Duffy and the Three Blind Mice.

 

NOTE:  I was pleased to read Andrew Coyne’s article on this same topic in this weekend’s National Post – he too has homed in on the real issue – see below - in the Duffy charade and for those of you wishing some more analysis on this, I would encourage you to read his article.  K.D. G.

As in the Judge, the Prosecutor and the Defence.

And if Harper is lucky their failure to engage in the quest for the truth, might just save him.

The Trial has been about Duffy’s apparent freeness with taxpayers’ money and whether he was forced by the evil forces in the PMO to take $90 grand to repay a hapless public.

But the more serious issue and what we could call the elephant in the room …the courtroom that is, is that the PMO worked frantically to find a way to rewrite a Senate Report before it got released.

The draft report named Duffy as a Senator who had wrongly misspent his expense account and the PMO knew if it got released the Prime Minister would look bad because he had appointed the Duffster and Senator Duffy had been a most effective fundraiser for the Tories.

Harper himself had called Duffy a most effective and energetic Senator.

Even so, don’t think for a moment that the Tories cared a fig about the Duffy’s welfare.  Indeed, his then Chief of Staff said he was abhorred to learn of the Senator’s spendthrift ways.

No their concern from the start was to whitewash the Senate Report before it got released and they – the PMO from the Chief of Staff to the head of the Tory Fund – to the in-house legal counsel worked tirelessly with the Senior Tories in the Senate to amend the report to get Duffy’s name deleted.

The only way they could do it was to have Duffy repay the monies in question from Duffy’s own resources or pay it for him - as what Nigel Wright eventually did out of his own pocket.  

So that brings us to the present – senior Government Officials are not supposed to have reports whitewashed through use of funds even if those funds turn out to be their own.

That dear reader is the real issue but it is being avoided like the plague by our three mice.

And why is that you ask?

Glad you did.

It is hard to fathom the charge of bribery against Duffy … the bribee and not against the briber …Wright.

Since the Crown did not charge Wright – they have no interest in stirring up evidence against Wright might prove a bribe took place.  Hence they avoid this issue in their questioning.

The Defence too has no wish to dwell on it – since if they did – they would not only implicate Wright in malfeasance – but their own client.

And the Judge appears willing to follow the Crown and Defence along in this charade.

In the scheme of things what is going on here is small potatoes – but I am a stickler for integrity and over the years have been sad to see it lacking in the successive governments and for the last 10 years with our Liberals in Ontario.  But I had higher hopes for the Conservatives.

It is all the more ironic that Harper came into government 10 years ago to clean up the Senate and had his lads just left the Duffster to his own devices – the responsibility for his irregular spending would have fallen entirely on him.

And at the same time it would have provided greater public support to fix a broken down organization.

As I see it…

‘K.D. Galagher’

 

 

WRIGHT OR WRONG ?

 

We here in Canada are in the midst of a criminal trial regarding a politician who has been charged with bribery, fraud and so on.

But we do not have scandals like they do in so many other parts of the world – in the case at hand – the politician a Senator, in our no longer esteemed Senate, paid back the Senate some $90, 000 he allegedly improperly had taken.

The 90 grand was given to him by our Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff – one Nigel Wright, but the bottom-line here is the fact that the taxpayer was fully compensated for this Senator’s moral lapse.

Before I get into this there was a recent case where an MP was taken away in irons because …he had overspent his election cap by $20 k which dear reader was his own money which he donated to his campaign.

So you get the idea that we do scandals differently here in our boy scout /girl guide country.

That is not to say we are lily white – indeed we have a rogue Liberal Province – Ontario where scandal after scandal involving lost taxpayer dough go unchallenged.  They say that there are ongoing provincial police investigations but the officers on the case are beginning to die off from old age.  It could have something to do with the fact that these same cops openly supported the Liberals in Ontario in the most recent election.

But let’s get back to Wright or Wrong.

This case is not just about taxpayer money being repaid. It is also about a senior official in the Prime Minister’s Office paying this politician money to see that a draft report was amended before being released. The amendment would drop the politician’s name  from the list of those being investigated for fraud.

