Too many former friends under PM’s bus

At 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. Tuesday paramedics and police went to the Gatineau, Que., residence of Sen. Patrick Brazeau. The second time, they took a distraught person from the residence to the hospital.

On Wednesday, Brazeau will appear in court in Gatineau — walking through a gauntlet of cameras — to face assault and sex assault charges after a February incident at his home.

Brazeau, 38, has been suspended from the Senate over the assault charge, and is being investigated by the RCMP, along with Mike Duffy, Mac Harb and Pamela Wallin, over his expense claims.

The appointments of Brazeau, Duffy and Wallin were all announced on the same day, Dec. 22, 2008, along with 15 other delighted Conservatives. They must all have had a lovely Christmas, enjoying congratulations from friends and relatives at their good fortune to have been guaranteed an excellent income with near-absolute job security until age 75.

Those appointments are like the ghosts of Christmas past, a recurring nightmare for the prime minister, returning to haunt him on front pages and TV screens for the rest of his political career, threatening to draw it to an untimely end.

I don’t like to be uncharitable, but the prime minister can’t blame anyone but himself for this.

In opposition, the prime minister wore the black hat of the moral scourge, angrily denouncing the ruling Liberals for their various ethical shortcomings.

Harper’s hot anger at the Liberals is hard to square with his own subsequent actions, because his record on the Senate is worse than the Liberals’.

Any appointee can go bad, and the Liberals have appointed their share of bag men and second raters, harmless cheque cashers who slumber through committee meetings without ever having a significant sober second thought pass between their ears, but the 18 appointments of Dec. 22, 2008, were especially cynical.

Harper had just survived the great coalition crisis, thoroughly besting his foes, which must have felt like a triumph. With the people behind him and Parliament shut, perhaps he felt he could do whatever he wanted. What he wanted to do turned out not to be so wise.

Irving Gerstein, long the party’s chief fundraiser, was charged in 2011 with Elections Act violations, charges that were dropped when the Conservative party pleaded guilty and paid a $52,000 fine.

Leo Housakos, a longtime Montreal political organizer who raised funds in municipal and provincial politics, is now under the media spotlight on the sidelines of the Charbonneau commission into the construction industry.

Fabian Manning had recently been defeated by Newfoundland voters. He resigned his Senate seat to run again in 2011, and when he lost, Harper reappointed him, along with defeated candidates Larry Smith and Josee Verner.

It was enough to make a Liberal blush.

Of course, Harper is not the first prime minister to make appointments that looked bad.

Jean Chretien made Alfonso Gagliano the ambassador to Denmark when he was under a cloud for his role in a sponsorship program that had become somewhat controversial. Brian Mulroney appointed Nova Scotia premier John Buchanan to the Senate though his government was mired in scandal.

Harper is responsible for the people he appoints, just as you are responsible if you bring someone to a house party and they make a scene.

Brazeau, Duffy and Wallin have made quite a scene. Particularly in the case of Brazeau, that was foreseeable.

The appointment angered First Nations people, both because Brazeau represents a minority political view within their community and because they didn’t think the government had vetted him properly, given that he faced allegations of sexual harassment and had failed to pay child support.

Then there is the question of how the government handled the Senate expense scandal, which does not reflect well on the Conservatives.

In August, former Liberal senator Raymond Lavigne broke down in tears as he pleaded to be let out of jail where he is serving a sentence for defrauding taxpayers on his expenses.

That does not reflect especially badly on the Liberals, since when Senate administrators learned of his expense cheating, the thenLiberal-dominated Senate committee in charge of these things called the RCMP, not the prime minister’s chief of staff. Liberals did not defend him in the House, as Harper defended Wallin, or cut a cheque and tone down an audit report, as Tories did in an attempt to defend Duffy.

That apparent coverup attempt cost the prime minister his chief of staff, and has the Mounties snooping around the prime minister’s office.

This is bad for the government, but investigations into electoral matters may pose a greater threat.

There are too many former friends under the bus, too many bad feelings, too many investigations and prosecutions.

It’s starting to feel like it’s just a matter of time until the wheels come off the bus.