Cantankerous Huffing and Puffing

"In the case of the leader of the NDP, it is my understanding and he can confirm not only has his party in the past paid for certain legal expenses, it even paid findings of wrongdoing against him by a court of law that the party paid almost $100,000 in damages on his behalf. Can he confirm that?"
Prime Minister Stephen Harper

Prime Minister Stephen Harper waits in the Senate for the Speech from the Throne recently. Photo: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

"He's talking about something that happened almost 15 years ago with another party in another Parliament. It's all on the public record. I invite you to look it up."
Leader of the Official Opposition NDP Thomas Mulcair

This photo, taken last Thursday, of NDP leader Thomas Mulcair laughing at a response given by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the House of Commons has — as they say — gone viral.

Also on the public record is an event closer in time relating to the current party in this very Parliament, when the NDP paid for the legal civil defence costs of New Democrat MP Pat Martin
who took a personal loan from the NDP and received contributions to his legal defence fund from the Canadian Labour Congress, the United Steelworkers and the Canadian Union of Public Employees, along with 14 other unions or locals.

Despite that political contributions from unions at the federal level have been illegal since 2004; Pat Martin side-stepped that inconvenient issue by claiming the donations to his legal defence to have been personal "gifts", which he gratefully accepted. Admittedly, Senator Mike Duffy was anything but grateful to the PMO for paying his debts to the Canadian public, because he insists it is they who had lost their "moral compass", not he; because, in claiming expenses he was not entitled to, he had done nothing wrong.

Details, mere details, inconvenient nuisances at any time, a pain in the old wreckage-train on this occasion. There is great pain for Senator Duffy in false accusations besmirching his sterling reputation. He feels it should still shine bright and silver, and accuses the PMO of tarnishing it a bruised black-and-purple. All of which has caused him great untoward suffering. And, as he reminded sympathizers, he has a (sigh) heart condition.

He has testified, at length and heatedly, in an attempt to set the record straight. His intentions have always been impeccably true to the Conservative cause. And now that the Conservative cause has turned ugly on this most stout of honourable fellows, why then, he is prepared to divulge all the clumsy details of a party desperate to separate itself from the actions of someone who has always, he claims, been true to their principles of integrity and resolute honesty.

Senator Duffy is a heart patient. Senator Wallin is a cancer survivor. Have a heart. Suspending them without pay from the Senate cannot be tolerated. They have, after all, restored to the Senate and presumably the trust of Canadians, though they have done nothing whatever wrong, and resent the implications that they have, those funds claimed by their detractors to have been attained wrongfully. Their health insurance coverage and additional perquisites must not, repeat not, be withdrawn.



The national press which has outdistanced itself in effort and indignation and tireless digging on behalf of the public weal to reveal the sad machinations of the government in power to protect itself from revelations harmful to its reputation would take immense satisfaction if greater numbers of the public accepted their assumptions and putative revelations. And they write ever so admiringly of the astute and acute questioning of NDP leader Thomas Mulcair of the embattled Prime Minister.

Put a sock on it, Thomas. You too, news scribes.