05.16.2013 11:03 AM

The money man!

55 Comments

  1. LD says:

    Brilliant!! Kudos

  2. LT says:

    So God Made a Mike Duffy

    And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need a Canadian Senator.” So God made a Mike Duffy.

    God said, “I need somebody willing to get up after dawn, and then sleep in some more, think about working all day in the Senate, sleep again, eat a late lunch and expense it and then go to another restaurant for dinner and expense it again.” So God made a Mike Duffy.

    “I need somebody clever enough to fill out Senate forms incorrectly and yet dim enough to blame the forms. Somebody to vote with the government, ask the PM softball questions at staged town halls, come back to his office hungry, have to wait for lunch until his meal arrives from the Senate cafeteria and tell the delivery boy to be sure and come back real soon — and mean it.” So God made a Mike Duffy.

    God said, “I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a government bill. And rubberstamp it the next day. Then wipe his brow and say, ‘That’s why I get paid the big bucks.’ I need somebody who can obfuscate, prevaricate, live in two places at the same time, be unaccountable, unelected, jump as high as his leader tells him to, go on political junkets and claim expenses like nobody’s business. And who, when questioned about said expenses, will attack the integrity of the questioner, refuse to answer any questions, disappear from the public eye and scurry away from the media by using the hotel kitchens of the nation.” So God made a Mike Duffy.

    God had to have somebody willing to do nothing for a Senator’s paycheque, yet think he was an important cog in democracy’s wheel and yet be able to deliver civics lectures in mid-stride when he hears that people call him a partisan hack. So God made a Mike Duffy.

    God said, “I need somebody strong enough to accept money from the prime minister’s chief of staff when forced to pay back money that wasn’t rightfully his, not answer questions about it, promise not to bad mouth the prime minister in return, yet be calculating enough not to declare that money and then, when caught, say nothing and let the PMO issue absurd press releases. Somebody who deceives, prevaricates, obfuscates, confounds, dodges, weaves, condescends and finishes a not so hard 4-hour-week of Senate business all before Monday afternoon and then replenishes himself in Florida’s restaurants with expensed food and drink for the rest of the week.

    “It had to be somebody who’d do nothing for something, keep his family together with plump, soft hands, kept manicured by government lucre, who would laugh and then laugh some more, and then reply, with smiling eyes, when his son says he wants to spend his life ‘screwing the pooch and scamming the taxpayers like dad does.’” So God made a Mike Duffy.

    • !o! says:

      Very very nice 😀

    • james Smith says:

      Cute, but God had nothing to do with this odious little man. After what he did to Margret Trudeau the day of PET’s funeral was perhaps one of the vilest most cruel things anyone could have done, this boot licker will do anything for glory & his gut. Perhaps this incident is why the Dear Leader added him to the senate.
      Sad, his punishment is not greater.

  3. Nic Coivert says:

    And all that BS about Wright bailing out the taxpayer is yet another Big Lie. As it turns out the taxpayer got burned twice when Duffy claimed Senate expenses while campaigning for Harper Cons.

    I’m calling it “The Double Chins’ double dip” TM

    or maybe “the double chins’ double dip drip” is better as it has a built in troughing image.

  4. Lance says:

    See now THIS would be a good response ad by the Liberals.

  5. frmr disgruntled Con now Happy Lib says:

    ….Wonder if I’d get a “sister” discount…

  6. Graham says:

    I’m a CPC supporter, but that is pretty freaking funny.

    On a serious note, I’d be lying if I said this one doesn’t have me scratching my head a little.

    Although it APPEARS no laws were broken here, the point of telling these three Senators to repay the money was THEY repay it from THEIR OWN funds. Duffy hasn’t done that. Sure the $90,000 was repaid, but with Wright’s money. As far as I’m concerned Duffy still owes $90,000. Take some off each of his pay cheque every week and give it to charity until HE has repaid the money.

