In Defence of China

"Canadians are saying to Chinese friends that we don't want them to make the same mistakes. We do so not because we have a superior moral position, not because we have the answers to the problems they are trying to solve and not because we want to embarrass China. We do it because of the pain we feel over what happened in our own country and for what we can learn from each other in not making such mistakes again."

"[Canadians wouldn't tolerate mass arrests, forcing people to attend schools, sterilizing women or relocating villages], except that we did all of those things, and we did them throughout our short history as a country, most appallingly to Indigenous peoples, but also to recent immigrants and minority groups who were deemed undesirable, untrustworthy or just un-Canadian."

"On a different question about the degree of democracy, respondents in China expressed greater satisfaction with the status quo in their country than did respondents in Canada or the United States."

"The management of relations with other countries, especially great powers, is exceedingly complex and does not lend itself to one-off pronouncements that are based on the desire to perform without the responsibility to manage."

"The fact that China does not share our view of individual freedoms or, indeed, our interpretation of freedoms based on the Charter is not a basis on which to lecture the Chinese on how they should govern themselves."

Senator Yuen Pau Woo, Senate of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario

Independent B.C. Sen. Yuen Pau Woo has criticized Canada for condemning China's treatment of its Uyghur minority. (Justin Tang/Canadian Press)

 

Beijing is not shy about telling other countries not to interfere in China's internal relations in seeking out harmony between its peoples. Tibetans, Chinese Christians, the Falon Gong movement, Turkic minorities, the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province all face oppressive situations of illegitimacy in the treatment meted out to them by the Chinese Communist Party which wants all of its citizens to be uniformly loyal, speaking the same language, thinking the same thoughts, venerating the CCP and President Xi, never venturing into opposition territory.

All of China's actions against its minority groups are fairly well known to the international community, most of whom feel that whatever China does is China's business, but for many Western democracies which decry China's oppressive autocracy. Rumours of body organs taken from prisoners for transplant in transplant tourism in China have not gained it much admiration abroad. Similarly charges that a million Uyghurs have been imprisoned, used as slave labour, brainwashed to deny their culture, traditions, religion and language have brought universal censure to China.

Beijing has an immense propaganda machine, has invested vast sums in establishing its Confucius centres in foreign academic institutions in the interests of serving as a link to greater friendship between countries through familiarity with Chinese history, culture and traditions to support an aura of relaxed trust between the West and China. It has also infiltrated other countries through its United Front Work Department which calls upon its former citizens living abroad to remind them that they have an obligation to their mother country to come to its defence. 

Chinese expatriates the world over have entered governments and business and academia at every level, gaining trust and respect for their intelligence and skills and experience, while some among them at the same time nudge their adopted countries toward closer ties with China. China's influence and control has grown through its generous funding of developing nations' infrastructure in its Belt and Road initiative, through loans and technical assistance, in the process indebting countries to a benefactor and placing them in financial difficulties to repay the loans.

People wearing masks are seen during a rally in Hong Kong in 2019 showing support for Uyghurs and their fight for human rights. (Lee Jin-man/The Associated Press)

 

The Parliament of Canada, like many of its collegial-nation countries has seen fit to charge Beijing with cultural genocide aimed at its Uyghur and Tibetan population, which enrages President Xi Jinping. And Canadian-Chinese Senator Woo has cleverly and persuasively taken up a gentle verbal cudgel of admonishing Canada for its arrogance in charging Beijing with cultural genocide when Canada itself has perpetrated a very similar program dating from the 19th century targeting its Indigenous First Nations population.

The issue of the residential school system where it became law for Indian, Metis and Inuit children to attend these residential schools operated on behalf of the government of Canada by religious communities, and where First Nations children were scooped into the residential schools away from their families and tribes to be indoctrinated into the superior culture of European settlers laid waste to the culture of First Nations. Their children forbidden to speak their native languages, given new names, unable to see their parents, fed inappropriate food, harshly punished and given inadequate medical care.

Other appointed senators in the Red Chamber of 'sober second thought' in Parliament took umbrage at Senator Woo's first speech after being appointed to the Senate by the current Prime Minister in 2016, as a China apologist when he argued against a motion for the government of Canada to urge China to reduce tension in the South China Sea, his first message being to "deliver a message not on behalf of Canadians, but on behalf of Beijing". Senator Woo has also said that Canada "should give up on the idea that it is part of Canada's mission to change China".

As for Senator Woo's contention that Chinese are more satisfied with their government than are Canadians with theirs and Americans with their own, he might be reminded that Beijing closely tracks each and every Chinese citizen, knows the most intimate things about them; tunes in to their behaviour and their expressed opinions. Chinese simply do not express criticism of their government for legitimate fear of punishment in retribution. Canadians and Americans have the guaranteed freedom to do so if they wish.

In this 2018 file photo, a guard tower and barbed wire fence surround a detention facility in the Kunshan Industrial Park in Artux in western China's Xinjiang region. (Ng Han Guan/AP Photo)

 

It is really difficult to be too harsh over Senator Woo's position. An intelligent man, well spoken and making comparisons between the two countries on a superficial level, bypassing the aggressive stance China has taken toward its neighbours' claims to disputed border territories, from India to the Philippines, Japan to Korea and Vietnam, the world's trading colossus has revealed its agenda as a bully. One that does not hesitate to use the most underhanded methods of spying on other countries to snatch trade, military and government secrets for its own use.

Its transgressions are legion, from cyber espionage to infiltration of other nations while warning the international community that China itself will brook no interference in its internal affairs, much less its external affairs, threatening other nations that spurn offers to link their communication systems to China's, a country that seeks to dominate every sphere of human endeavour, from amassing rare earth minerals to investing in other countries' national enterprises, the better to rise to the top.