The 90 grand payment did the trick – the report was whitewashed and the Prime Minister was spared having on of his appointees to the Senate dragged though the media mud which in turn would reflect badly on the Conservatives.

Nice work, but it is most illegal to do, that is to say – to pay even your own money to a politician in order to gain a benefit which the Prime Minister and his office most certainly gained.

Wright is also a highly educated lawyer – he knew what he was doing was Wrong and he should have been charged along the errant Senator.

The greater issue though is whether Prime Minister Harper knew and if he did know – why he did not stop the payment.

The answer to this question is even more important today since Canada finds itself in the midst of a General Election with the 3 major parties statistically tied at 30%.

I have written previously that I fully believe Harper, the control freak, knew of this payment well before it was made and I continue to believe that despite Wright’s testimony this week that he made the payment on his own without the knowledge of Stephen Harper.

I won’t go into my reasons why I believe as I do – they are on record in previous blog (s) if you are inclined to look them up.

I will though reiterate that even if what Wright says – i.e. that Harper did not know of the payment – Wright should be charged.

Nor is Harper now in the clear.

I say that because the focus to date has been on the $90 thousand – and as long as Wright is willing to stick to his story – Harper may well be in the clear in regard to that but …

There was also the sum of $30,000 bandied around.  The fundraising arm of the Conservative Party had agreed to bail the greedy Senator out for that amount but balked when it was discovered the money to be repaid was 3 times that amount.

The amount may be a third of what Wright ended up giving the Senator – but the issue remains the same in both.

So is Harper saying that his top guy in the Fundraising Arm too was going to give away donor money without his knowledge.

And emails say that his current Chief of Staff was also in the know about all this.

Seems like Harper was the only one who was not in the know.

It is very clear to me – how about you?

As I see it…

‘K.D. Galagher’

The Debates…Pt 2

 

So Galagher – what was missing from the Canadian Debate that was present in the American one?

In a word… ‘PASSION’

All 10 American Debaters conveyed it in spades  – their eyes flashed and their words pierced.

And that is why I am committed to watching more of them.

But when it comes to running a country, there is something needed even more than ‘Passion’ and that is ‘Vision’. It is too early to judge the Yankee contenders on this important aspect because their process is just beginning, but that does not apply here in Canada. Our three main leaders have been in place long enough to have established their credentials in that regard and sadly, from my perspective they have failed to do so.

The only Republican candidate that so far has shown any ‘vision’ is the indomitable ‘Donald’.  He wants to restore America to its past greatness and while in most cases this would be seen as toothless rhetoric – the fact remains that after 8 years of the little guy in the White House the US of A has sunk so far down in the world’s esteem that its enemies no longer fear it and its allies no longer trust it.

You will recall that Ronald Reagan made a similar promise in replacing the anaemic ‘Jimmy’ the peanut farmer Carter.

I still do not support the Trumper… unless it comes down to him and Hilary but he has fundamentally changed the dynamics of the US campaign.  Instead of platitudes – candidates are talking issues, instead of obfuscation candidates are speaking more plainly and more candidly.

Since the debate, Trump’s approval numbers have risen even more and while I do not foresee this continuing, I do appreciate the positive effect a – passionate / visionary can bring to invigorate the process.

Too bad we here in Canada do not have a Donald Trump to ignite the same sort of enthusiasm.

Rather, we have Young Trudeau speak about the need for inclusion while at the same time he closes the door on candidates who favour pro life.

And Mulcair, who in the debate talks about the Eastern Pipeline as a ‘win win’ and then a day later at his book signing says it will never happen under the NDP. Cynical or what?

While sour, dour Harper campaigns on the hustings but won’t let the great unwashed attend his events – they are open to card carrying Tories only.  Unbelievable.

And whatever they offer up is presented without the tiniest bit of passion.

I remember as a teenager attending an election ‘train stop’ of the late Rt. Hon John Diefenbaker in Campbellford Ontario in an election herre he promoted the vision about opening up the north – but his speech that day was about a prison escape in Quebec, by an underworld character named Rivard.  He escaped while allowed out of his cell to flood the prison rink in above freezing temperatures.  The passion with which olde Dief delivered his speech was spell-binding and one day I hope do a blog on that most memorable event.

But I digress.

