Really. Steve Harper seems to be leading with his chin in what is now the Duffy-Wright-Harper scandal.
Steve got up on his hind legs today and said he never threatened Duffy with expulsion from the Senate. He's right, he never did. That's not the sort of thing Steve would ever get caught doing. He's got other people to do that stuff for him.
Harper is drawing ever closer to having to get his story out under oath, putting himself and his prime ministership in jeopardy. People are beginning to call "bullshit" on him and even a lot of Conservatives want the truth.
Why doesn't Harper just direct the RCMP to release copies of all those public documents that Nigel Wright handed over to investigators? Easy-peasy. That way we could all read the documentary record and have an adult conversation as to who did what, to whom, and why.
Meanwhile yet another senior Tory Senate player, Carolyn Stewart-Olsen, has resigned from the internal economy committee - the one that appears to have laundered the Duffy audit report. Her colleague, Tkachuk, left quietly some time ago.
It is really interesting to note that the controlling subcommittee that was initially running the audits into Duffy and Wallin have now lost two of its three members and both of them the Conservatives sitting on it, the only remaining member is the Lib member who was also the dissenting vote keeping the "whitewash" version of the audit from being unanimously being accepted by the committee as a whole that was one of the triggers to this scandal coming out in the first place. I think that speaks volumes as to how credible this action really was from the outset, and that they are stepping out of their powerful positions shows that they see how weakened they have become, and what liabilities they have become from their actions in that position.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting thing I saw in QP today though was Ralph Goodale asking a specific question about Duffy being in PMO 2 days earlier than Harper says he spoke to him as shown by security logs, and that until a few days ago there was a pic online of Harper also at his desk on the same day in the same office. Harper totally ignored the underlying premise of the question and clearly is trying to get people to ignore that either Harper directly met Duffy that day or at the minimum his staff did and it would be expected that Harper would have been informed of such a meeting, especially given all that was going on at that point. Harper totally fluffed that away, but I found it very impressive that Goodale is using security logs to try and pin Harper and Duffy's movements to show they had met other than at caucus on the matter. As much as I have some respect for Mulcair's legalistic process approach on terms of getting Harper on record, I could wish he and his would also take this approach too, I think this is where the institutional memory of the Liberals on how a government works is an advantage when it comes to thinking of looking for this sort of thing to pin a PM down with.
It will be interesting to see how Duffy counters Harper's charge of lying. Perhaps we are on the verge of seeing all those emails.
ReplyDeleteI've said it before and I'll say it again - if Duffy was so concerned that he had others listen in to the alleged threatening phone calls from the PMO, then he ought to have at least one email with a CC to Harper himself. That's all it would take to pin the tail on the ass, er, ah, I mean donkey, that we have as PM.
ReplyDelete"That's all it would take to pin the tail on the ass, er, ah, I mean donkey, that we have as PM."
ReplyDeleteCuJoYYC - you had it right the first iteration, though it is somewhat insulting to actual asses!
.. Black Swan Harper Event memo ..
ReplyDeleteI pointed out a ways back that Harper's own website held dated images of him with various people.. Further, his official photographer's original photo files will include metadata of date and time.. as would photos of other persons. Further, cel phone records are child's play for RCMP to examine any call location, duration, from/to .. and email records, the same ..
Unfortunately, we have a government, its Prime Minister and his personal political party.. that are fully aware of how to utilize burner cel phones, unlisted email addresses and servers to facilitate governmental affairs of state and elections.. with no official record and unofficial off the record, untraceable affairs. (unless leaked)
This is the accountable, transparent 'good government' Stephen Harper sold to Canada and Canadians.. Its actually opaque, intransigent, arrogant.. presumptuous, secretive, obstructive .. exactly like its chief operator, an elected, 'sworn in' public servant, paid by taxpayers
There are people who need to clear the air, be deposed.
The hierarchy is obvious.. It starts with the Prime Minister of Canada ..
We may be witnessing the most astounding political and personal meltdown in the modern history of Canadian government.. We have no idea what may fall from the trees, be leaked .. The Conservative Party is sailing full tilt toward a lee shore.. and if Stephen Harper is not at the helm of this ship of fools, who is ? Ray Novak? Jenni Byrne ? Fred De Lorey? Arthur Hamilton ???