His Injured Honour : Exonerated

"Was Nigel Wright actually ordering senior members of the Senate around as if they were mere pawns on a chess board? Were those same senior members of the Senate meekly acquiescing to Mr. Wright's orders? Were those same senior members of the Senate robotically marching to recite their scripted lines?"
"I was not presented with evidence suggesting expensive wining and dining, lavish living or pricey gambling junkets, or secret financial hideaways. ... The thrust of all of Senator Duffy's perceived misadventures was focused on Senate business."
"This case provided me with ample opportunity to assess the credibility of Senator Duffy. He was on the stand for many hours; at the end of the day I find that Senator Duffy is an overall credible witness."
"Senator Duffy believed reasonably ... that all of the travel encompassed by counts three to 20 were properly expensed as parliamentary functions."
"After reviewing the submissions and the facts in this case, I am not satisfied that the Crown has proven the guilt of Senator Duffy in relation to alleged fraudulent residency declarations, and their expense claims in connection thereto, beyond a reasonable doubt."
Ontario Court Justice Charles Vaillancourt, April 21, 2016, Ottawa

Sen. Mike Duffy arrives at the Ottawa courthouse Thursday April 21, 2016. (Tony Caldwell)

In clearing Senator Mike Duffy of all 31 charges brought against him by the Crown, Justice Vaillancourt chose to smear former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, his PMO staff, and his then-chief of staff, Nigel Wright. Judge Vaillancourt spoke scathingly of the "ruthless" actions taken by the PMO, when in fact it was Mike Duffy who ruthlessly sought to avail himself of as much of taxpayer largesse as he conceivably could. Nigel Wright, who was forced to resign in infamy, was exercising principle and due regard for tax dollars. He spent $90K of his own money to give Duffy an out.

From the very moment that Mr. Harper unwisely selected Mike Duffy as a Senator to represent Prince Edward Island, where he hadn't lived for decades, Mr. Duffy immediately schemed to profit. Before his appointment was even formally announced, this man began entitling himself to his perceived entitlements by expensing per diems, and charging the Senate by way of the taxpayer for meals he was eating in his home of over 20 years in Ottawa, using the fiction of a seasonal cottage in P.E.I. as his primary residence.

The Senate's loose accounting rules and regulations relied heavily on personal honour of honourable senators. That accounting did not take into account the entitled cupidity of people who tucked their version of personal accountability and honour high up on a shelf to be forgotten under layers of grime. The trips this man took for personal business, being careful to throw in casual and brief 'meetings' that could be referred to as Senate business allowed him to waste additional thousands on his whims.

When the Senate made it clear there were certain expenses they would not cover, Senator Duffy simply used a ruse to overcome those rules by authorizing someone he delegated for that purpose to issue cheques from an all-purpose account, for services that the Senate would not otherwise cover. And the smug senator with the grossly inflated opinion of his indispensability to the ruling political party of the time felt supremely confident of his place in the orbit of the government hierarchy to cover his unseemly arse.

Justice Vaillancourt and superannuated high-octane lawyer Donald Bayne who acted on Duffy's account, confident that he had an airtight case against a rules-slovenly Senate dependent on the principled honour system that they felt would be recognized by all distinguished Canadians elevated to the Senate, simply skimmed the surface of personal accountability, preferring to emphasize that no rules existed to precisely delineate what was permissible and what was not.

Senator Duffy simply followed the thread that informed him that he could do no wrong, and there were in fact, no precisely defined guidelines, so he could just go about making his own. Now that he has been exonerated in a Canadian court of law, but not in the greater arena of popular public opinion where the public gives short shrift to the egregiously greedy on the public dime, he will be free to return to the Senate, exercising a trifle more care in his judgement.

Harrying Harper

"The internal economy committee will confirm that Senator Duffy has been withdrawn from the Deloitte review."
"It will assure him that his expenses are fully in order to date."
"As his apparent ineligibility for the housing allowance stems from his time on the road on behalf of the party, there will be an arrangement to keep him whole on the repayment."
Janice Payne, lawyer for Mike Duffy

Justin Tang,The Canadian Press

Former Conservative senator Mike Duffy arrives at the courthouse in Ottawa on Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2015. Duffy is facing 31 charges, including fraud, breach of trust and bribery.

"If someone thinks a crime has occurred, can we have an internal agreement not to refer it to the RCMP? I think that would be a scandal, no?"
"I have some vague recollection from law school about it being improper for a lawyer to seek civil advantage in connection with a promise to refer or to not refer a suspected criminal matter to the authorities."
Nigel Wright, former chief of staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper

Justin Tang,The Canadian Press

Nigel Wright, former chief of staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, is flanked by lawyers Peter Mantas (left) and Pat McCann as he arrives at the courthouse in Ottawa on Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2015.

It's election time in Canada. The current government-leading Conservatives are campaigning on their past record of managing the affairs of the country; by and large it's been a very good record. The opposition parties are busy shoving each other aside, and shovelling spending priorities at Canadian voters, with a special emphasis on the currently favoured 'middle class'. And the news media are falling all over themselves harrying the prime minister.

It is not only the opposition parties, the Liberals, NDP, Greens, that are busy painting the Conservative-led government as spent and ready to be ushered out of office, that their record has been less than sterling and the alternative parties could do far better for the country, but the news media as a whole as well. They represent a powerful, unofficial opposition, and they've made it official; they're on the war path.

Journalism vengeance toward a prime minister whose distaste for the media has been made abundantly evident over the last ten years in his unavailability for scrums or to respond to the queries and querulous complaints of the media whose coverage of a Conservative government is guaranteed to be slanted, but which hates to be slighted nonetheless.

So who is at trial here in the affair of the Senate's Mike Duffy, a man who has given new meaning to the 'dis' linked with honourable. His petty avaricious greed -- while not entirely illegal according to the loose rules of conduct in the Senate which for some strange reason seemed to feel that their members really are honourable, and would never dream of charging taxpayers unless they were entitled to by fact and reality -- has scandalized the capital.

Outside Ottawa, it's a yawn-fest. Duffy couldn't wait to charge for per diems, and for the cost of running his long-time residence in Ottawa, claiming it under Senate rules to be his secondary residence, his primary one a not-year-round-season cottage in his native PEI, which he was purportedly to represent in the Senate. So the trial will be costing taxpayers millions, but the leader of the NDP furiously accuses the Prime Minister of a cover-up.

