Mike Duffy’s fraud and breach of trust trial, which passes for entertainment in Ottawa, cannot possibly be further from the point that upsets Canadians about the workings of the Prime Minister’s Office and the Senate.
This is not about the vagueness of rules surrounding how senators should behave in their financial arrangements with the country. The rules are vague because decent people understand that “honesty” cannot be defined by a rule book.
Fact One: Prime Minister Stephen Harper knew where Duffy lived. It was in Ottawa, not Prince Edward Island. Check the photos: Duffy’s Ottawa home is a mansion, his “principal residence” is a cute little A-frame cottage that looks like it might have a shared bath.
Under the Senate’s residency rules, Duffy was not eligible to be a senator from P.E.I. Harper obviously knew this, but appointed Duffy a senator anyway. Presto-chango! The summer vacation house became Duffy’s “principal residence” by the prime minister’s fiat.
If one is a senator from one of the regions, one is entitled to a housing allowance. A pretty nice one, too. Nice enough to keep a mansion in Ottawa.
These are the rules. Is anyone confused? Does anyone need an expensive lawyer to pick up a dictionary for the definition of “residence” in a court of law?
Of course not. You and I and everyone else would know that being a senator is a high honour, and requires a person to act with integrity. You don’t fudge your monthly billings, you don’t pad your expense account, you don’t use semantics to get around doing what’s right.
You don’t fly off to a meetings to shill for the Progressive Conservatives at party fundraisers and then bill the Senate for the cost of the flights.
You don’t fly first class to a meeting for a corporate board that you sit on, and then bill the cost to the Senate.
You don’t hire friends to do government contract work, pay them even though work is not done — and then bill the Senate.
And if you are a senator from P.E.I., you friggin’ well live in P.E.I.
Is anyone still confused?
Fact two: If your principal residence is found to be not in the province you claim to represent, you must resign. You are not eligible to sit.
A little A-frame cottage that you visit maybe 30 days in a year is not your principal residence. Who would not know this? An honourable person would not need an auditor to count the days you spent there, or track your plane trips or draw a line on a chart for you to establish “residence.”
Getting a provincial health card? To prove residency? You should already have one — because that’s where you live.
This is what Canadians find disgusting about the Duffy affair, Pamela Wallin’s shenanigans, and a smell around the Senate that’s bad enough to justify an audit of each and every senator’s expense account.
Duffy’s defence suggests that if he has broken some vague rules, then so have all the rest of the senators — and that this has gone on so long, it’s standard practice.
When did personal integrity cease to be standard practice?
In Ottawa, what is happening in court right now is considered procedure.
For Canadians, what is happening is political farce. The workings of the Prime Minister’s Office, the “kids in short pants” telling government representatives what to do and what to say, millionaires writing personal cheques to bridge lapses of integrity — it’s just bad television.
I think a lot of Canadians have already passed beyond disappointment and outrage — they’re simply turning off the set. The pundits are pondering how Duffy’s trial might impact the Conservatives’ chances in the next election. I doubt it will, because Canadians are past caring.
The federal prosecutors aren’t interested in exposing the moral weaknesses of the Canadian executive branch or the rot at the centre of the Senate. Duffy’s defence is interested in creating more fog than clarity.
No set of rules can guarantee integrity. A rule book simply can’t cover every dodge made by people who have no scruples.
But this entire case began when Harper appointed an ineligible person to a Senate seat, in exchange for good speeches to be made at party fundraisers.
That would be the pilot episode to some bad TV, that I believe Canadians simply don’t want to watch.
Greg Neiman is a retired Advocate editor. Follow his blog at readersadvocate.blogspot.ca or email greg.neiman.blog@gmail.com.