Canadian Senators Crash and Burn

[Tropicana]

Senators’ expense claims sent to outside auditors for examination

He is the party frontman, the bon vivant emcee and fundraising favourite.

Broadcaster turned Senator Mike Duffy has brought the Conservatives political currency they needed — the credibility of a mainstream media personality who heartily endorses the Stephen Harper agenda.

Since his Senate appointment in 2008, Duffy has become one of the most popular crowd draws for countless Conservative MPs’ fundraising dinners across the country.

One MP told the Star that Duffy packs rooms like no one other than the Prime Minister.

He plays up his journalist credentials. At the 2011 national Conservative policy convention, Duffy donned the role of “reporter” on the floor, with his image broadcast on giant video screens to a couple of thousand in the Ottawa convention hall as he conducted “interviews” with Conservative party figures and delegates.

Although Duffy long ago gave up journalistic objectivity for political power, he remains in the eyes of many Canadians a trusted figure — and that is a currency valuable for Harper.

All that gives Duffy some protection, even as he comes under increasing scrutiny over his residency claims and expenses.

The Senate confirmed Friday that it has called in outside auditors to probe Duffy’s expenses and those of two other senators, as well as their claims that their main residences are outside Ottawa.

Duffy, who represents Prince Edward Island, Patrick Brazeau (Quebec) and Mac Harb (Ontario) have claimed their principal residence is outside the national capital region, entitling them to housing allowances of up $22,000 a year.

After an initial review of the claims, the Senate committee that oversees the budgets for the upper chamber is now seeking the advice of Deloitte, a major professional services consultancy.

The committee is also seeking legal advice on Duffy’s claims that his principal residence is a home in P.E.I. and not the house he owns in suburban Ottawa.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/02/08/outside_auditors_called_in_to_probe_expense_claims_of_three_senators.html

[Tropicana]

Senator Patrick Brazeau crashes after years of boorish behaviour

Patrick Brazeau awoke one morning just before Christmas in 2008 to the news that he had won the lottery.

Thursday, he sat in a Gatineau, Que., jail cell, the latest example of someone who had cash-for-life sprinkled upon his lucky shoulders, only to sprint to a spectacular crash and burn.

When your riches come in a ticket spit out of a machine at the corner store, character and maturity play no part.

But in this case, Stephen Harper sought out the young, brash aboriginal leader, making him, at 34, the youngest Canadian senator ever, looking at a salary of more than $130,000 and theoretical job security for more than four decades.

he question that must be asked in this latest disgraceful chapter in Senate history is how did Brazeau’s number ever come up?

There is nothing in the realm of hindsight in raising the question on the day Brazeau was booted from the Conservative caucus, facing charges in connection with a domestic disturbance.

Not content with the windfall provided by Harper, Brazeau immediately announced he would continue his six-figure job as head of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, until he was persuaded that such unseemly double-dipping was officially discouraged.

When he was appointed that morning, along with 17 others in a mid-prorogation patronage frenzy, the Conservative government already knew then-Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice had received letters from aboriginal leaders in this country questioning the membership and spending of the organization Brazeau headed.

The prime minister’s office knew this former model and martial arts expert was facing a charge of sexual harassment.

Kory Teneycke, Harper’s spokesperson of the day, said the prime minister was awareof the allegations and said Harper was “proud” to appoint Brazeau since there was no finding of misconduct.

Days later, news emerged of a troubling audit of CAP by Health Canada leading then Opposition leader Michael Ignatieff — 12 days after Brazeau’s swearing-in — to question whether he was “Senate material.’’

Then the Star’s Joanna Smith reported that the new senator, who drove a Porsche SUV, was behind in child support payments. The PMO, by then, was hiding behind its “private matter” shield, but Brazeau was already displaying his penchant for blaming everyone but himself.

In that case, the stories were being spread by his enemies in the aboriginal leadership, he said.

In the ensuing years, each time he displayed a stunning lack of judgment or acted in his typically boorish and bullying manner, he took to blaming the messenger.

When Canadian Press reporter Jennifer Ditchburn reported on Brazeau’s woeful attendance record in the Senate — he was within days of being fined for his absences at the time — he took to Twitter to slag the reporter.

“Change the D to a B in your last name and we’re even! Don’t mean it but needs saying,” the juvenile Brazeau told Ditchburn on his Twitter feed.

In recent weeks, Brazeau must have seen it all coming apart.

The Star caught him mocking Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence at a Conservative fundraiser and CTV Ottawa bureau chief Robert Fife found Brazeau was allegedly gaming the system, illegally claiming his father’s house as his primary residence so he could pocket a housing allowance.

Wednesday night, hours before police responded to the disturbance at Brazeau’s home, Fife reported that the senator had allegedly listed his mailing address as that of his ex-father-in-law’s house to gain an aboriginal tax exemption and Brazeau predictably branded Fife a racist.

If he did anything to help his colleagues Thursday, Brazeau temporarily took the heat off two other senators facing allegations of the same housing scam, Liberal Mac Harb and Conservative Mike Duffy, another proud member of lottery day, 2008, last seen schlepping through the kitchen of a Halifax hotel, a former journalist fleeing reporters.

Somehow, Brazeau seemed to think he could simply brazen his way through all this as charge was heaped upon charge, complication was piled upon complication and his enemies proliferated.

He has invited Canadians to once again heap scorn upon a discredited institution but, in this case, Canadians have no one to blame but Harper.

Brazeau could have remained a yappy, self-promoter on the fringe had he not been tapped by a prime minister whose office either didn’t do its homework or didn’t care.

He is now an independent senator sitting in the lock-up and the smart money says he is soon to be an ex-senator.

Wednesday night he boasted that if anyone thought there was any substance to the CTV news report they could find him in Parliament on Thursday.

Reporters found him, but the only interview he was giving was to a Gatineau detective.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/02/07/senator_patrick_brazeau_crashes_from_selfinflicted_wounds_tim_harper.html

[Tropicana]