Mike Duffy and the conservative way.

[tay]

Maybe this is why Stevie has been so quiet............


Wallin and Duffy told by Tory Senate leader in 2008 they could bill for some partisan travel



Three former Conservative senators at the heart of a spending scandal were given clear directions from their leader in the upper chamber that they could bill for certain partisan — that is, political — travel when they first arrived in the Senate


The news emerged Thursday as media reports suggested Auditor General Michael Ferguson will soon move forward with a review of the office expenses and travel claims submitted by every member of the red chamber — a development that will only increase the scrutiny on an institution already facing a barrage of criticism over its members’ spending habits.

The boot camp briefing was offered to the group of 18 senators appointed in late 2008 by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a group that included senators Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau. Each is now under the spotlight for their spending claims — Duffy and Brazeau for housing expenses, and Wallin for travel — with auditors delivering withering reports.


Wallin and Duffy told by Tory Senate leader in 2008 they could bill for some partisan travel | National Post

 

[tay]

The Cavendish Cottagers lawyers have barred him from speaking to the press but he has told friends that he feels he has been thrown under the bus and that the Conservative PR machine is out to destroy him.


If the RCMP investigation into Mike Duffy over alleged breach of trust reaches court, the senator’s lawyers will call Stephen Harper as a witness and grill the Prime Minister under oath, sources said.

more


Stephen Harper will be called as a witness if Mike Duffy expenses allegations reach court: sources | National Post

 

[Sal]

The Cavendish Cottagers lawyers have barred him from speaking to the press but he has told friends that he feels he has been thrown under the bus and that the Conservative PR machine is out to destroy him.


If the RCMP investigation into Mike Duffy over alleged breach of trust reaches court, the senator’s lawyers will call Stephen Harper as a witness and grill the Prime Minister under oath, sources said.

more


Stephen Harper will be called as a witness if Mike Duffy expenses allegations reach court: sources | National Post

lmfao...of course he has been thrown under the bus...poor bus...did he seriously think for a nano second that if/when any of them got caught liberal or conservative that they would receive party backing...come on Mikey you have worked in the world of the damned and now you are living in it...

 

[tay]

The left-right crap is boring and idiotic.

Agreed. Banish the Senate as an expense we don't need.............



Leader Thomas Mulcair says he and his New Democrats will be talking to Canadians about the need to eliminate the Senate, and he promises that its demise will be a key plank of the party’s next election campaign.


“We’re going to stop trying to find excuses for keeping a bunch of party hacks, bagmen, political operatives and defeated candidates sitting in appeal of the duly elected members of the House of Commons,” Mr. Mulcair told reporters on Wednesday.

The New Democrats have launched a website that says the Red Chamber costs Canadians $92.5-million a year, an amount equal to the combined average taxes of 8,000 families, and yet senators worked an average of just 71 days last year. It asks Canadians to sign a petition calling for the abolition of the Senate.


Roll up the red carpet: It's time to abolish the Senate.

 

[Sal]

Agreed. Banish the Senate as an expense we don't need.............



Leader Thomas Mulcair says he and his New Democrats will be talking to Canadians about the need to eliminate the Senate, and he promises that its demise will be a key plank of the party’s next election campaign.


“We’re going to stop trying to find excuses for keeping a bunch of party hacks, bagmen, political operatives and defeated candidates sitting in appeal of the duly elected members of the House of Commons,” Mr. Mulcair told reporters on Wednesday.

The New Democrats have launched a website that says the Red Chamber costs Canadians $92.5-million a year, an amount equal to the combined average taxes of 8,000 families, and yet senators worked an average of just 71 days last year. It asks Canadians to sign a petition calling for the abolition of the Senate.


Roll up the red carpet: It's time to abolish the Senate.

I signed that a while back...they do keep sending emails but I don't care, I want them gone even if I have to vote NDP to get rid of them...Harper and Justin need to understand that and they should be scared because the last time that everyone in Ontario did a little protest vote to show the PC's they needed to straighten up, the NDP accidentally won by a landslide and Ray and the boys took over. 8O:roll:

 

[taxslave]

On the news this Am spokesman for NDP calling for a full investigation of Senate expenses including if Senators are actually living in Province the represent. That is good and no $hit can land on them because they never had and hopefully never will have any Senators. However he backed away from supporting the same kind of investigation of MP's expenses. Makes one think he must have a dinner or three to hide from taxpayers.
What is needed is clear rules on what is a legitimate expense and what is not. Anyone caught cheating gets fired just like any other business.