This, from Thomas Mulcair, who is never questioned by the media about his party's illegal millions of taxfunded spending meant for Parliament Hill, but extended to improper satellite offices in Montreal. Nor is there mention made of the conviction of Liberal Senator Raymond Lavigne for fraud, nor the same unethical expense claims made by former Liberal Senator Mac Harb.

Meanwhile, the hugely entitled Mike Duffy whose bumptiously-accusing lawyer takes great pains to accuse all and sundry of railroading his naively innocent client into accepting a 'bribe' of $90,000 as a personal cheque from Nigel Wright to pay off his taxpayer-funded debt, plays to the media which laps up his performance, while mercilessly and endlessly grilling people like Nigel Wright whose ethical compass has never been corrupted as the inestimable Duffy's has.

The free-for-all hoping to trash Prime Minister Harper's reputation does no one any credit, least of all the journalists enjoying what they believe to be a man being served their version of revenge, cold on a salver comprised of newspaper headlines. The goal? To trash any aspirations Mr. Harper may have of challenging for the longest-reigning prime minister in Canada's history. On his record.

Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence Proposal

"Radicalization occurs among Muslim youth when identity politics facilitates their indoctrination into jihadi politics by Islamist preachers and activists in the community."
"If you are not prepared to tackle radicalization and those who radicalize our youth, we will always be playing catch-up."
Dr. Salim Mansur, professor of political science, University of Western Ontario

ISIS Leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi: Video still

"Under the notion of freedom of religion, the state has legally funded religious schools and centres and placed the children under religious dogma and tradition. With money pouring from Saudi Arabia, Iran and other states, and with [mullahs] and imams being imported to Canada, the result is very obvious."
"The state has paved the path for more segregation, isolation and discrimination."
Homa Arjomand, Iranian refugee

"There are people preaching open intolerance in this country. [It is this] intolerance ideology that makes a person become a potential recruit for the terrorist organization. This ideology opens the door for recruitment."
Imam Syed Soharwardy, Calgary, Alberta

SITE  A screengrab from ISIS propaganda video showing John Maguire, a former University of Ottawa student.

What all three witnesses testifying before the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence have in common is that they are all practising Muslims living in Canada. From their vantage point they have been able to observe through the lens of Islam today, the presence of recruiters to jihad persuading young Muslims of their reverential duties to Islam which demands of them that they participate in jihad by travelling abroad or by plotting in Canada how they may best contribute to global jihad.

Their testimony helped form the basis for the conclusions reached by committee members when they wrote and released their preliminary report. It is a report that has been widely criticized, not only by the Canadian Muslim community in their aggregate for singling out Muslims within the greater community, but by leftists and 'human-rights' activists who find it similarly offensive to point a finger of suspicion at any Canadian community comprised of religious adherents.

Somehow each party of complainants finds it serves their interests to overlook the single cogent fact of Islamist violence being perpetrated in the world of Islam against their own with an unspeakable slaughter ongoing and the cause of the world's largest refugee trauma now taking place and growing, and the threat common to all Western democratic countries that have absorbed Muslim immigrants and refugees who in their numbers seek to impose Islamic values upon the existing cultures they infiltrate.

A survey taken in the last year indicates that Muslims make up roughly 2.7 percent of the Canadian population; 940,000 citizens, with the number anticipated to rise to 2.7 million, 7 percent, within a decade. An earlier survey found about 4 percent of Muslims in Canada which amounts to 100,000 identify with extremists and jihadists, that violence in the name of Islam is justified. Professor Mansur in another arena pointed out that as the Muslim population increases the number that relate to jihad also increases and with them the pool of potential terrorists.

We have the example of European countries attempting to cope with the pressure of Muslim immigration. Some of which have succumbed to the demands to accommodate cultural values reflective of Islam and even some practices which deny and offend secular traditions and law. The very same pressures to relent and seek conciliation with what will in time be a very large segment of the Canadian population through reluctant agreement in the installation of Sharia law may well assail Canada in due time.

The Netherlands, since 2004, in a late push-back against the situation prevailing there, has passed laws that prohibit foreign imams from practicing clerical performance in the country. Belgium, France, Austria and Germany now require imams be trained and certified within the countries they liv in. France last week reported it had deported 40 foreign-trained imams since 2012. In Tunisia the government has announced its intention to shutter 80 Salafist/Wahhabi mosques. Even Algeria, another Muslim country with secular rule has restrictions on foreign-trained imams.

Bland Canadians pride themselves on nothing so much as their relaxed attitude toward ethnicity and religion and invite the many cultures whose traditions are vastly different than those of Canada's own, to proudly display their differences. We don't want to impose on others our core values, nor expect that immigrants immerse themselves in Canadian culture to become fully Canadian. But when people emigrate from a country of origin to an accepting country of immigration, they should be prepared to meld with the prevailing culture and accept its laws and its values.

Senator Daniel Lang, chair of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence wrote of a member of the Muslim community testifying before his committee. Her family was affected directly by radicalization, and it was her intention to warn that foreign-trained imams are "blurring the line between traditional Islam and their politically motivated ideology, which opens the door to violence and strife".

Her son Luqman Abdunnur, under national security investigation, had been radicalized at a mosque in Ottawa, and arrested three days following the October 2014 Parliament Hill attack. This woman called on the Committee to "create a certification or licensing standard for clergy and religious leaders in Canada". Former Liberal cabinet minister and ex-premier of British Columbia Ujjal Dosanjh urged the Committee to consider greater security relating to religious institutions.

Several other Muslim witnesses warned of the hazards integral to religious/political interpretations of jihad, pointing out the doctrine serves as the justification and impetus to Islamist terrorism. With "jihad" as a religious duty demanded of all Muslim faithful to consider terrorist violence justified by their belief that Islam is under attack by the West, and it is incumbent upon them as the faithful to respond in Islam's defence by killing its detractors.

