NOTABLE TAKE- AWAYS FROM TESTIMONY
Sen. Mike Duffy’s first day of courthouse declarations in his own defence provided several interesting items, from The Canadian Press
BUSY WITH THE BEAVERS
Duffy travelled on the road with the Canadian rock band The Beavers in the summer of 1964 at the age of 18. The band members, who sported matching mohawk haircuts, had him travel in advance to cities to set up for their arrival. They later changed their name to the Great Scots.
PAYING HIS OWN WAY
Duffy was an ambitious and shrewd young journalist, freelancing stories about football games in his mid- teens, and later working any small radio jobs he could get. In 1967, he paid his own way to Toronto to cover the Progressive Conservative convention for a Halifax radio station.
LIFE EVENTS COLLIDE
Duffy suffered a heart attack three days before he was set to wed his current wife, Heather, in 1992. The two had met years earlier, when she was his nurse for another ailment. Duffy said he went through a similar emotional conundrum when his daughter was born precisely the same hour that his father passed away.
OPEN HEART SURGERIES
Duffy’s health is poor. He takes 14 medications daily to treat his heart disease, diabetes and ulcers, and sleeps with a device to treat apnea. He has six doctors, and has been a patient with the University of Ottawa Heart Institute for two decades. Duffy has had open heart surgery twice, including two years ago.
BEST LAID PLANS
When Stephen Harper asked him to sit in the Senate in late 2008, Duffy says he suggested he represent Ontario instead of Prince Edward Island. But Duffy says Harper was adamant it be P. E. I., and was fully aware that Duffy owned only a cottage there that he intended to winterize in the future as a retirement home.
On the breakup of his first marriage: “I lost my kids, they moved away, eventually as far as B. C. I basically had a lost decade. When I walked by a schoolyard, I wondered how my kids were doing.” On why he, a non- partisan journalist, was appointed to the Senate: “What they were trying to do was put people in the Senate who would in effect provide thirdparty validation of Stephen Harper as someone Canadians can trust.” On being appointed to represent Prince Edward Island: “I said, going in for P. E. I. would not be popular. I’m from P. E. I., but many people will complain I’m not of P. E. I.”