EX-MP writes on Senate scandal
OTTAWA — Former Conservative MP and parliamentary secretary Patrick Boyer, who believes the Senate must be abolished, has just written a book, Our Scandalous Senate.
Who should be blamed for the Senate spending scandal?
There’s more than enough blame to allocate to just a few, for example, senators (Mac) Harb, (Pamela) Wallin, (Patrick) Brazeau and (Mike) Duffy. You could go next to the Senate administration and the internal economy committee because the place really runs on its own rules and it has for over a century, on the “honour system.” Although they were protesting that they have a scrupulous system for vetting all expenses — two sets of eyes before anybody signs off — the Senate itself is complicit in this scandal. There’s still more blame to go around: the Prime Minister’s Office. There’s a lot of blame to share.
You list other scandals going on at the time of the Senate spending scandal last year, and make the argument that the expenses of these four senators, even financially, isn’t much. Why did this scandal not go away?
What made it tactile was the amount that Canadians could get their hands around, like (former minister Bev Oda’s) $16 glass of orange juice. Those are things people can connect with. The second thing is that it reawakened our anger that we’ve been impotent for 140 years in dealing with the Senate.
You write that Pamela Wallin told you she believed her party was out to get her. Do you believe her?
My view is that she was laying out what she believed to be the case, that she didn’t have the “R” stamped on her head for Reform (party).
You also write about Wallin telling Senate Conservative leader Marjory LeBreton that Wallin’s leaving caucus wasn’t going to stop the stories about the scandal.
That was trying to deal with a bad pitch when the runner is already at third base. The PMO had failed to put in place the supports that were needed for these people. The way that these senators were conducting themselves simply shone the floodlights on the way the thing has always been run, which is party organization, party fundraising, on the public dime.
What feelings do you have coming back here to Parliament Hill, given all that has happened and is ongoing?
Discouraged. I’m discouraged to see how things have evolved in our national public life. A lot of the relationships that once did exist in the Commons are no longer possible.
(This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)