Farah Mohamed Shirdon appears in a passport burning video released on YouTube. In English, Shirdon issues threats against the West before burning his passport and stomping on it. (YouTube)

Countering The Terrorist Threat in Canada

"[The federal government should] work with the provinces and the Muslim communities to investigate the options that are available for the training and certification of imams in Canada."

"The committee heard testimony from members of the Muslim community and others that some foreign-trained imams have been spreading extremist religious ideology and messages that are not in keeping with Canadian values."

"These extreme ideas are said to be contributing to radicalization and raise serious concerns if they continue to go unchecked."

"The committee believes that having more informed ‘eyes and ears’ is vital to terrorism prevention."

"[The government should investigate and discourage the spread of violent extremism] especially the ideology promoted by the global Islamist fundamentalist movement. [Ottawa should work with Muslim communities in the creation of an] effective counternarrative [to denounce this extremism]."

Senate committee on national security and defence interim report, recommendation no.9 

Conservative Senator Carolyn Stewart Olsen, attends a Senate committee hearing on Parliament Hill May 28, 2013 in Ottawa. The Senate Standing Committee on National Security and Defence, led by senators Daniel Lang and Stewart-Olsen issued an interim report Wednesday on its study of “security threats facing Canada.”   (Dave Chan For The Globe and Mail)

"Countering the Terrorist Threat in Canada", the interim report by the Senate committee on national security and defence includes a total of 25 recommendations that have resulted from months of study, presentations and interviews with people as diverse as the heads of Canada's intelligence services, policing, Muslim imams and community leaders and others from Canadian society, all concerned to render for the consideration of the committee their experience and perceptions.

Government is called upon to forbid funding for radical groups in Canada by foreign sources. It is challenged to launch an investigation into the Muslim Brotherhood and other like fundamentalist Islamist organizations creating havoc in the Middle East and with a presence in Canada, including groups that have been declared terrorist groups which clearly have supporters within the Muslim population in Canada, like Hamas and Hezbollah. 

The 22nd of the recommendations speaks of "legislation to protect Canadians who are participating in the public discourse from vexatious litigation", such as the complaint brought to the Canadian Human Rights Commission against Maclean's magazine and writer Mark Steyn by the Canadian Islamic Congress in response to a 2006 magazine article titled "The Future Belongs to Islam" which spoke of Islamic domination of Europe and the West verging on a demographic shift.

The Congress's assertion that the article was likely to expose Muslims to hatred and contempt, despite the fact that nothing in the article reflected anything but reality, was rejected by the Rights Commission. The article claimed that Muslims would eventually dominate Western countries, quoting a European imam who is alleged to have remarked that Muslims are reproducing like "mosquitoes". The Commission dismissed the complaint on the basis that "when considered as a whole and in context [the views in the article] are not of an extreme nature, as defined by the Supreme Court".

The vexatious nature of the complaint and the threat behind it that the Islamic community through its representatives would not tolerate any comments relating to its unwillingness to assimilate into the culture and accept the values of the countries absorbing migrants, and the threats arising out of Islamic theology and the incitement to jihad in the Koran, along with the disaffection of many Muslim youth, resentful and complaining of Islamophobia, are not to be broached.

One of the recommendations is for the publication of a "Wanted Terrorist List" of Canadians distinguishing themselves by warranting inclusion in terrorism-recognized incidents causing warrants for their apprehension, is yet another urgent item that requires consideration. But it seems that the single most noted and critically commented upon recommendation is that which calls "for the training and certification of imams in Canada".

The explanation included that some "foreign-trained imams have been spreading extremist religious ideology and messages that are not in keeping with Canadian values", rather understates the problem of infiltration into Canada by recruiters for jihad, informing and instructing interested would-be-jihadis of their strict obligation to respond to the call to jihad and how they may best set about  achieving that goal.

The complaints centre around government inserting itself in a matter of religious faith, interfering in people's freedom to conduct themselves as their faith demands and potentially contesting freedom of religion. If one faith's penchant to persuade its adherents to act in a manner that threatens the well-being of the rest of a society is interpreted as untouchable because it hinges on freedom of religion, Canada has an urgent need to address the fact that one group's perceived entitlement cannot infringe on the security and safety of the majority.

Nowhere, however, is there the suggestion that government undertake to oppress a religious group by unreasonable demands. Under the circumstances as described by the committee, irrespective of the Liberal segment's dissenting opinion, the recommendation is that governments at all levels work in conjunction with the Muslim communities and its religious representatives, despite which the push-back from those sources is shouting 'racism'.

Pointing out that Canadians of Islamic faith are self-radicalizing through impressions and materials sourced through the Internet and made available by jihadists through channels known for their fanatical calls to violence against non-Muslims, simply points out the extent and breadth of the problem for there are a number of fronts which conspire to threaten the security and stability of Canada and its citizens. All of which require attention, and urgently.

Given the fact that Muslims themselves are targets of violence, particularly through the vicious hatred so evident in the sectarian divide with thousands of people in the Middle East threatened and savaged by Islamist extremists for whom no cruelty goes beyond the permissible in performing obeisance to Islamist doctrine, it would seem far more useful for the Muslim community to participate in and become part of a larger effort on the part of all Canadians to deal with this barbarity.

Goring The Oxen

"We found that the oversight, accountability and transparency of Senators' expenses was quite simply not adequate. Senators often did not prioritize consideration of the cost to taxpayers."
"The lack of transparency was something that was obvious fairly early on. But what struck me in terms of that was the depth to which a number of senators simply felt that they didn't have to be transparent with the spending."
Michael Ferguson, Auditor General of Canada

Auditor General Michael Ferguson is shown during an interview in his office in Ottawa this week, after tabling a scathing report on Senate spending. FRED CHARTRAND / THE CANADIAN PRESS

"The Auditor General depends on incorrect and uninformed interpretation of the applicable rules, and uses criteria never before applied to Senate expenses."
Senator Don Oliver, retired

"The presentation and tone of your general observations insinuate that I misappropriated my office resources in a nefarious manner. I find these apparent accusations to be a defamatory affront to my personal integrity."
Senator Gerry St.Germain, retired

"I want to make it clear that we wholeheartedly embrace the fundamental principles of transparency and accountability that underscore the auditor general's recommendations."
Leo Housakos, Senate Speaker

"Raising awareness is an integral part of my duties as a Senator I agreed to represent victims of crime and their families. It is unthinkable that I would be able to perform this work without travelling outside Ottawa."
Senator Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu

There are 105 Senators in the Red Chamber of the Canadian Parliament. An investigation by the Auditor General's office has just concluded into the expenses claimed by the Senators and the results of the findings were published in a 116-page audit report released this week which found a "pervasive lack of evidence, or significant contradictory evidence" in support of expense claims for some members of the Upper Chamber.

