scandal. Then the hope that the story would die over the summer. This fall, it’s now been “well, we’ll force them to go and that’ll kill it.”
Sorry, Stephen Harper. This last week has solidified Canadians’ opinion of you and your government.
Patrick Brazeau of the Canadian Senate.
Who created the mess that is Senators Patrick Brazeau, Mike Duffy, and Pamela Wallin? Stephen Harper, that’s who.
Instead of reforming the Senate, or simply letting it atrophy if the provinces wouldn’t come on side with him, he appointed more senators than any other Prime Minister in the country’s history.
The public perception is that these three apples are indicative of more rot in the barrel, not that they are the only ones noisily slurping at the public trough.
Who failed to ensure that the Senate had proper rules? Well, once again, that would be Stephen Harper. If the Senate’s rules have so many holes you could drive a fleet of Mack Trucks side-by-side through them without even stretching your powers of interpretation (the same for the House, by the way), there’s an obligation to fix that.
The citizen waiting on the platform for the subway, standing in line at the bus stop, queued for their double-double, thinks Stephen Harper has had seven years to clean up Parliament if the rules were inadequate, and he’s done one hundred per cent of nothing about it. All his fault.
But, most of all, this past week he’s come across as a tyrannical emperor, screaming “off with their heads” while pretending to be a paragon of virtue. No contrition, no statement of accountability and responsibility, just more posturing.
Conservative party support is now a point above the NDP. That, too, is one hundred per cent a reflection of the “leadership” of an imperious Prime Minister.
There are many Conservatives who think that when the chips are down, the country will look at the thought of “the kid”, Justin Trudeau, leading it, and come running back to Team Harper. Wrong. Any nose-holding will be to vote for the Liberals against the Conservatives.
On Oct. 31, the Conservatives’ annual convention (delayed from June by the flooding in Calgary) begins. It ought to be raucous, acrimonious, spitting fire and brimstone at the party’s leadership. That none of that will be allowed out in the public’s eye merely indicates that the thrashing that’s needed to give the Conservatives a chance to turn this around won’t take place.
A healthy party would spit in the eye of that and say “let the country see just what we think of all this.” But the Conservatives aren’t a healthy party right now, just as the Chrétien-era Liberals weren’t as the sponsorship scandal started to really sink in (and that was 2002, by the way, that the erosion of the Liberals began in earnest, not 2004-5, when Justice Gomery was making the news daily).
Out of the public’s view, however, there will be meetings galore, with potential successors starting to look for supporters.Conservatives across Canada are coming to grips with the idea that they’ll lose in 2015 with Stephen Harper — now tainted goods — but might pull it off with someone new at the helm who’s not covered in the mud of appointments and neglect.
For the apparatchiks in the Prime Minister’s Office, their jobs — and their futures in the Conservative Party — are tied to pulling off a Stephen Harper renaissance, not just a party recovery. Expect the heat to double down on the caucus, and the riding association leaders, and expect ever more outrageous stunts to be planned to show Harper as in charge, in control, immovable.”
Even a new leader might not, now, turn this around — although in a minority Parliament a new Conservative leader might find it easier to keep power on a vote-by-vote basis than Stephen Harper would (neither Trudeau nor Mulcair will provide him support: the days of games playing, Dion, Ignatieff, and Layton style, are over).
But Canadians want Harper’s blood — and either the Conservative Party can provide it, or it’ll be painfully taken on election night in 2015. For Stephen Harper, it’s over.
http://beaconnews.ca/blog/2013/10/stephen-harper-spanked-by-public-opini...
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There will be only one reason if the Senate backs off in any way from punishing the current 3 Conservative scoundrels, and that will be because the Duffster has the goods on Harper, and Harper will do anything to avoid discrediting himself even further.
http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/the-senate-story-last-week-s-dramatic-mom...
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Stephen Harper says Nigel Wright told others about cheque to Mike DuffyPrime Minister Stephen Harper admits that, contrary to previous assertions, other people in his office besides Nigel Wright knew about Wright’s decision to write a $90,000 cheque for Sen. Mike Duffy.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/10/24/stephen_harper_says_nigel_...
