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.
That is the telltale sign, proof positive, of a coverup by a directly implicated and thoroughly corrupt government. With something like this as threatening to this prime minister and his government and no documents that can only mean documents were completely destroyed, purged, erased, incinerated. Not even an e-mail, "hey, did you see what's in the morning paper?"
Now let's think this through, take it to the next level. 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, the unmistakeable smell of stale sweat and fear.
Harper must feel the long-overdue breath of the hounds on his heels. How does it feel, Steve?