Some of the examples feature quite certainly a lackadaisical attitude toward the public purse on the part of the good Senators. Travel pertaining to a fishing trip, to attend a family funeral or travel related to a family member's convocation represent some of those examples. Per diems charged when none should be, and taxis used for personal reasons, and other such, but nothing quite as egregious as some Senators claiming housing allowances they were not entitled to.

In total, questionable spending on the part of the honourable Senators came to a total of $991,917 on the part of 30 Senators through the extensive audit. Travel claims amounted to $570,709, residency $259,657, contract claims $136,944, and 'other' questionable claims, $24,608 to arrive at that total just a tad under $1-million of taxpayer funding that should not ethically have been claimed.

And the cost of the audit to come up with those figures and the damning condemnation of those 30 Senators, current and retired, whose blatant stretching of allowable expense claims has brought the wrath of the country down on them? $23.6-million. Correct: it has taken almost $24-million in expenses related to the formal audit to pinpoint close to $1-million that was incorrectly billed to the taxpayer. The $24-million was 'correctly' billed to the taxpayer.

If the moral of the story is that there is no expense too much to bring people who exhibit too great a degree of hubris in their elevated state as appointed Senators to augment the elected lawmakers of the land in Parliament, to suffer the ignominy of being made public disgraces, then the mission was achieved. The 30 Senators whose spending was flagged will surely rue the day they felt entitled to claim what they should not have.

Even if they were suffering under the impression that they did nothing wrong, and that they were indeed entitled to expense certain activities. Nine current and former Senators of that 30 total have had their files referred to the RCMP for possible criminal investigation. And from that group were five who claimed tens of thousands in ineligible expenses declaring their primary residence to be outside Ottawa when clearly that was not the case.

An additional 21 current and former Senators claimed thousands on travel and additional expenses with little-to-nothing to do with Parliamentary affairs according to the report. A Senate oversight committee will undertake a review of their cases. In fact, the report recommends the Senate initiate a wholly independent oversight body to review such expenses.

The Senators suffering under the mortification of these revelations highlighting their time in office, have the option of rebutting the charges and some of them have done so. They were permitted 500-word responses to be tabled with the audit report; in their opinion a "scurrilous" and "defamatory" document.

This will not displease the formidably sour Auditor General one whit. Who has himself no doubt considered using such descriptives on his own account when he was brought up short by journalists questioning his authorization of spending on 'constructive entertainment' for his office staff, on the public purse.

Why, They're Simply Entitlements...!

Ah, the Red Chamber of Parliament. The hugely respected Senate of Canada. Which has seen its reputation for responsible behaviour on the part of a number of ethically-challenged Senators take a tumble in the last few years when it was revealed that some in the Chamber don't give it a second thought about claiming significant expenses for which they are not entitled. Oh well, it's only taxpayer-funded money they're claiming as their just due.

An overview of a ceremony in the Senate. (The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld)

"The total, including those (roughly ten senators who should be referred to the RCMP) that we will be reporting on is about 30."
"A lot of our message around the Senate audit will be talking about accountability and transparency"
Michael Ferguson, Auditor General of Canada

"The appointment of an independent arbitrator ensures that questions of reimbursement will be dealt with in a timely and fair fashion."
"All decisions by the special arbitrator and CIBA [the standing committee on internal economy, budgets and administration] will be made public, in line with our commitment to transparency and accountability."
Senate Speaker Leo Housakos, chairman of CIBA

The Auditor General's audit teams undertook an intensive review of two years of spending receipts on the part of 117 past and current senators. Travel spending, telephone calls, office contracts, lunch receipts and residency claims were all examined closely. This two-year exercise points to housing and travel claims to be the most questionable of all expense claims. Some of the claims are in excess of $100,000.

Thirty former and current Senators appear to have been of most interest to the auditors; their claims setting off alarm bells. Of that number 20 have begun repaying expense claims. The remaining ten have had their claims referred to the RCMP for deeper scrutiny revolving around criminal charges. The audit itself will have cost the government about $21 million to pursue.

Those Senators who face serious allegations of improper spending, most of whom are now retired will have an avenue of appeal open to them, through a special arbitrator. The Senate committee on internal economy has announced the appointment of a retired Supreme Court judge to resolve any disputes from Senators who choose to challenge the audit findings.

For those Senators who will be charged with a criminal offence and who may be found guilty in a court of law, perhaps it would represent the full weight of justice to deny them their fairly hefty retirement benefits. Nothing, however, has been discussed with respect to that particular bit of potential care of tax dollars.

And no little amount of questioning has gone on in the press corps over revelations that the office of the auditor general itself has chosen to spend over $23,000 on entertainment for its auditors, explaining it to be an aid to cohesion among the auditors. Those team-building events took place at the Britannia Yacht Club, at a curling rink at an adventure park, and other locales.

The auditors, like the Senators, evidently are paid insufficiently to allow them to pay for their own entertainment.

"We feel that's important in order to make sure our employees are engaged, that they're proud to work in the office of the auditor general, and that helps us with retention", explained Mr. Ferguson. "It's cheaper to retain your employees than to have to hire new ones. So we think there's a business reason. We're very conscious of the cost."

What!?! They're not impressed by their well-earned salaries far in excess of what most ordinary people could envision? Well, then!

