New Conservative Excuse for Expenses Fraud: Law is Too Complex to Read
I’m not sure there’s a more delicious irony than the fact that the Conservative Senator now being publicly alleged to have defrauded the public of tens of thousands of dollars in wrongfully claimed living expenses, on the dubious grounds that his vacation cottage in PEI is his “primary residence” and the home he uses in Ottawa is merely his “secondary” home, is none other than former journalist Mike Duffy. This man is an even greater dunce than his colleague, Olympian skier turned climate change denialist Nancy Greene. A couple of years ago, Duffy demonstrated the full extent of his stupidity by giving a lecture at a journalism school in which he denounced what he saw as a wave of “critical thinking” — his words, not mine — overtaking the media.
Sixth Estate has accused Canadian journalists of many things, but I don’t think I’ve ever been nasty enough to accuse them of thinking critically. Yikes!
Anyhow, Senator Duffy has a loyal defender in none other than Speaker of the Senate Noel Kinsella, who, asked to comment on the scandal, provided the following fantastically preposterous explanation of why it’s all not so simple as it sounds:
“The instrument that has created the Parliament, which includes the Crown, the House of Commons and the Senate, was written in the latter part of the 1800s in the language of that time,” Kinsella said. “So I’m not sure of the fullness of the meaning so this is why [the review is] a good thing.”
Heh. I guess they decided that Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s golden excuse for fiscal indiscretion — that he hadn’t read the ethics code and therefore wasn’t bound by it — could only possibly work once. So they went with the second best choice: we don’t have to follow the rules if we’re too stupid to read them.
It so happens that I have a degree in history, albeit not in law, so I decided to check out “the instrument” and interpret it for them — the word is Constitution, but Conservatives in this country are having increasing trouble uttering the word ever since Jason Kenney called the Charter of Rights and Freedoms “stupid” and their lawyers argued in court that Constitutional rights do not apply to decisions made by Cabinet ministers. Rule of law, schmule of schlaw.
Anyhow, I digress. I dusted off my copy of the Constitution and proceeded to find the relevant section so I could help Dr. Kinsella — who, by the way, is a former professor — parse the bizarre, convoluted, arcane, and indecipherable prose. I’m sure you’ll agree that the relevant section is a doozy:
The Qualifications of a Senator shall be as follows:… He shall be resident in the Province for which he is appointed;
I was going to use my evil “critical thinking” skills and put it in simple language for the Professor, but frankly, I don’t know if I can put it any more simply than it’s already written, complex 19th-century language and all.
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kirbycairo
Maybe this was Mr. Kinsella’s polite way of admitting publicly that Duffy really is as stupid as we all thought.
Politicians of all stripes can be full of it (and Mr. Duffy is over-full of it). But why is it that the particular model of corruption to which rightwing politicians seem to conform is the one in which they so publicly condemn others for the very actions for which they are guilty? And Senator Brazeau seems to be caught in the very same web hypocrisy as Duffy.
Sarsaparilla
I knew Duffy was a reactionary and utterly useless as a ‘journalist’, best known for his lame show on CTV and the hatchet job he did on Dion a few years ago. However, his speech from two years ago shows he really is a wack job.
What a freeloader he really is. I doubt he has every put in an honest day’s work in anywhere.
What I don’t understand is how rightwingers can get away with it public? Whether it’s Robbie Boo-Boo, the Wall Street Gangsters, (with apologies to real gangsters, as they earn their money the old fashioned way–they provide some sort of good or service–however questionable) or Preston Manning and the goofball Ron Paul. Even Sun Stroked News Network is shameless in asking for public dollars. Though Smilin’ Don Martin has offered some feeble defense of Duffy on CTV. It just shows what some media types think of the public.
PS
Keep up the good work. There’s more critical thinking here than anywhere in the Globe & Wail or The Anal Post.
kootcoot
While it is astounding how many different “versions” of the “truth” one hears if one listens to multiple media sources according to what I have heard or read:
1. Duffy is listed on the tax roles of PEI (in relation to his “cottage:) as non-resident.
2. Duffy voted in Ontario in the last election.
Ergo: Duffy is a RESIDENT of Ontario and thus not qualified to be the Senator from PEI much less milk the taxpayer for shelter costs, in order to save more of his bloated salary for his obviously excessive and bloated grocery budget!
Peter
>>“When you put critical thinking together with Noam Chomsky, what you’ve got is >>a group of people who are taught from the ages of 18, 19 and 20 that what we >>stand for, private enterprise, a system that has generated more wealth for more >>people because people take risks and build businesses, is bad,” Duffy is quoted >>as saying.”
So Duffy is basically saying that he thinks that the private enterprise system can withstand no scrutiny. Amazing!
Critical thinking = bad? How did this guy ever get a job as journalist?
Sixth Estate
kootcoot — You can add to that: 3. Duffy was, at least until this month, not considered a permanent resident of PEI for the purposes of public health insurance. It seems most likely he was on the Ontario insurance registry, although that’s speculation.
Peter — Well, I guess it’s interesting that he says if you think critically you’ll conclude that the free enterprise system doesn’t work, yes. I believe this could be called head-in-the-sand-ism.
crf
From the Constitution (which Sixth linked):
[...]
Disqualification of Senators
31. The Place of a Senator shall become vacant in any of the following Cases:
[...]
(5)
If he ceases to be qualified in respect of Property or of Residence; provided, that a Senator shall not be deemed to have ceased to be qualified in respect of Residence by reason only of his residing at the Seat of the Government of Canada while holding an Office under that Government requiring his Presence there.
~~
So it seems the question for Duffy is whether at the time of his appointment, he was a real Resident of PEI. After he was appointed, he could fail to maintain any residence in PEI and remain qualified to be a Senator, so long as this failing was because he had to move somewhere near the parliament.
Sixth Estate
Actually, this part is a bit of a red herring. The real question is whether he bilked the taxpayer out of tens of thousands of dollars by wrongfully identifying his “primary residence.”
I think one could easily establish a convention that senators do not have to prove primary residence so long as they have real property. (That is certainly how what’s-his-name managed to remain a senator while living in Mexico.) But there’s an additional program here, one which compensates senators for being away from their “primary residence.” That is what Duffy is accused of violating.
The Conservatives are being very clever by trying to shift us onto the more uncertain terrain of the constitutional residence requirements, but what is really at issue here is expenses fraud, and the constitution is irrelevant to that.