    • Paul says:

      Nonsense. Honestly, it’s really none of our business. This wasn’t taxpayer money, nor was it Conservative party funds. Nigel Wright is free to do whatever he damn well pleases with his own money. For all we know Duffy didn’t have $90,000 just lying around in liquid cash (do you?), so Wright did him a favor by lending/giving it to him in order to settle the case. If I lend or give you $90,000 it immediately becomes your $90,000 and therefore in this case bill was indeed paid from Mr. Duffy’s own pocket. Even so, there is no stipulation that a fine, tax bill, repayment or whatever needs to be paid out of the pocket of the person that owes it. It just needs to be paid.

      All that matters to me as a taxpayer is that the $90K has been reimbursed. Anything else is between Mr. Wright and Mr. Duffy.

      • GPAlta says:

        So I could give bundles of cash to an elected official in return for whatever favour my boss wants? What if my boss wants irresponsible and inexplicable changes to regulations on guns, the environment, or industry that will benefit my business but harm the national interest? Oh, wait, things are starting to make more sense now.

        At least it isn’t taxpayer’s money

        • Paul says:

          False equivalency. Please enlighten us as to what favours Mike Duffy (who is not even an elected official) provided to Nigel Wright.

          • GPAlta says:

            He provided exactly what Nigel Wright bribed him to:
            1) he did not show the Deloitte auditors any of his records or speak to them, in an effort to protect the cons from further scandal ‘under PMO orders’
            2) he reversed his position on repayment of expenses- to undermine the audit

            He received in exchange exactly what he was promised for the PMO to ‘go easy on him’
            1) the con senators voted against reporting that forms should have been clear to Duffy even though they reported that the forms should have been clear to Harb and Brazeau
            2) more than one con leader made the post audit talking point that only Duffy had ‘shown leadership’ and ‘did the right thing’ even though he was found to be a resident of Ontario and he failed to cooperate and his expenses were shown to be false
            3) he received 90,000 dollars secretly!
            4) he has not been required to resign, even though his appointment representing PEI is now proven to violate the Constitution!

            They asked him to play ball with their strategy, and promised him favours if he did, he played ball, he received favours – the end

            As for elected officials’ behaviour being explicable only through bribes from industry… I meant Harper

      • Kevin T. says:

        Turns out the school nurse was right! Koolaid really does rot the brain.

      • J.W. says:

        So Nigel pays for the Duffster to head out on the big time fund raising campaign trail for his immediate boss?

  7. GPAlta says:

    Although I am no fan of CTV, this is excellent reporting on their part, which seems especially noteworthy given Duffy’s past employment there.

    More than 30 days has passed and he has not disclosed the gift, which means this story is not going anywhere, but the more important question is whether the audit was interfered with, and why the Prime Minister decided to congratulate Duffy on his leadership after the audit came out, why do they keep trying to make a hero out of this guy who appears to be an idiot?

    There must be some criminal charge possible against Nigel Wright for bribing a Senator not to cooperate with an official investigation, and for the Senator involved for accepting the bribe? Mustn’t there?

    • Kelly says:

      Trust me… Its BECAUSE he worked for CTV they are now after his gonads. It really is something to watch. As the Steely Dan song says…”We are the godwhackers who rip and chop and slice, for crimes beyond imagining its time to pay the price, you a better step back son, give the man some whacking space…

      • Darren Kelly says:

        One of the parts of this whole thing that bugs me is that both Pamela Wallin and Mike Duffy were people we trusted to tell us the truth for decades on television.

        Did either of them ever tell the truth when it came to politics?

        Or, do you somehow turn evil when you are elected or appointed to government?

        I don’t know. Please Mr. Trudeau. Can you fix this mess?

  8. Moe Lavigne says:

    From what we now know about Senator Duffy, the “gift of $90,000” and his claiming of travel expenses while campaigning for the CPC in the 2011 election (and more that will surely become public) it is obvious to me that CPC Senate Leader Marjory Lebreton was complicit in this sad affair. The Canadian people deserve an apology or at least an explanation for that laughable press conference she gave the other day announcing the results of the Senate inquiry. I used to think she was a person of integrity, but by trying to defending the indefensible, her credibility is gone and she should resign as the CPC Leader in the Senate.