 

[Sal]

On the news this Am spokesman for NDP calling for a full investigation of Senate expenses including if Senators are actually living in Province the represent. That is good and no $hit can land on them because they never had and hopefully never will have any Senators. However he backed away from supporting the same kind of investigation of MP's expenses. Makes one think he must have a dinner or three to hide from taxpayers.
What is needed is clear rules on what is a legitimate expense and what is not. Anyone caught cheating gets fired just like any other business.

Yes, I think they are feeling the rage that has erupted and feeling their necks. This must be a first on this scale. I bet there wasn't one of them that didn't start combing through their expenses and calculating if cover up was necessary or possible.

And there in lies the problem with any expense account. One always tries to press it a bit until one understands the limits. If it is limitless it is human nature to take until the paw is slapped.

 

[JLM]

As I said earlier, there is one way to beat this ongoing scam. It should be a mainly cashless proposition, the travellers are given script, vouchers, or perhaps better still a Gov't credit card (which will only work on valid expenses and with a limit on each). That way their expenses can be checked at a glance.

 

[FiveParadox]

On the news this Am spokesman for NDP calling for a full investigation of Senate expenses including if Senators are actually living in Province the represent. That is good and no $hit can land on them because they never had and hopefully never will have any Senators. However he backed away from supporting the same kind of investigation of MP's expenses. Makes one think he must have a dinner or three to hide from taxpayers.
What is needed is clear rules on what is a legitimate expense and what is not. Anyone caught cheating gets fired just like any other business.

The Honourable Senator Lillian Dyck (Saskatchewan), before she crossed the floor, sat as an independent member of the New Democratic Party. Senators can decide, for themselves, which party they represent in the Upper House, unlike in the House of Commons (where they need the consent of the appropriate party leader).

 

[Cobalt_Kid]

And it just gets more and more sleazy.

Senators David Tkachuk, Carolyn Stewart Olsen Deny Duffy Coverup Allegations

OTTAWA - Two Conservative senators accused of conspiring to cover up the repayment of embattled colleague Mike Duffy's expenses say the story is not true.

David Tkachuk and Carolyn Stewart Olsen, who both sit on a committee reviewing improper expense claims by senators, were responding to a CTV News report.

The report alleges that Tkachuk and Stewart Olsen pressed Duffy to accept a secret $90,000 cheque from Nigel Wright, then the prime minister's chief of staff. Duffy was allegedly then expected to pass the money off as his own.

Of course they deny it, but the story is consistent with the whitewashing of the senate report on Duffy, by Stewart Olsen and other Tory senators.

The CTV News report paraphrased emails shown to the agency by an anonymous source. They said Tkachuk allegedly told Duffy that if he went along with Wright's offer, the Senate would go easy on the audit of his living expenses and drop the question of whether he was actually a resident of P.E.I.

Yahoo! News Canada - Latest News & Headlines

Stephen Harper's assertion that the prime minister's former chief of staff, Nigel Wright, acted alone when he gifted Senator Mike Duffy $90,000 is becoming extremely difficult to believe.

CTV News is now reporting that they've seen emails which suggest that Wright "consulted with" at least two senior Conservative senators while negotiating Duffy's payout.

I also doubt that Harper wasn't pulling the strings behind the scenes.

 

[Goober]

Newer thread- Try to keep up.
http://forums.canadiancontent.net/canadian-politics/118401-its-all-just-big-game.html#post1790978

 

[tay]

Senate loophole lets senators keep pensions despite conviction




Senate loophole lets senators keep pensions despite conviction - The Globe and Mail

 

[Cobalt_Kid]

What's that saying about the golden rule, he who has the gold makes the rules or something like that.

 

[tay]

Ever since the Senate scandal began I have always wondered why the Con regime went to such desperate lengths to protect Mike Duffy.

Some suggested it was because he was such a good fundraiser. But so was Pamela Wallin and they did nothing to help her.

And I have always believed that the reason they bent themselves and the law backwards to help Duffy, was because they were AFRAID of him.


Stephen Harper’s lone gunman defence wobbles: Tim Harper | Toronto Star

 

[JLM]

Ever since the Senate scandal began I have always wondered why the Con regime went to such desperate lengths to protect Mike Duffy.

Some suggested it was because he was such a good fundraiser. But so was Pamela Wallin and they did nothing to help her.

And I have always believed that the reason they bent themselves and the law backwards to help Duffy, was because they were AFRAID of him.


Stephen Harper’s lone gunman defence wobbles: Tim Harper | Toronto Star

When the Prime Minister is afraid of such an A$$hole, something is radically wrong and it's time to deep six both the a$$holes!

