As distractions go, this is a big one [editorial]

As we go to press, the Prime Minister of Canada has retreated to South America, far away from the storm that is whipping through the Conservative caucus over the dubious gift of $90,000 to disgraced Senator Mike Duffy from Stephen Harper’s very own chief of staff Nigel Wright.

That’s leadership for ya.

What a mess that has been kicked up by a government that has been putting the screws to First Nations leadership over accountability and transparency issues since it first came to power in 2006; the hypocrisy of it all. Shame, shame. The Conservatives wouldn’t know accountability, transparency or good governance if it smacked them square on the jaw. They are without credibility on this front, and that is without a doubt.

Duffy resigned from the Conservative caucus to sit as an independent, calling his expenses a distraction for the Prime Minister. Allegations of double dipping have been made, claiming expenses from the Conservatives for stumping for the party while at the same time claiming his dosh for being on Senate business, for example.

And now it has been revealed that a Senate report on Duffy’s expenses, one that he did not cooperate with since he had paid back the money with the $90k from Wright, seems now to have been doctored to remove key statements that would make Duffy look bad.

Duffy joins a growing group of independents in the Senate, including former Conservative Senator Patrick Brazeau. Both have been told to return monies claimed in error for housing. A third Conservative Senator, Pamela Wallin, sits now as an independent because her expenses too are under audit. Not sure what tomorrow will bring for the two Conservative Senators that the CBC has said changed the report on Duffy.  There should be heads rolling all over the place, but so far everyone is keeping their jobs, except for Mr. Wright, the gifter.

So, what has the PM got to say about it all?

“I did not know,” said Mr. Harper when reporters caught up to him in Peru. He did not know until media reports surfaced about the gift from Wright to Duffy, he said.

“I did not know.”

That’s cold comfort to Mr. and Mrs. Average Joe Canadian, who wouldn’t be wrong in wondering, ‘so, who’s really in charge in Ottawa if the prime minister doesn’t know about all this malfeasance, or what his right-hand man—his most trusted man at the top—is getting up to behind his back?’

“I did not know,” said Mr. Harper.

If that’s true, and we’re not convinced that it is, what was the Prime Minister’s response to learning about it?

 “Mr. Wright has the full support of the Prime Minister,” said Andrew MacDougall, Mr. Harper’s director of communications on May 16. “Mr. Wright will not be resigning.”

So, the Prime Minister then was OK with the huge ethical (if not legal) breach for Mr. Wright to provide such a gift to a sitting Senator.

 “I’m frustrated, sorry and angry about all of this,” Harper said on May 22. Had he been consulted he would never have agreed to such a thing, he said. “…and it is obviously for those reasons that I accepted Mr. Wright’s resignation.”

Not so fast, sir. You cannot have this both ways. You were willing to forgive Mr. Wright’s behavior until things got too hot for you in the press. Now you want us to believe you are angry. If you did not know, you should have called for the man’s resignation when you became aware. Why didn’t you? Why wait for him to tender his resignation if his actions so offended you. That you didn’t demand it goes well beyond bad management.

This Prime Minister has overlooked too much, or perhaps it’s better to say, this prime minister has looked away too often.
 “I did not know.” That’s just rot. You just did not want to know. Plausible deniability doesn’t work when your excuses are just not plausible. It’s just not going to work here. You’re not that slick and we’re not that dumb.

So now, we’d like to get back to a more pressing matter. What happened to the $3.6 billion Canada’s Auditor General says is unaccounted for?  We mean, what’s a $90,000 scandal compared to a $3.6 billion boondoggle?
 
Windspeaker