    • frmr disgruntled Con now Happy Lib says:

      Senator LeBreton long ago lost all credibility with me when she became Stephen Harper’s lapdog………

  9. deb s says:

    lol, awesome! He paid off my car loan and my student loan. All I had to do was vote conservative, forevvvver!!!

    *disclaimer my indentured status really only lasts while Harper is the PMO, which may be cut short soon*

  10. Cynical says:

    Isn’t it a good thing that Mr. Chretien did not offer the Duffster a senate seat. I read that he was lobbying way back when.

    This thing has such a foul taste, yet I am still not sure where the illegality is. I suppose I should read more.

  11. kre8tv says:

    Loan? What loan? You mean a “gift,” eh?

  12. William says:

    So happy to hear that Mike Duffy finally met his Mr. Wright!

    • ray says:

      so true and lucky for him as he was throwing Hail Mary passes on the Road to Damascus when he first saw the Wright.

  13. Brad Young says:

    I guess the 90K gift is not illegal, but Duffy’s initial actions, are they illegal or just against the senate rules for cheating on your expenses.

    Over and over politicians get caught basically stealing and all they have to do is repay the money.

    If I did that at work, I’d be fired, possibly charged with fraud. If I stole money from a bank, giving it back would not help me, I’d still get charged.

    If Duffy’s actions were illegal, charge him now and end this. And fire his ass.

  14. dave says:

    At least Nigel used his own money, unlike ADSCAM or even Justin Trudeau on his speaking tour (instead of being in parliament) using public funds to fatten their/his wallet.

    • Steven says:

      Thanks for phoning in the most predictable CPC talking point, Dave.

      It’s always amazing how fast Harper fart catchers like Poliviere and you get them out.

    • dave says:

      dave

      Hey, great to see that a dave like me, a leftie, has a shadow dave who is a conservative.

      Question period Monday in the House! Who’s taking the face off for you, Poilievre? Maybe consider Moore; he did a great job with something like this in the Cadman vote incident…got him into cabinet.

    • I’d of thought that the $120 per annum plus all those juicy expense reimbursements was not exactly a personal expense. The $90k was just a drop in the Ocean

  15. Steven says:

    Opposition ad:

    Video of Steve Harper singing “I Get By With a Little Help From my Friends”.

  16. GPAlta says:

    I still think it is a bribe. Where did we get the impression that this is not illegal?

    CTV has reported that Wright asked Duffy to say nothing and to give up on his refusal to repay the money, and that in return he would get something.

    Duffy did say nothing and he did stop refusing to repay the money, and he got $90,000 and less criticism in the committee report (forms were found to be “amply clear” for Harb and Brazeau, but not for Duffy), and praise from the PM himself after the audit.

    Duffy’s silence to Deloitte and his reversal of his position on repayment was bought and paid for.

    The conservatives on the senate committee who voted to make Duffy look better than the others in their report, the Prime Minister himself, and most obviously Nigel Wright all seem to be guilty in a bribery scandal, as their actions are completely inexplicable otherwise.

    Plus, there is the money. Duffy didn’t declare that he received it, Wright didn’t declare that he gave it away, both of which are mandatory, and one of them is lying about where the money for repayment came from. Duffy says it was a loan from the RBC, Wright says it was a gift.