The Honourable Mike Duffy

"The questions become unfair and abusive at a certain point. How many times must she [Nicole Proulx, employee, Senate of Canada] maintain (the same position) before Mr. Bayne must move on to other areas?"
Crown prosecutor Mark Holmes -- Mike Duffy trial

"I didn't expect payment [from Mike Duffy]. If you're a friend talking to somebody on the phone and you're giving them some advice on whatever, usually friends don't ask for money for the advice. That's what I got paid to do in government."
William Kittelberg[aka]Bill Rodgers, reporter, government employee

Mike Duffy has sat through 22 days of his trial, which broke Friday for three weeks at what was supposed to be about the halfway point for the trial. It is now expected to last much longer than that. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

Suspended Senator Duffy's lawyer, Donald Bayne, is evidently having the time of his life. Nitpicking, manipulating, accusing, leading, belittling, badgering Crown witnesses, particularly those who state their support of and belief in the Senate of Canada, its rules of conduct, and the honour of its sitting members, not all of whom have earned that distinction of 'honourable' in their conduct of entitlements' claims.

And Mike Duffy is most certainly the leading exponent of draining entitlements for all they're worth, claiming entitlements that fall on the decidedly dark side of ethics and morality. So dark they edge perilously close to fraud. And fraud indeed is one of the charges brought against him; 31 in total, including bribery and breach of trust.

If Senators gave as their reason for travel, billed to the Senate as "Senate business" the finance department in the Senate generally took their word as dependable, honest, reliable. They might have had their doubts on occasion, but after all these were honourable Senators the Senate employees were dealing with; call them out? Was that an option?

"The system you've set up deliberately creates a system where you don't ask questions", lawyer Bayne shouted in accusation at the then-Senate's top administrator Nicole Proulx, as he defended the indefensible. This was a man after all, who knew the ins and outs of politics; he studied it, practised it at a remove, reported on it, revelled in it. And he was informed unequivocally when he joined the Senate of its rules of internal economy.

Not merely verbally, but by being handed multiple documents setting out the expected rules of conduct, and what was permissible to claim as expenses and what was not. And, should something not be completely clear, he and his colleagues were further advised, the Senate staff was at their service; ask and they would receive the advice they sought. If they sought it. Mike Duffy did not; he preferred to manipulate, to insist, to assert.

Ah, but his lawyer keeps pushing the 'fact' that Mike Duffy was on a learning curve; he really didn't know. The very day he was verbally invited to join the Senate, before the appointment became official, he began expensing his daily living to the Senate, from a house he had owned and lived in, in Ottawa for years. After all, he was appointed a PEI senator.

Obviously perusing the Senate Administrative Rules, the Travel Policy Guidelines, the Senators' Resource Guide, the Companion Guide to Senators' Attendance Policy, gave him no clue whatever what he could legitimately charge and what he could not. One of the quite interesting charges was for the Senate to pay for his and his wife's flight from Charlottetown to Ottawa. They just happened to be in PEI at a time when Mike Duffy was invited to speak in 2012 at the Ottawa Building Owners and Managers Association.

The Senate was billed $3,200 for that flight. And the Building Owners association paid Duffy through the speaking agency he used, $10,075, along with tax. Mike Duffy and his wife took advantage of a several-day stayover in Ottawa, where they have lived for decades -- while owning a basic summer cottage in Prince Edward Island which he took to claiming as his principle residence, allowing him to bill $22,000 annually for his residence in Ottawa -- for scheduled medical appointments before flying back to PEI.

Some people do have a sense of honour; Mike Duffy wasn't one of them. Invited as a Senator to a speaking engagement, he is already paid as a Senator, but he, like the now-leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, Justin Trudeau, took handsomely paid speaking engagements; Trudeau as a Member of Parliament who charged heftily to speak to health, charity and educational groups; Duffy as a Senator to speak to whomever would pay him.

And Duffy wanted to be liked, and to be considered generous, so he arranged to have those with whom he was on a friendly footing, and who did favours for him, or provided a level of service for him, to be paid. Not through his more than generous senatorial salary, but through the subterfuge of hiring a company that does construction, ostensibly to do 'speechwriting' for him; in fact acting as a front where he could pass money gleaned from the Senate on to these people to pay them for services that the Senate would never pay for, according to their rule books.

But his lawyer contends that his client is not at fault, is completely innocent of any intention to cheat, to take what he is not entitled to, to live high on the hog as it were at the taxpayer's teat, because he is a good and decent man and simply did not understand the rules. Some lawyer, that; is there any honour in the practise of law?

Hey, Big Spender!

"Anything that was interesting in our local papers, I'd scan it and send it to him, thinking he might be interested in it. Any picture in the paper that might have the cousins playing sports, anything like that, I kept him informed."
"My brother's kid's soccer team, Mike's second cousin winning a chess tournament. That's all I can think of right now."
David McCabe, Mike Duffy cousin, testifying at criminal trial

"I can remember Senator Duffy telling me budgets were tight and, as a result, he would still pay me the amount, but he'd do it in a different way."
"I vetted those speeches because he sometimes had a tendency to come over the top on political niceties, shall we say, and I would look over them to make them fit the crowd he was going to be talking to."
"I told him orally how much I charged to him for the year, because he had said to me he was going to find another way to pay it."
Peter McQuaid, Prince Edward Island Conservative

Sean Kilpatrick / THE CANADIAN PRESS  The lawyer for suspended senator Mike Duffy promised Tuesday that a judge would hear directly from Duffy about how and why he used the Donohue-owned companies to direct payment for makeup services, nearly $1,400 in photo reprints and advice from a family member

Such a generous fellow, generous to a fault. The fault, needless to say, was that he was inordinately generous but not with his own money, heaven forfend! Suspended Senator Mike Duffy, so well loved by the public, by the Conservative crowd, by those who knew and acknowledged his popular celebrity draw and his capacity for drawing in both the crowds and the money to swell campaign chests for the Conservative party saw no need to pull money out of his own pocket.

He certainly has company in that regard; infamously, a former (Liberal) Prime Minister, Pierre Elliot Trudeau never bothered carrying filthy lucre around with him, and as a result never had to pay for anything; his aides always ponied up. Oh, and another Prime Minister, (Conservative) Brian Mulroney, thought it would be a pretty good idea for him, broke as he was, to take $300,000 in cash from a shady arms-dealing lobbyist.

