Canadians trying to peer into the depths of the Senate scandal find the water just keeps getting muddier. The unending talk about senators Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau just raises more questions at a time when voters need answers.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper almost certainly wishes he could erase the three from the public mind and from the minds of grassroots Conservatives, who are gearing up for their convention in Calgary on Friday. The Senate鈥檚 current debate on whether to suspend the trio for their expense-account misdeeds is one step toward obliterating them.
Duffy, however, is not going quietly into that good night. He seems determined to go down fighting, and to drag Harper, the Prime Minister鈥檚 Office and the Conservative party down with him.
While Duffy鈥檚 revelations and accusations confirm that he is a liar and a political hack, they also draw more people into the web of coverup and push the prime minister to gradually change his own story.
That is perilous for Harper, because each time he adds some new detail, he reinforces the notion that there is fire behind the smoke.
Take the question of how many people in the prime minister鈥檚 circle knew about the plan to give Duffy $90,000 to cover the unauthorized living expenses he was forced to repay.
In June, Harper said only Duffy and chief of staff Nigel Wright knew about it. This week, he said Wright 鈥渢old a very few people.鈥�
By most forms of counting, 鈥渇ew鈥� means more than one and probably more than two. Suddenly, it seems that several people in the PMO knew about this deal.
When Wright was the only person in the office to know, it was slightly plausible that Harper didn鈥檛 know. When Harper himself says that a 鈥渇ew people鈥� knew, the deniability becomes significantly less plausible.
In a poll released this week, 68 per cent of 1,377 Canadians polled said if Harper has lied about his involvement, he should resign immediately.
In another wrinkle to the case of the cheque, Harper had consistently said his chief of staff resigned. Last week, however, he said Wright was 鈥渄ismissed.鈥�
Why did it take him five months to use that term?
He didn鈥檛 need to use it to look strong. Duffy鈥檚 rant in the Senate this week opened Canadians鈥� eyes to the degree of control the PMO holds over the upper chamber.
鈥淎re we independent senators or PMO puppets?鈥� Duffy said, as everything coming out of his mouth made it clear he had definitely been in the second category. He said that when he lied about getting a bank loan for the $90,000, he did so on instructions from the PMO.
It鈥檚 as if he is being paid by anti-Senate people to torpedo his own institution.
He is even doing an effective job of torpedoing his party. He revealed that the Conservative party gave him a cheque for $13,500 to cover his legal expenses. Alberta party members, who have longed for years for Senate reform and have been told to keep a damper on some of their unsalable political positions, will burn with resentment at the thought of their donations underwriting an old-style party bagman.
The reaction to all this is cynicism about the Senate, but no sense of betrayal about Harper. When Canadians elected him, they knew they weren鈥檛 getting a charismatic figure. They were getting a cold policy wonk who fights political battles to win and who takes no prisoners.
Meanwhile, the fine work done by dedicated senators is swept aside. If you want to measure the extent of the damage, just ask yourself: Who would want to be named to the Senate today? And, increasingly, who could defend its existence?
