“The Senate expense scandal continues to roar” in Canada .. but what does it mean ????

Oct 28th, 2013 | By | Category: In Brief

Time for some new leadership in Canada?

Who really knows just what the current chapter of the Senate expense scandal in Ottawa means right now?  I would not in any way pretend that I do.

At the same time, it is clear enough that the protests of Brazeau, Duffy, and Wallin in the Red Chamber over the past week of October 21—25 have induced more sordid northern North American turmoil than usual. (See, eg : “The Senate story: Last week’s dramatic moments” and/or “The Senate expense scandal continues to roar.”)

Similarly, part of the turmoil has clearly enough been about Prime Minister Stephen Harper himself. If he has not exactly (even just metaphorically) been caught with his pants down, some of his more blatant bullying hypocrisies have been laid bare (yet again?).

For one example here see “Don Martin: Risky times for Stephen Harper” – which poses such poignant questions as : “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?”

Rahim Jaffer and Helena Guergis were not treated well by the Harper government. And Stephen Harper went on to win a majority government in 2011.

It remains to be seen just how useful all this will finally be for the opposition New Democrats and Liberals. But more immediately disturbing for Conservative partisans must be the extent to which a (how small?) piece of Mr. Harper’s own political base has become worked up about the Brazeau-Duffy-Wallin critique.

Of some interest here are two recent items on the world-wide web : (1) a troubled editorial from the Medicine Hat News in darkest Alberta – “Conservative woes emanate from PMO control” ; and (2) a Huffington Post (Canada) report from the lovely Althia Raj, headlined “Tory MP Peter Goldring: Governor General Should Disallow Motions To Suspend Senators.”

With complaints of this sort, we also start to rise a little closer to various high-minded critiques of the current Ottawa power structure. The prime minister (and his minions, or “apparatchiks” or  “boys in short pants” in the PMO, as the Medicine Hat News puts it)  have just too much control over the present parliamentary democracy in Canada.

Whatever else, Stephen Harper has shown how cleverly a prime minister with enough seats in the Canadian House of Commons, but with the electoral endorsement of less than 40% of all Canadians, can manipulate federal institutions – on behalf of an agenda that the democratic majority of the Canadian people does not share.

By MICHAEL DE ADDER / ARTIZANS.COM, 2010.

Then there is the parallel plain truth that Stephen Harper came to office quite loudly concerned to reform and democratize The Unreformed Senate of Canada, but wound up appointing a record number of Senators in the old tradition he once claimed to so vehemently oppose.

I am reluctantly sceptical myself about the long-term implications of all this in Canadian federal politics. Just yesterday, however, two press reports did suggest some growing division in Conservative Party of Canada ranks.  (And see here, eg : “Senate Tories could alter proposed expense claims penalty” ; and “PMO stands firm on proposed suspensions for Wallin, Duffy and Brazeau.”)

It is still a long way between now and the next fixed-date Canadian federal election on Monday, October 19, 2015. But one thing the current tempest over the Senate expense scandal in Ottawa makes you think is that almost anything could happen, when the election finally comes.

(Meanwhile, you can check out this new “Song of the Senate” from Newfoundland – where “Zuan Caboto” – aka “Giovanni Caboto” – may or may not have landed in 1497: the first date in Harold Innis’s difficult but nonetheless great book, The Fur Trade in Canada : An Introduction to Canadian Economic History.)

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