And he felt entitled to charge the Government of Canada $150,000 for furniture he left at 24 Sussex when he resumed life as a private citizen. Furniture, as it happens, that the Conservative party had paid for, to please the very particular tastes and expectations that the Mulroneys, forever crying poor, felt they should be entitled to, in reflection of their established tastes in furnishings and decorations.

In the expressively-rich language of Yiddish such people are called schnorrers, the definition of which is a beggar or scrounger. But English interpretations simply are incapable of doing justice to the meaning of the word in reflection of a disgusting parasitic personality.

Ironically enough, it is those with the financial wherewithal who exhibit the most schorridic tendencies, as evidenced more than capably by the aforementioned, inclusive of Mike Duffy, former newsman, former distinguished Senator in the red-carpeted Senate of Canada. Where, it is becoming increasingly evident, he had more than plenty company among those considered honourable in their intentions, so much so that rules of repayment rested on honour and decency.

Both of which Senator Duffy and others, but not quite to the same extent that he did, abused, tarnishing the very notion of Senatorial honour and decency. Poor Mike Duffy, despite a salary that would make most Canadians drool with envy, he had expenses that the salary couldn't begin to cover; expenses personal in nature that the Senate would never deign to use taxpayer money for, but could manage to blink when expense forms were submitted, regardless.

So a personal trainer, a cosmetician, framing of personal photographs, a cousin's snipping of politically irrelevant news items, financial gifts to volunteers and to those who did professional 'favours' to the Old Duff somehow got paid through money funnelled to a made-up corporation which then went about dispersing various sums that Mr. Generous determined should be sent off to his anointed cronies and acquaintances for services rendered.

Ah, but his sanctimoniously skilled lawyer is holding Senate rules to the letter of the law, to exonerate his poor, innocent client who had no illegal intention in mind when he appropriated taxpayer funding to scatter gifts in a bid to ensure that his popular appeal would never wane. Until it did, when an intrepid investigative journalist sniffed a story and ran with it, revealing the unsavoury details of Senate misdemeanours.

Resulting in the oh-so-popular Senator being turfed by the Conservatives, enraging him no end by the utter unfairness of it all. For did he not give his all for them?

Suspended Sen. Mike Duffy walks to the Ottawa court house in Ottawa Tuesday, April 7, 2015. The 68-year-old journalist-turned-senator goes on trial for 31 fraud and bribery charges. Tony Caldwell/Ottawa Sun/QMI Agency

Clearing Mike Duffy

"We are confident that when the full story is told, as it will be, and shown to be supported by many forms of evidence, it will be clear that Senator Duffy is innocent of any criminal wrongdoing."
"I am sure I am not the only Canadian who will now wonder openly how what was not a crime or a bribe when Nigel Wright paid it on his own initiative, became mysteriously a crime or a bribe when received by Senator Duffy."
Donald Bayne, lawyer, defending Senator Mike Duffy

"Since the start of this investigation in 2013, a team of investigators from our Sensitive and International Investigations Section pored over four years' worth of expense claims, bank statements, phone records and thousands of emails. They interviewed numerous witnesses from British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Prince Edward Island."
"As I stated earlier, this investigation started as a referral into expense claims. Since then, investigators followed numerous leads and today's charges are the result of a careful examination of the facts."
"This morning, the RCMP has laid a total of 31 charges against Mr. Duffy relating to the avenues I have outlined."
Gille Michaud, commanding officer, RCMP National Division

Reuters/REUTERS - Senator Mike Duffy arrives at the Senate on Parliament Hill in Ottawa in this October 28, 2013 file photo

Fraud totalling $200,000, viewed by Senator Duffy as his entitlements, but by the investigators as criminal wrong-doing. RCMP officer Michaud stressed in his statement that the charges brought against Senator Duffy represent the "result of a careful examination of the facts". Facts are immutable, they point out episodes that have occurred, and the whys and wherefores of their having occurred. They represent an unpleasant reality often enough.

The investigation focused on Mr. Duffy's housing claims; his having claimed a cottage on PEI as his principal residence, his long-time home in Ottawa his secondary residence; his travel claims for what on occasion seem to have been partisan work or private trips he embarked upon; along with his having generously dispensed a sum of $65,000 to a personal friend for consulting, a contract which appears never to have been actually carried out.

And then, of course, there is the $90,000 cheque which was forced upon the unhappily unwilling senator by Prime Minister Stephen Harper's wealthy former chief of staff, Nigel Wright, a dastardly act geared to undermine the principled impecunious senator's pride in his sense of proportionality and entitlement and honour. While Mr. Duffy faces the possibility of two to 14 years in prison should he be found guilty of breach of trust and bribery, Mr. Wright is home free.

How utterly atrocious. Leaving the despicable Mr. Wright to testify against the maligned, put-upon, gracious and affable Mr. Duffy. And the Prime Minister to stew in a pot of concern over how the renewed spotlight on Senate rules and regulations, the inappropriate appointment of appealing seeming candidates to the Senate and the consequences of favouring people with a low standard of self-rule will redound upon his chances for re-election.

Senator Duffy's unfortunate reading of the Senate entitlement rules to the point of immodestly gaining for himself a questionable $200,000 in 'benefits', imperilling the future re-election of a superlative prime minister. Tch!

