[BRIEF NOTE] On the Mike Duffy affair's degeneration

[rfmcdonald]

Back in February, I made a series of posts (1, 2, 3) about former broadcaster and current Conservative senator Mike Duffy's problematic claim for housing expenses on the Prince Edward Island he is supposed to represent. By all accounts, Duffy was not entitled to make these claims because the Island is not his home, this waking up the additional question of whether he can represent the Island since, according to the constitution, senators must reside in the communities they represent. In a recent deal, Duffy was required to pay the money back. It now turns out that the Prime Minister's chief of staff gave him money to do so.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's chief of staff Nigel Wright wrote a personal cheque worth more than $90,000 to pay back Senator Mike Duffy's living expenses, Harper's office confirmed Wednesday.

"Mr. Duffy agreed to repay the expenses because it was the right thing to do," Harper's spokesman Andrew MacDougall said in a statement.

"However, Mr. Duffy was unable to make a timely repayment. Mr. Wright therefore wrote a cheque from his personal account for the full amount owing, so that Mr. Duffy could repay the outstanding amount."

The confirmation came following a CTV News report Tuesday night that Wright intervened to arrange a deal with Duffy that involved him reimbursing taxpayers $90,172 in return for helping him financially and assuring him that the government would go easy on him.

On Wednesday afternoon ethics commissioner Mary Dawson announced she is reviewing Wright’s involvement in the repayment of Duffy's expenses. She said she is following up with Wright "in respect of his obligations under the Conflict of Interest Act."

What Andrew Coyne says in the Vancouver Sun.

Perhaps it was, as Tory insiders claim, merely a gesture of friendship on Wright’s part, a matter of helping an old pal out of a jam. But the public should not be put in the position of having to wonder whether it was more than that. Among the many further questions one would like answered: What undertakings, if any, did Duffy make in return for the money? The auditors’ report notes that Duffy refused all further cooperation with them once the repayment was made. CTV quotes him as saying, in a leaked email: “I stayed silent on the orders of the PMO.” What did he mean? What promises, if any, did Wright make to secure his help in making an embarrassing story go away? Again, CTV quotes sources suggesting the government promised “to go easy on him.” What on earth does that mean?

Whether it was within the rules or not, what we do know of this “gift” is that it relieves Duffy of having to pay any penalty for his actions. The senator has never acknowledged wrongdoing in this affair, neither in claiming expenses on his Ottawa residence as if it were a second home (he says the rules defining a senator’s primary residence were unclear) nor in claiming per diem expenses for Senate business while on holiday in Florida (he says a staffer mistakenly filed the claim). No one who is not actually in the pay of the government finds his explanations credible.

Yet the prime minister’s office claims Duffy showed “leadership” in arranging for Wright to repay his expenses, that indeed it was “the right thing to do.” Well, no. The right thing would have been not to file the false expense claims in the first place. The right thing, once they came to light, would have been to give the money back pronto, not stall for months and stonewall the auditors. The right thing would have been to decline Wright’s charity, or at the very least to have disclosed the payment publicly.

And, as it is now well established that he is not a resident in the province he represents, in violation of the constitutional requirement to that effect, the right thing would be to resign.