CREDIT: FILE PHOTO
Canadian Conservative senator Mike Duffy fights back against being suspended from the senate.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is currently touring the East Coast with his usual entourage of black SUVs, but that didn't stop him from throwing another former ally under the bus. In a calculated move, the PM revealed that his former chief of staff, Nigel Wright, was fired for bailing out Conservative senator Mike Duffy — a deal the Prime Minister denies having had knowledge of. The revelation comes in spite of numerous iterations that Wright had in fact resigned after cutting a $90,000 cheque to the Senator.

The public backlash to the Senate scandal has been loud and long, but the Conservatives seem to be playing the odds when it comes to resolving the issue. The knee-jerk reaction was to distance themselves from the embattled senators; however, it seems they failed to anticipate the ferocity with which Senators Pamela Wallin and Mike Duffy are responding. In a speech given before the Senate, Wallin named names of those she believed were behind the attempts to scapegoat the senators currently under investigation. In a much more damning speech, Duffy revealed that there had been a second cheque worth $13,000 that was paid to his lawyer's firm on his behalf from a high-ranking lawyer on the Conservative payroll. He went on to bemoan the state of a government where the Prime Minister's Office engages in subversive tactics to forward their agenda, in one of the first senate speeches in years to actually reflect the interests of Canadians.

Once the Conservative Party realized that contrary to popular belief they could look even more sinister, they were quick to ease the pressure on Wallin and Duffy. The leader of the Conservative government in the Senate, Claude Carignan, had tabled a motion proposing that Duffy, Wallin, and less-talked-about Patrick Brazeau, be suspended without pay until the investigation is complete, but he's now giving signals that the motion could be rescinded. The rationale for withdrawing the motion is that a suspension would be akin to declaring the three guilty without a trial. What Carignan fails to consider is that when they were required to repay improper expense claims, which was the only guilty verdict Canadians needed.

As the controversy drags on, the Auditor General's Office continues to gear up for a full investigation of Senator's expenses dating back to 2011. The chances of them finding anything awry seem incalculable, given that nothing was found when they last investigated Senator's expense claims last year. Besides the fact that the new investigation comes on the heels of one that was just completed, the report will only examine a minute part of most Senator's expenses considering that a mere five per cent of the Senate has been appointed since 2011.

Now the present. Canadians have reports of an audit that's projected to take up to 18 months, and a Senate leader who as far as the optics are concerned, will table any motion that the Prime Minister's Office thinks will assuage the public. The sad reality is that the government has no interest in seeking justice; they just want to dole out the punishment.
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