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.
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.
The Tory-dominated, closed-door Senate committee studying Mike Duffy’s improper housing expenses deleted a specific reference to his failure to co-operate with auditors before releasing its report to the public.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper says that not only did he not know about his chief of staff’s “gift” to repay Senator Mike Duffy’s expenses before the story broke in the media, he was not consulted and did not sign off on Nigel Wright’s decision to write a personal cheque.
A Conservative riding association president in Quebec has quit in frustration, saying her party has no interest in electing more members in the province.
McGregor: The Senate Committee’s Committee on Internal Economy, lead by Conservative Senator David Tkachuk, released a report on the expenses of embattled Senator Mike Duffy that was dramatically revised from a previous version.
Speaking as an independent Saskatchewan senator for the first time, Pamela Wallin is not answering any questions about whether or not she has repaid expense money.
The afternoon was not without new clarification. Or at least an attempt at such. Picking up where yesterday had left off, Thomas Mulcair endeavoured to sort out the precise value of John Baird’s assurance that the matter of Nigel Wright…
The Harper government may have “hit the reset button” on the purchase of F-35s, but that doesn’t mean planning for the stealth fighter has been halted.
Read MoreThe Harper government is declining to explain how and where it is spending millions of taxpayer dollars on advertising to promote oil, gas and pipeline companies as well as other Canadian natural resources.
Read MoreToronto’s Catholic school board has removed Mayor Rob Ford as head football coach at Etobicoke’s Don Bosco Catholic Secondary School, ending a decade-long affiliation that has brought Ford personal joy and political praise and criticism.
Read MoreDoug Ford spoke over a chorus of questions from media as he finally addressed the drug use allegations against his brother, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.
Read MoreLiberal Senator Jim Munson, a member of the Senate’s internal economy committee that dealt with Senator Mike Duffy’s expenses audit, says an original report on the audit was changed and alleges the Prime Minister’s Office may have had something to do with the “whitewash.”
Read MoreSenator Mike Duffy said Wednesday that when Canadians know all the facts about his spending claims they will conclude that his actions “do not merit criticism.”
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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.
Tim Harper — Stephen Harper had 1,115 words for his caucus in his content-free, made-for-TV speech Tuesday morning, but one word stood out. He called the Senate expense scandal a “distraction.”
Michael Den Tandt — Should Alberta’s Wildrose party ever choose to launch a federal wing, Tuesday’s tragi-comedy on Parliament Hill will serve as a helpful point of germination. And should the Conservative…
Don Lenihan — Everyone’s piling on Mike Duffy, but I’d like to congratulate him for a job well done. If not for his bookkeeping habits, we might never have known how vast the gap is between the government’s talking points and its real views on accountability.
Dan Lett — Will Prime Minister Stephen Harper ever face a direct question about how his chief of staff became inexplicably involved in the raging Senate expense scandal? Right now, loyal cabinet ministers are taking bullets for Harper in question period and,,,
Marilla Stephenson — Mr. Accountability remained unaccountable on Tuesday, delivering an utterly inadequate response to the Senate scandal before conveniently hopping a jet bound for Peru. The best Prime Minister Stephen Harper could come up with in his…
Tom Walkom — Prime Minister Stephen Harper has attempted to put the Senate scandal behind him. He has failed. He has failed because the imbroglio in the upper chamber speaks to more than the dubious accounting methods said to be employed by Mike Duffy…
Toronto Star — Prime Minister Stephen Harper may be “very upset” at the Senate scandal that is gnawing away at his Conservative government’s credibility, and deservedly so. But the political fix doesn’t lie in finger-wagging at Senate miscreants…
Barbara Yaffe — British Columbians should resist getting sidetracked by the controversy involving four misspending Independents in the Senate. Because this province’s biggest grievance against the upper chamber is, and long has been, related to a constitutionally entrenched…
L. Ian MacDonald — Nigel Wright did the right and honourable thing in resigning as Stephen Harper’s chief of staff for writing a personal cheque for $90,000 to Senator Mike Duffy so Duffy could reimburse the government for disallowed travel expenses.
Jeffrey Simpson — For a government already adrift at midterm, the Nigel Wright-Mike Duffy affair, coupled with the resignation from caucus of another Conservative senator, Pamela Wallin, represents an unwelcome distraction. It’s doubtful that Prime Minister…
Read MoreAnthony Furey — For someone so focused on accountability, Stephen Harper sure has a strange way of addressing scandals. When word got around the PM would speak to his caucus Tuesday before…
Read MoreOttawa Citizen — Stephen Harper had the opportunity Tuesday to quell the controversy surrounding the Senate and the Prime Minister’s Office. He didn’t take it. He made it worse. In a televised speech to the Conservative caucus, the Tory leader expressed his…
Read MoreAdam Chapnick — It is hard to have much sympathy for the predicament that Conservatives find themselves in today. The party that claimed for years to be different from its Liberal predecessor in terms of its ethical fortitude has been exposed as just as vulnerable…
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