What happened as a result of the expense scandal in the senate was the creation of two crises. One was purely political and took place in the PMO and the other could be considered Constitutional and took place in the Senate (although there appears to have been some influence from the PMO as well).
The Prime Minister's Office:
After the meeting in February between Nigel Wright, Senator Duffy and Prime Minister Harper, the Prime Minister claims that from them until mid-May he knew absolutely nothing. I would like to give the Prime Minister the benefit of the doubt, but either his staff kept him blissfully unaware or he was totally inept.
According to Senator Duffy there were two meetings, and according to the Prime Minister there was only one. What is clear is that the Prime Minister ordered that Senator Duffy pay back to the Senate of Canada his illegitimate expenses. If one is to believe Senator Duffy, the Prime Minister then indicated that Nigel Wright would "make the arrangements". If one is to believe the Prime Minister, he said no such thing.
What happened next is where the cover up begins. Senator Duffy still insisting he did nothing wrong because he had previously had his expenses ok'd by the Prime Minister, Senator Lebreton, and Nigel Wright continued to refuse to pay the expense back. A plot was hatched by Nigel Wright in which the Conservative Party Fund would cover those expenses (at that point around 32,000). (This is contradicted later by Senator Gerstein who is in charge of the fund who insists he never agreed to pay any of Senator Duffy's expenses). What is clear is that when Senator Duffy's expenses ballooned to over 90,000, the Party Fund refused to pay. At this point, and nobody has seen the cheque to confirm, Nigel Wright using his own funds paid Senator Duffy's debt to the Senate. Then the Conservative Party Fund paid for some legal expenses for Senator Duffy that he claimed were legal expenses surrounding the audit He was at this point still in the Conservative caucus so this was normal practice.
To cover up the fact that Nigel Wright paid Senator Duffy's expenses and Senator Duffy had paid nothing at all, Senator Duffy went on national television and lied to Canadians about taking out a mortgage on his house in Ottawa. In documents, and testimony he later tabled in the Senate, he accused the PMO of scripting the entire thing, and basically indicated that the 90,000 was a payment to keep his mouth shut. That could be considered a bribe. Bribing or giving gifts to a senator is illegal. He later submitted another set of e-mails (and paper trail) to the RCMP.
In May, the Prime Minister stood in the House of Commons, and made it clear that he was finally aware of what was happening in his office. The sole culprit, Nigel Wright. At that point, he stood by Mr. Wright. Five days later he announced that Mr. Wright had resigned as his Chief of Staff. Not long after that, his story suddenly changed and it was "a few people" who knew and were in on the entire scheme. Within a few weeks, it became clear that everyone in the PMO from Nigel Wright to staffers, attorneys, policy advisors and even Senator Gerstein were aware. Some how, as the Prime Minister, in his own office, he apparently from February until May, knew nothing.
In the fall, his story changed again. No longer did resign, but he was terminated. Under a barrage of questioning from the opposition his story continued to unravel. He began to attack Nigel Wright's character and began to demand vehemently in the house that Senator Duffy be removed from the Senate. He rarely spoke of Senators Wallin and Brazeau, even as their fates were being decided by the Senate. It is also worth noting that everyone in the PMO during this incident no longer work in the PMO but have been reassigned somewhere else. The Prime Minister was adamant that the three senators be ousted from the Senate before the Conservative Party Convention, but he didn't get his way. Some of his own senators were concerned about the process.
At the convention, the Prime Minister blamed his inability to reform the Senate on the opposition and on the courts. The fact of the matter is, it is a Supreme Court of Canada issue as there is nothing in our Constitution to allow for the removal of a sitting senator. Also at the convention, some senior MP's including Jason Kenney began to speak out against Steven Harper's demonization of Nigel Wright. Then Senator Gerstein gave his speech in which he spoke (contrary to Nigel Wright) saying that the Conservative Fund never at any point agreed to pay for Senator Duffy's expenses. Nigel Wright's attorney gave a statement that they would not comment on that at this point.
To sum it all up, there was some financial mismanagement, a supposed bribe to a Senator (to cover his misspending), and then a cover up. The Prime Minister was somehow miraculously untouched and unaware of all of it. Very few people know the entire truth. Nigel Wright isn't talking (probably on advice from his attorney), Senator Duffy seems to be cooperating with the RCMP in bits an pieces, and the Prime Minister's story seems to change weekly. What needs to happen is that all the players involved need to testify before a Parliamentary committee "under oath".
The Senate:
The crisis in the Senate does not involve a cover up or an illicit payment. It is purely constitutional. How to remove sitting senators. The Quebec Court of Appeals has indicated that it would take seven provinces representing fifty percent of the electorate to change the constitution to allow for such a provision. The government of Canada has referred this matter to the Supreme Court of Canada for a clear definition of the rules.
What happened in the Senate of Canada was shameful. Three senators were expelled without pay (but with benefits) for two years.
After the audit, and the Mike Duffy affair hit the public eye, the Prime Minister began demanding the expulsion from the Senate of Senators Wallin, Duffy, and Brazeau. Because Senators Olson, Lebreton and Tkachuk had all been somehow connected to the scandal in the PMO they were all removed from their positions.
The Senate debated and debated but could not find a way to remove the senators involved. A motion was before the Senate that would have had the senators expelled before the Conservative Party Convention. The problem was, there was no due process, and it precedent in rule of law. Basically it violated the Charter rights of the three senators involved. This was distasteful to many senators including some of Prime Minister Harper's own.
After much debate, the government motion to expel the senators did not pass before the Conservative Party Convention, as the Prime Minister had hoped. After the convention, there was a single motion with three different votes and all three senators were expelled with the same penalty.
There is something fundamentally wrong with the process. The senators involved were not given any due process. They did not get to present their case (with their attorneys present), or ask questions. The did however get to table evidence in the Senate, which is where Canadians learned that the Conservative Party Fund had paid Senator Duffy's legal expenses.
One must remember, they had been accused of misspending taxpayer monies, but no charges have been laid. There have been no formal charges. Each senator responded differently to the findings of their audit, yet they were all painted out of the Senate with the same brush. (In Part II of this blog I outlined how each senator responded to the audit and the Board of Internal Economies.)
So to sum up. Senators Wallin, Duffy, and Brazeau were expelled from the Senate without any charges being laid, without any due process, without any rule of law, and without any constitutional authority. This was all done by the order of the Prime Minister who seems to be constantly drawing more authority to the PMO and pushing the limits of that power.
Sidenote: in expelling the three senators, the Prime Minister and the Senate seemed to have forgotten about the dozens of staffers and workers that worked in the offices of those senators. They, like the three senators suddenly found themselves out of a job. Unlike the three senators who get to keep their benefits for the duration of the suspensions (and their pension time still counts), all of the staffers will get EI cheques, and benefits that continue only until the end of December. That is a really good way to recruit people into the civil service, yet alone people to work in the Conservative Party of Canada.
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