  17. In my life we have been treated to any number of crooked Senators. Remember the Cogger affair? Now there is nothing particularly abnormal about a Senator fleecing his or her expense allowances. They (Senators) cannot be fired unless they are convicted of a real offense, so Duffy could have simply obfuscated, dragged his heels, and maybe eventually have been forced to repay some money. So why did Wright go and pony up this $90k? He was smart enough to hand the cheque to Duffy’s lawyer ‘in trust’, so solicitor client relationship keeps the transaction effectively untraceable. All they all had to do was keep their traps shut, and it would all go away. Was it just that Duffy couldn’t keep his mouth shut? He has covered politics for decades. Does he not KNOW why so much political ‘business’ is conducted through lawyers as intermediaries? Well, there ain’t no cure for stupid.
    NOW there are several smoking guns. There are actually public records of Duffy claiming election expenses from CPC candidate campaigns, was he double dipping? Did he campaign on the publics dime? Will the RCMP find evdence of elections act breaches? Me, I would FAR prefer to have Elections Canada looking for elections acts offenses than the RCMP. RCMP can actually compell him to talk. The whole thing blows up into something pretty damned serious, straight to the top in fact. I suspect that this is going to rank as one of those really dumb scandals that sometimes change history.

  18. Brammer says:

    The sheen is off indeed.

  19. Roger says:

    Tempest in a teapot…. and if that’s all the opposition has to flog it’s futility. Of course the CBC will broadcast it every 15 minutes on the hour.

  20. JH says:

    This is again a distraction. And the Libs should certainly not waste any money on an ad that will have very little shelf life. No government is going to fall on such a convoluted story and the majority of folks aren’t following all the in and outs anyway. Only the junkies watching Solomon or Martin are on this and as we all know the majority of Canadians don’t even trust the media to get it right anyway.
    The real story here is that Duffy is NOT a resident of PEI and that is against the rules. He should be made to resign. That’s the real story and there’s ample evidence of it. That’s the point to hammer home every day. That has traction – the rest is fluff.

  21. Ridiculosity says:

    Does Nigel Wright buy old gold too? I have a bowling trophy is the basement that I’d love to turn into some fast cash.

  22. Ridiculosity says:

    ..that should have been “in” the basement. I couldn’t think clearly because of the thought of all that money magically appearing out of “nowhere”.

  23. smelter rat says:

    I find it incredible that there are self admitted CPC supporters posting here indicating that they see nothing wrong with these events. Conservativism truly should be a diagnosis.

  24. rumleyfips says:

    New liberal ad:

    Justin Trudeau: not up to it. Picture of Mike Duffy.

    Justin Trudeau not up to it. Picture of Brazeau.

    Justin Trudeau not up to it. Picture of Hienz-Karl.

    This does not qualify as an attack ad does it?

    For tory trolls, please tell Harper’s boss that the danger comes when people start laughing at him.

  25. dave says:

    Remember Art Eggleton? Bad Liberal. but in the Senate.

  26. MCBellecourt says:

    “13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption – Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.”

    http://rense.com/general37/fascism.htm

  27. DJ says:

    I think Justin now has an excuse to go after these Conservatives big time! Hit them hard through ads and establish a rat pack to attack their record inside and outside Parliament.

  28. rumleyfips says:

    Dave:

    You must think two wrongs make a Nigel Wright.

  29. Windsurfer says:

    Smelter, have you noticed how suddenly when things heat up, the Con-Troll-KoolAid-Brigade comes out in force on this blog? Almost like Warren’s spot has become the proving grounds for the national debate.

    These entities are here to subvert and de-moralize. Read at your own peril.

  30. frmr disgruntled Con now Happy Lib says:

    Hey Duff……that “warm Alliance breeze” turned out for you at least, a wet fart…….couldn’t happen to a nicer guy……

  31. James Cousineau says:

    Trudeau must be sitting back and smiling. Imagine, Harper’s crew running their own attack ad – and making it even better each day. This is truly a gift to the Liberals. “Welcome aboard, Justin, let’s see if we can make it easier for you to defeat us in the next election. By the way, don’t bother coming up with stuff to hurt our chances, we’ll do it for you!”. If Justin is true to his word about not running attack ads, as per his last TV ad, this may be tempting – but don’t make the so-called PCs look good by attacking them (they are doing very well by doing it themselves).

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