An Honourable Man

"I ... believe that Mike was doing what people told him he should do, without thinking about it too much", is what Nigel Wright thoughtfully wrote initially when he was tasked with settling the emerging controversy over Mike Duffy's unentitled expense claims in the Senate of Canada, and the ensuing fallout.

A detailed, plausible succession of events and messages has been parsed and explained thoughtfully by a journalist with the National Post. Who points out that Mr. Wright, a wealthy man in his own right as a successful businessman before joining the PMO, had never filed a single expense claim. He personally took to paying for all his flights associated with his job at the PMO, and for hotels, meals and other expenses relating to his PMO position, from his own bank account.

Looking carefully through the RCMP investigation and its exhaustive notes, Mr. McParland paints a readily interpreted series of events supported by those notes, providing huge relief from the incessant chortling of other reporters at the presumed guilt of Stephen Harper in the pursuit of bringing order out of chaos, and using underhanded means to do so. What a gust of fresh air that represents, in the midst of the stench of reportorial schadenfreude.

At last, one lone journalist with integrity. Who uses his professionalism to neutrally explore the situation in full, not merely to extract portions of data that neatly fit a gleeful declaration of prime ministerial malfeasance. Kelly McParland, writing for the National Post, has placed the matter of the Prime Minister's Office, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, his former chief of staff Nigel Wright, and Senator Mike Duffy in the perspective of responsible reportage.

Mr. Wright is revealed as someone imbued with a sense of rigorous social and political grace. A man dedicated to the public weal, lending himself to what he might have thought would be the altruistic aim to uphold good governance and the trust of the public. And loyal to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in whose character mould he appears to have been shaped. Like the prime minister he erred in his judgement of the character of Mike Duffy.

"Does [Duffy's lawyer] truly understand that if Mike has improperly charged for travel on Senate business when no Senate business actually took place that we cannot now say to him that those expenses are in order?", he wrote incredulously. This, after all, from a man careful to ensure that his activities on behalf of government not become a burden in any way to the taxpayers, being confronted by examples of unmitigated avarice so deep it takes him aback.

"It is his global view and contribution to public policy that taxpayers not bear the cost of his position if he can legitimately afford to fund it himself. He did not view it as something out of the norm for him to do, and was part of being a good person. He said it was a personal decision, and he did not want a lot of people to know about it", wrote RCMP Cpl. Greg Horton, in charge of the Senate investigation, writing both of Mr. Wright's willingness to pay his own expenses out of pocket, and Mr. Duffy's as well.

Mr. Duffy has claimed expenses for his long-lived-in Ottawa home, on the basis that a cottage owned on P.E.I. is his primary residence, a risible ruse to gain profit through expense claims. Speaking directly to Mr. Wright, Mr. Duffy insisted he never wished to claim expenses he was not entitled to. On the other hand admitting that he was wrong worries him that it could imperil his Senate seat, so he seeks reassurance from Mr. Wright.

Each occasion on which Mr. Wright is left with the impression that he has managed to convince Mr. Duffy to do the right thing and settle the whole scurvy affair, he is brought back to reality discovering that Mr. Duffy has lied, continues to lie, and publicly states outrageous accusations against others to portray himself as a victim. Cpl. Horton made a special note in the documents he produced that Mr. Wright "was incensed that Senator Duffy was getting paid for meals that he ate in his own house in Ottawa".

Talk of a contrast in personalities. Relations between the PMO and the Senate were tense. The Senate proving more than conclusively that those authorized to speak on its behalf were not at the beck and call of the PMO. "I have seen no evidence that the prime minister was involved in having Senator Duffy's legal bills paid", wrote Cpl. Horton.

All the claims made by Mr. Duffy in his appeals to the Senate have been disproven by Cpl. Horton. No evidence exists to support Mr. Duffy's claim the PMO schooled him on a false story claiming to have borrowed money from the Royal Bank to pay his debt: "there was no such plot", according to Mr. Duffy's own statements to the RCMP.

"The evidence that I have seen shows that the demands made by Senator Duffy in February were the start of the 'monstrous fraud'", stated Cpl. Horton, scrubbing Mr. Duffy's accusations that "this monstrous fraud was the PMO's creation from start to finish", in his dramatic, tell-all accusations spitefully attempting to paint the PMO and the prime minister with the broad brush of hypocrisy and malfeasance.

One individual's commitment to journalistic integrity revealing the nuances that others chose to ignore because it simply did not fit into their narrative of wrong-doing at the very highest levels of government, spreading slanderous statements of accusations and blame. A shameful and widely-practised free-for-all of misinformation and misinterpretation by the media, with a sole exception.