 Missile Shield Prudence

"The committee is unanimous in recommending that the government of Canada enter into an agreement with the United States to participate as a partner in ballistic missile defence."
"The committee heard worrying testimony about the ongoing efforts of North Korea and Iran to acquire capabilities to deliver long-range, nuclear-armed ballistic missiles so as to threaten neighbouring countries, NATO and North America."
Senate Committee on National Security and Defence

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei examining latest Iranian drone (Photo: AFP)

"Tehran's anti-Canada rhetoric continues and is well-documented. [The regime threatens Canada with] swift retaliation; [the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper is] racist, radical, extremist, Iran-phobic [and a] lackey [of Israel]."
"The presence of numerous high-profile federal institutions, foreign embassies, military facilities, tourist attractions, and special events make the NCR [National Capital Region] a rich environment for possible plots by a variety of differently motivated terrorists."
Integrated Terrorist Assessment Centre report

Military parade in Iran (photo: EPA)

"There was in fact a rise in the rhetoric, and it likely was just that, rhetoric. But you really can't take that chance."
Matthew Levitt, U.S. counter-terrorism analyst, author of Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon's Party of God

Iranian ballistic missiles (Photo: AP)

According to Senator Daniel Lang who heads the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, both North Korea and Iran have developed missile technology "to the point where a threat has become a practical reality." A Canadian Department of National Defence report dated 2003 cited U.S. spending of over $200-billion over a 50-year period with attempts to develop various types of missile defence.

American plans dating from the early 1960s stressed stationing of nuclear-armed missile interceptors at the North Bay-situated North American Aerospace Defence Command's regional headquarters. Similar missile batteries were to be deployed to defend Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton, Detroit, Windsor, Seattle and Vancouver, but were never carried through.

Of more recent vintage was the expenditure of $30-billion by the U.S. on a ground-based midcourse defence system whose interceptors have failed roughly half the time; 8 out of 17 tests, failing to destroy incoming mock warheads. Installed in Alaska and California, the interceptors are meant to destroy incoming missiles through collisions with enemy warheads; a process described as "hitting a bullet with a bullet". 

Testifying before the commission, Phillip Coyle, formerly Pentagon chief weapons tester in the 1900s, currently an associate director of national security in the Obama administration, informed the committee that the missile shield simply does not work. "Shooting down an enemy missile going 15,000 mph out in space is like trying to hit a hole-in-one in golf when the hole is going 15,000 mph" he stated. "And if an enemy uses decoys and countermeasures, missile defence is like trying to shoot a hole-in-one in golf when the hole is going 15,000 mph and the green is covered with black circles the same size as the hole."

"The (midcourse) hardware being deployed in Alaska and California has no demonstrated capacity to defend the United States, let alone Canada, against enemy missile attack under realistic operational conditions", Canadian senators were informed by Mr. Coyle. On the other hand, the committee heard evidence from Dean Wilkening, physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, one of the authors of a three-year study conducted by the Washington-based National Research Council concluding that while missile defence systems remain problematic, "ground-based missile defence is worth pursing."

"We (the NRC) concluded that the technology is feasible, certainly to deal with threats from countries like North Korea and Iran." Such a system "should be adequate or could be adequate for defending against a small number -- a handful or a few tens of -- ballistic missile warheads from a country like North Korea." The Senate committee argues that even some of the harshest critics of missile defence feel "it would be in Canada's interest to participate in the U.S. effort."

As for the integrated intelligence report, they appear to conclude that "Simple straightforward, small-scale attacks, using available weapons and minimal preparation against undefended targets are a realistic match with the actual capabilities of most extremists". On the other hand, they're discussing lone jihadi-type terrorist attacks by disaffected Islamist fanatics that are mostly home-grown, not the types of attacks mounted by dysfunctional warring governments with missiles and warheads at their disposal.

Sad Times For The CBC

"Those of us who have had a quick look at it [CBC documents provided to a Senate investigatory committee] would really question ... its accuracy. Some of this stuff looks like fiction."
"I don't think we're getting the full picture. I don't think this is actually the answer to the question. I think there's a whole bunch more being paid to certain people in the CBC that may be outside of their salary."
Liberal Senator Terry Mercer

"I believe that people are making bonuses that are larger than what their salaries are indicating.:"
"If they try to manipulate things enough ... they can maybe come to those numbers, but I find them strange as well."
Conservative Senator Don Plett

CBC Logo

Providing 184 pages of salary ranges for staff working at Canada's official state broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a public agency that Canadians either love or detest, and usually in reaction to its perceived political biases, doesn't appear to have satisfied the quest of the Senate's transportation and communication committee's curiosity about the salary range of CBC employees.

Th documents list a maximum salary scale for top television (senior news reporter) correspondent Peter Mansbridge of $80,500. High-profile radio show host Jian Ghomeshi and television host Amanda Lang were given salary scales of between $60,844.32 and $77,390.42. The precise additions of 32 and 42 cents aside, there seems to be somewhat of a credibility gap; either that or those well-known personalities are a smokin' steal in their payscale for the CBC.

A direct enquiry to Mr. Mansbridge resulted in his commenting that he would not comment, because "it's personal information", which seems strange indeed, since the"personal information" of other high-profile public figures paid out of government coffers is never seen by the CBC to be beyond their purview to communicate to the public. But what do we know? A CBC spokeswoman commented that individual salaries are protected under the Privacy Act.

Which seems strange indeed; Ontario's sunshine legislation mandated that salaries of public servants be made public and those who are curious can indeed find out what public servants in the province earn; if they're working for Ontario Hydro, quite a lot. Same for TV Ontario. So what's the mystery and why the mystery? Canadians have a lot invested in the CBC; roughly $1.1-billion on an annual basis, but for the coming fiscal year somewhat reduced, forcing the CBC to review its mandate and to plan on cut-backs

"In the competitive environment in which we operate that information [individual salaries] is not public", according to France Belisle speaking for the CBC. Top TV anchors' salaries remain a guarded industry secret, then. While it's estimated that Mr. Mansbridge, CTV's Lisa Laflamme and Global's Dawna Friesen earn roughly $300,000 -- who really knows? it could be considerably more. The Senate committee wanted to interrogate Mr. Mansbridge directly but that was nixed by CBC president Hubert Lacroix.

While the CBC had "the utmost respect for the work of Parliament", and was dedicated to working with the committee on its review of the programming and operating challenges facing the CBC, the salaries of its employees are off limits, and nor will the CBC allow any of their trusted employees to go before the esteemed members of the Senate committee.

However, there is pain and mourning at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, where a drop in its 2014-2015 federal funding amounting to a decrease to $913-million has caused the corporation to cut 657 jobs. Satisfied, you culture-haters?