Update: Today all 31 charges were dismissed against Sen. Mike Duffy. Below you can find an article Ottawa Life Magazine publisher Dan Donovan wrote last May, arguing that Duffy was being unfairly targeted by the media. Today, the judge confirmed this suspicion.
The Mike Duffy trial is a public showcase for all the secrets and lies that are the realpolitik of the capital. Duffy has already been tried and convicted in the public eye. For theatre, he was first drawn and quartered by Canada’s national media in what can only be described as a 21st century lynching. I worked for many years on Parliament Hill as a speechwriter, legislative assistant and political staffer. The place has its own rules and more importantly, its own governing conventions. The Parliamentary press can be a self-involved and pretty sanctimonious bunch. Duffy’s trial at the Ottawa Courthouse is having the dual effect of bringing out the real story about his expenses while exposing the shallowness and callousness of the Parliamentary press and the elitism of the “pundit class” at Canada’s major broadcasters.
The national media narrative is that Senator Duffy pilfered taxpayers dollars and broke spending rules and got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. In fact, it goes further and suggests that he took the whole cookie jar…whatever that is. Even though these journalists work in the parliamentary precinct and have access to the players and procedures or conventions that govern the Senate, few, if any of them took the time to investigate or explain the conventions of the Senate related to spending. The trial is exposing much of this and shedding some new light on Senator Duffy. He, like all senators seems to have run his affairs as a senator using the vagary of Senate rules and conventions. The issue about his residency and related expenses is key. He has been consistent that he expensed these within the rules. Ironically, the Senate still refuses to release to the public several audits which show how other senators dealt with housing expenses.
The release of this information could greatly help bring clarity to the Duffy affair. If the convention was that it was ok to claim part of housing expenses in various ways and all senators did this, than Duffy has done nothing to break the rules. Duffy’s problem was that he was both popular and ambitious, which can be a deadly combo in Ottawa. He is a former award-winning and respected journalist who, for years, was one of the most popular political broadcasters in Canada. MPs from all parties and their staff would seek him out and share information or give him stories that they wouldn’t give to others. He had a great reputation, was always gracious and never betrayed anyone’s trust. People genuinely liked and trusted “Mike.” He loved Parliament and he knew “the game.”
The evidence to date seems to indicate his Senate expense claims were not for personal enrichment but were used to pay people for tasks he was involved with as a senator. The duplicity of the press regarding their outrage and the amount of time they have spent over the expense receipts for his makeup is laughable. This, coming from the very same people that use makeup in their jobs on a daily basis, understanding that makeup is as important to a broadcast journalist as a stick is to a hockey player. It would have been far more responsible for at least one journalist covering the Duffy case to get the RCMP to explain why he was charged with bribery. Bribery requires a “bribee” and a “briber.” According to the RCMP investigator, Duffy is apparently the person accepting a bribe…yet no one was charged with giving him one.
Duffy maintains he never accepted any bribe and it appears his lawyer is making that case for him. Proportionality and fairness in broadcasting must be put back into play regarding Senator Duffy. Regardless of what you think of Mike Duffy, his rise to prominence and fall from grace are like a Shakespearian tragedy. The Shakespearian comedy in this is watching broadcasters, especially those at the CBC (who are paid with taxpayers’ money), sanctimoniously rail away at Duffy for betraying the public trust when they themselves have accepted large personal payments from private corporations to give speeches and attend conferences. Talk about a hand in the cookie jar.