So permit me to give you some possible scenarios for our three bland leaders to use to where they could show some vision.  (As for passion, that cannot be manufactured)

In the case of Young Trudeau, lets use his pledge to help the middle class:

‘If elected, my Party and I will focus our policies on helping the hardworking middle class.  We will do this since a strong, healthy, vibrant middle class is essential for society to properly function.

Once elected then, you can expect from our Government, provisions for ample and affordable day care; substantial income tax deductions for the middle wage earners, free university tuition to ensure that all their children who are academically able to do so, receive the education they and our society needs… etc.etc.’

You or I may agree /disagree with such an approach but at least it is visionary and you know going in where Trudeau and the Libs stand.  Many would I believe readily go for this.

And then Mulcair with his occupation with all things Green. Here is what he could say:

‘We at the New Democratic Party will invest in green energy and in so doing will eliminate all fossil fuels’.

Global warming is all around us and if we do not act quickly our planet will be destroyed… we cannot afford to be complacent’.

Again visional.  The voter knows exactly where the Dippers stand and why.

And now Harper:

‘We are at war with Islamic Terrorists and if elected, we Conservatives will greatly ramp up our efforts, on a War Footing, to defeat these Barbarians – at home and abroad.  

We will work with NATO to provide whatever and all assistance we can including bringing our Military Budget to 2% of GDP in line with NATO’s guidelines.

We will also make it a crime for residents of Canada to express, in any fashion, sympathy for Islamic Terrorists.  Call it a restriction of their freedoms if you will but Islamic animals are chopping of heads, burning and burying victims alive including young children and babies.

To assist our economy in winning this war on terror, oil and gas pipelines will be constructed on an urgent and priority basis with environmental requirements placed on hold, until the war is won”.

That dear reader is vision and is leadership from the front not from the rear as we have consistently experienced over the years.

It tells the voter exactly what the priority(s) of each of our main parties is and scraps the usual mishmash that tries to appeal to everyone and gains little or nothing.

Sadly, these visions cannot be said with passion – I fear the current lot is just not capable of that.

But that said, nor are they likely to all of a sudden be endued with vision.

But one can hope.

As I see it…

‘K.D. Galagher’

 

 

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

 

AS IN THE DEBATES … OR TO BE MORE SPECIFIC, AS IN THE CANADIAN DEBATE.

This past Thursday, saw the first two debates concerning this fall’s Canadian Election in October and the US Election in November.  In the case of the American Election I am speaking of course of their Presidential Election coming in November of 2016.

In our Debate – The Canadian one that is – it contained three serious candidates which, if polls are accurate, are each within reach of each other – that is to say they are all in the 30% range.

There is Young Trudeau of the Liberal Party who looked nervous (his hands were moving every which way but loose, then there was Tom Mulcair who held a frozen smile throughout which reminded viewers of the proverbial village idiot, and finally there was current Prime Minister Stephen Harper who appeared his usual dour self.

All and all it was one boring event.

The only person to spice things up – a bit, was the leader of the 4th Party – the Greens – Lizzie May who showed a bit of get up and go but has as much chance of scoring big in the coming election as does a snowball in you know where.

Now a few disclaimers. I only watched the first half of this debate since I wanted to watch the Republican Debate in its entirety which came on an hour into our own.

Second, I found the debate in large measure a bore – not just because the candidates were boring – which they were – but also because I live in Ottawa and follow politics here on a day to day basis – hence I know the issues and have more or less memorized the positions of the major candidates.

Given this, I have resolved not to watch anymore of our own debates – even partially.

The only thing which would cause me to reconsider is if something came out of left field that might adversely or positively affect a campaign.  Let me give you a possible example:

Say, for instance, that Tom Mulcair of the New Democratic Party was caught in a rub and tug massage parlour as was his predecessor Jack Layton.  Then I would want to see in the next debate how he squirmed out of that one.

That said, I do believe debates are useful for the majority of Canadians since they do not have the time nor the inkling to follow things as closely as I do.

But I feel for them, especially after watching the Republican contenders in action.

They were head and shoulders above our own and they had something that was entirely lacking from the Canadian scene.

More on that in my next Blog.

As I see it…

‘K.D. Galagher’