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rfmcdonaldDavid Reevely's Postmedia News article, published in the National Post, makes the obvious point that Mike Duffy's days of power and influence are irrevocably lost.
“Now it’s just a criminal trial,” Duffy’s lawyer Donald Bayne observed when court reconvened in late November after a long pause. In August, the benches had been packed with people eager to see members of Stephen Harper’s inner circle testify about Duffy and what they’d tried to do about the scandal that erupted in 2013 over his claiming his longtime home in Kanata as a residence secondary to his cottage in Prince Edward Island.
That November day a few weeks after the federal election, with the prosecutors finishing the dregs of their case, even the press seats were half-empty. They filled up again, certainly, particularly when Duffy himself took the stand a few weeks later. But Bayne was and is right. It’s a major criminal trial, but no longer anything more than that. The Tory government is done, and so is Duffy’s stint as a politician.
The results matter a lot to him personally, of course. He’s not a healthy man and could theoretically spend the rest of his life in prison if he’s convicted on even a few counts. If Judge Charles Vaillancourt acquits him entirely, he’ll celebrate an immense vindication.
But Harper is beyond being hurt, whether it’s by Duffy’s vengeful testimony about the monstrous conspiracy against him that the former prime minister supposedly oversaw, or by the incarceration of one of his proudest appointments.
If Duffy does return to the Senate, he won’t return to the prominent place he once held. Only a few elements of what he did or didn’t do are in dispute — the housing and travel claims, the office budget spent via contracts for a friend, the $90,000 he accepted from Harper’s chief of staff Nigel Wright, it’s all there on paper. What’s in question is whether he was allowed to do it all. If Vaillancourt decides he was allowed to — well, “Distasteful but not criminal” gets you out of court a free man but is not what we hope for in our politicians.
[. . .]
If Duffy rises in the Senate in a few months, it’ll be as the guy who admits he got there by selling himself out to a prime minister who’s been repudiated. Who cares what Duffy has to say about veterans or tourism or the flavourful P.E.I. potato? Stephen Harper didn’t care, and even he’s all but gone now.
That November day a few weeks after the federal election, with the prosecutors finishing the dregs of their case, even the press seats were half-empty. They filled up again, certainly, particularly when Duffy himself took the stand a few weeks later. But Bayne was and is right. It’s a major criminal trial, but no longer anything more than that. The Tory government is done, and so is Duffy’s stint as a politician.
The results matter a lot to him personally, of course. He’s not a healthy man and could theoretically spend the rest of his life in prison if he’s convicted on even a few counts. If Judge Charles Vaillancourt acquits him entirely, he’ll celebrate an immense vindication.
But Harper is beyond being hurt, whether it’s by Duffy’s vengeful testimony about the monstrous conspiracy against him that the former prime minister supposedly oversaw, or by the incarceration of one of his proudest appointments.
If Duffy does return to the Senate, he won’t return to the prominent place he once held. Only a few elements of what he did or didn’t do are in dispute — the housing and travel claims, the office budget spent via contracts for a friend, the $90,000 he accepted from Harper’s chief of staff Nigel Wright, it’s all there on paper. What’s in question is whether he was allowed to do it all. If Vaillancourt decides he was allowed to — well, “Distasteful but not criminal” gets you out of court a free man but is not what we hope for in our politicians.
[. . .]
If Duffy rises in the Senate in a few months, it’ll be as the guy who admits he got there by selling himself out to a prime minister who’s been repudiated. Who cares what Duffy has to say about veterans or tourism or the flavourful P.E.I. potato? Stephen Harper didn’t care, and even he’s all but gone now.