 

[Cobalt_Kid]

Ever since the Senate scandal began I have always wondered why the Con regime went to such desperate lengths to protect Mike Duffy.

Some suggested it was because he was such a good fundraiser. But so was Pamela Wallin and they did nothing to help her.

And I have always believed that the reason they bent themselves and the law backwards to help Duffy, was because they were AFRAID of him.


Stephen Harper’s lone gunman defence wobbles: Tim Harper | Toronto Star

It's too bad that Duffy couldn't have been courageous as a senator instead of vindictive as a disgraced one.

Those close to this sordid tale believe the man from P.E.I., who has complained long and loud about being hung out to dry by the prime minister, is embarking on his scorched earth policy and will take down as many with him as he can.

If Canada was a lifeboat on the ocean and we were all out of food and water wanna bet who would start eating who first. It's really sad that the worst of society somehow seem to have risen to the top, perhaps this would be a good time to skim the scum off the soup.

Harper comes across as a mob boss here, "I had nuttin' to dos with da hit I tells ya". He's stretched plausible deniability to absurd lengths until his whole mandate is based on it.

“If you read the affidavit it makes very clear that the decision to pay money to Mr. Duffy out of Mr. Wright’s personal funds was made solely by Mr. Wright and was his responsibility,’’ Harper said last month. “Obviously, had I known about this earlier I would never have allowed this to take place.’’

He apparently doesn't know anything that goes on in his own party and government, but somehow is still firmly in charge, how does that make the slightest bit of sense.

Some people claim that Harper isn't corrupt but as far as I can tell he's one of the most dishonest politicians we've ever had. No one before him has been forced to shut Parliament down the way he repeatedly does just to get through another session.

 

[tay]

 

[tay]

Nothing says coverup in government louder than the total absence of any paper trail.

When the CBC's Greg Weston went fishing for documents of the Senate expense scandal he came back empty-handed. The Prime Minister's Office, even the Justice Department, reported zero documents on this broad scandal. "Not an e-mail, a memo, or even a sticky note." It's as though those two bureaucracies had never heard mention of it.


These responses came after requests from reporters and others using the Access to Information Act to obtain all documents relating to the Senate fiasco in the possession of the two departments.

In total, the departments responded to more than two dozen requests for documents.

In every case, the response was the same: The search yielded "zero" pages because the information "does not exist."

A subsequent request to the Privy Council Office for "all records related to the expenses of senators" finally turned up five pages of documents.

But the government is refusing to release them on the grounds they contain confidential advice from lawyers.


Now let's think this through;

It's entirely conceivable that crimes were committed in the Senate expenses scandal. Nigel Wright's payment to Duffy might have been a crime. Senators padding their expenses might have been fraud or criminal breach of trust. Harper's own involvement in the Duffy business conceivably might have criminal implications. These no longer extant documents could be evidence destroyed and that, of itself, could be criminal.

The key staff at the PMO have been purged. So have the documents. What's that stench? Oh yeah................


Senate expense scandal left no paper trail, really? - Politics - CBC News

 

[Cobalt_Kid]

Don Vito Harper?

 

[tay]

Oh, what a tangled web they have weaved.................


(emphasis via post media)

Visitor logs for the Langevin Block, released to Postmedia News using the access-to-information law, add to the timeline of events on the Duffy affair already in the public domain, and show Duffy inside the PMO building in the days before he publicly announced on Feb. 22 that he would repay his improper housing expenses.

These are also the only times that the names of Tkachuk, then chairman of the Senate’s internal economy committee, and Gerstein, who heads the Conservative Fund of Canada, appear in the February visitor logs for the Langevin building, which is across the street from Parliament Hill. Outside of the two days in February, none of the three men appear as visitors to the Prime Minister’s Office in the visitor logs on any other days from January to April.

A spokesman for Harper said the prime minister “did not participate in any of these meetings.” Carl Vallee declined to say who used that room on Feb. 11 and Feb. 12, nor did he say what occupies the room.

Gerstein has not commented publicly since being named in a RCMP court document alleging he was one of four people who knew about Wright’s plans to pay off Duffy’s expenses. Gerstein did not respond to requests for comment made Tuesday to his Ottawa office. Wright’s lawyer declined comment.


more


http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/n...er+housing+claims+referred/8924464/story.html

Duffy also declined to comment Tuesday. “It would be inappropriate of me to comment while these matters are being examined by the RCMP,” he said in an email.