AJuicyLessonperday.net
Lesson #44 (Tuesday, 10/29)
Senate cataclysm descending into a quagmire of charges and counter-charges.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THE VIDEO CLIP REFERRED TO CAN BE ACCESSED ON MY FACEBOOK PAGE. (Jerry Cohen)
What do you think of all this? Mike Duffy tells the following story in the video accompanying this JuicyLesson. According to his take, he was coached by the Prime Minster’s Office (P.M.O.) as to how he was to explain where he got the $90,000 to pay back his illegally claimed expenses. We now know where the money really came from. Nigel Wright, Harper’s Chief of Staff cut Duffy a personal cheque, something which the P.M.O. had tried to cover up by telling Duffy to get a line of credit from the Royal Bank. In that way he would have a way to explain to the media where he obtained the cash; he was to say that he had borrowed it from the bank.
And that’s not the end of the story. Not only did Duffy receive the $90k from Nigel Wright, but according to him there were additional monies paid out in this sordid affair. Duffy claims in fact that P.M.O. had the Conservative party lawyer, Arthur Hamilton, pay Duffy’s legal fees to the tune of more than $13,000. In an effort at damage control, the Prime Minister has stated that at the time these monies changed hands, Mr. Duffy was still a member of the Conservative caucus – he has since resigned from that body and presently sits as an independent in the Senate – and that it was the sometimes the practice of the P.M.O. to assist its caucus members in helping defray their legal fees.
Sure.
Another issue has come up: did Nigel Wright resign or was he fired? Up to this point, Harper has claimed, on at least four different occasions during Question Period in the House of Commons, that Wright tendered his resignation which Harper accepted. It now appears that Wright indeed may have been “dismissed”.
In an ironic twist, Duffy states in the video that the Tories have no moral compass. We already knew that to be true but who is he to talk? The Conservatives are destroying themselves for all to see. I can’t stop reading everything I can as well as watching the news, more often than usual, hoping for more information about this disaster for the Tories. It’s like watching a train wreck.
The Liberal sponsorship scandal, Mulroney’s cabinet problems beginning with Sinclair Stevens, a corrupt municipal government in our own fair city, the American government shutdown and Toronto Mayor Alan Ford – a laughing stock if ever there was one – all make Pauline Marois look good. Ridiculous but true.
And not to forget John Furlong. The head of the Vancouver Olympic Committee and the man responsible for the organization of the 2012 winter Olympic Games, is being in investigated by the R.C.M.P. for sexually abusing First Nations kids while doing missionary work at a residential school while over here from Ireland when he was eighteen years of age. In a recent autobiography he doesn’t even mention this interlude in his life which got me and others asking the obvious question “why”.
Peace, pals.