The order to sanitize an audit of Sen. Mike Duffy’s expenses came from two key Conservatives on the Senate’s internal economy committee: chair David Tkachuk and Carolyn Stewart Olsen, CTV News has learned.
Senator Mike Duffy and Senator Pamela Wallin were both paid campaign expenses by Conservative election candidates in the 2011 federal election, Elections Canada records show.
Sen. Mike Duffy claimed Senate expenses and per diems for a week in Ottawa when neither the Senate nor any of its committees sat, but during which Duffy got paid $5,000 for a speech to the publicly funded Ontario police services boards, the Star has learned.
As abortion continues to be a divisive issue within the federal Tory government, a group seeking to end the practice in Canada is taking aim at Prime Minister Stephen Harper and fellow Calgary Conservative MP Michelle Rempel.
A Conservative riding association president in Quebec has quit in frustration, saying her party has no interest in electing more members in the province.
Issues with Conservative Senators Mike Duffy and Pamela Wallin and the resignation of Nigel Wright, had a devastating effect on the satisfaction of Quebecers with the Harper government.
This morning, let’s play a fun game. I’m still workshopping its title, but the working moniker is What’s Bob Fife Working on Today? We can’t know, obviously, since we’re not inside the brain of CTV’s Ottawa bureau chief. But the man has been a machine for the past week—well, longer…
This week: Few Canadians are confident their government will be able to accomplish anything positive in the current political climate, according to a recent poll by Nanos Research.
Of all the criticisms levelled at Stephen Harper by his critics, the most puzzling, at least to anyone who has covered Washington, is that he behaves more like a president than a prime minister.
Read MoreCurrent and former Manitoba senators say the upper chamber needs to publicly disclose expense accounts, but they’re divided about whether Sen. Mike Duffy should be shown the door.
Read MoreThe New Democrats are ramping up their anti-Senate message with a new website that calls for the abolition of the Red Chamber amid a growing expense scandal.
Read MoreThe leaders of Canada and the Pacific Alliance will be sizing each other up today to see if Canada might be a good fit with the nascent Latin American trade bloc.
Read MoreNDP Leader Thomas Mulcair would be willing to appear before the Charbonneau Commission about his meeting with former Laval, Que., mayor Gilles Vaillancourt if he gets an invite.
Read MoreThe federal New Democrats are asking a parliamentary committee to look into political appointments to the new Social Security Tribunal.
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Andrew Coyne — One part of the media frenzy over the Duffsterbucks affair, if we’re being honest, is that it’s exciting. We’re starved for legitimate scandals in Canada, so when one comes along it’s only natural that everyone gets a little giddy.
Chantal Hébert — Even for a political loner such as Stephen Harper, life at the top is becoming dangerously lonely. Some of that isolation has been on evidence this week as Harper loyalists were hastily conscripted to step into the fray…
Lawrence Martin — The soft treatment accorded Senator Mike Duffy begins to make more sense with recent revelations. Duffy billed Tory campaigns while campaigning for the party in the 2011 elections. He did this, according to reports, while also receiving…
John Ivison — It was more mea than culpa but Stephen Harper finally expressed some contrition for the scandal that has engulfed his government. Speaking in Lima, Peru, Mr. Harper said Wednesday he is “very sorry this has occurred … I’m sorry…
Bob Hepburn — Back in 2007, Stephen Harper delivered a formal speech to the Australian Parliament in which he praised that country for its elected Senate. But Harper surprised his Australian hosts when he suggested the Canadian Senate should be…
George Jonas — My colleague Andrew Coyne sees no evidence that Senator and former broadcaster Mike Duffy, Canada’s own Falstaff on per diem, was hard up for money. The implication is that if Duffy wasn’t hard up, compassion couldn’t have been Nigel Wright’s…
Tom Walkom — Prime Minister Stephen Harper says the Senate scandal is a distraction. He says the real issue is the economy. Let us take him at his word and see what he is doing about this thing called the economy.
Gerry Nicholls — All this hubbub surrounding the seemingly never ending Mike Duffy scandal reminds me of a debate I had a few years ago with Prime Minister Stephen Harper. OK, strictly speaking, it wasn’t actually a debate.
Robert Asselin — The conventional wisdom in Ottawa these days is that the Mike Duffy story is emblematic of an arrogant, tired government that after more than eight years in power has lost touch with ordinary Canadians.
Frances Russell — It’s a testament to how barking mad the frenetic pursuit of oil has become that anyone would even contemplate putting pipelines and oil tankers through not just one of the last most beautiful places on the planet, but one of the last most beautiful…
James Bowden — Responsible Government means that Ministers of the Crown take responsibility for all acts of the Crown and that the Governor acts on, and apart from exceptional circumstances, in accordance with the advice of Ministers. The Ministry must also retain…
Read MoreHugh Segal — Recent reports of a Senate Committee and an outside auditing firm regarding the questionable expense claims of certain senators have resulted in the departure from caucus of three Conservatives and one Liberal senator. The validity…
Read MoreToronto Sun — Mayor Rob Ford needs to say: “I did not smoke crack and if there’s a video that I did, it’s a fabrication.” He needs to say it if he’s going to continue to be mayor in anything more than name.
Read MoreAlan Shanoff — Newspaper has taken a calculated risk in rushing to publish details of allegedly damning video. The most puzzling thing about the video purporting to show Rob Ford smoking crack and the Toronto Star’s coverage thereof is Ford’s apparent…
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