A ‘ check- mate’ for Historica Canada memory:
Duffy decision decisive victory in a game of pawn against King!
Ever since stepping onto – and being recently kicked from – the Canadian political landscape, Stephen Harper has had many analogies and metaphors painting him as a sort of commander- in- chief, chess buff up there with ranks of famous Russian chess master Garry Kasparov. Recent editorial cartoons and commentaries from coast- to- coast paint a monstrous Harper lead PMO as the “political, covert, relentless” inner workings of the Conservative elites, arduously planning, strategizing on the ( chessboard) mess of PR embarrassment which arose from the Duffer’s residency and Senate expenses fiasco. But with all chess manoeuvres t i ming, patience, strategy, arrogance, l uck, and well- or even ill- conceived longterm optionality’s have a decisive way in folding up success or defeat in the game of Kings ( and pawns)! J ustice Charles Vaillancourt adjudicated i n detail how the PM’s operatives shamelessly, manipulated the poor Ottawa ( P. E. I.) Senator as a “( pawn) on a chess board.” “Could Hollywood match their creativity?” he asked. Vaillancourt’s exoneration of Duffy on all 31 counts of criminal intent will present a Historica Canada Minute of momentous stature – about a contemporary irrelevant parliamentary body and too priv- ileged aligned persons appointed to it – that’ll out shine any Canadiana Minutes produced prior. What’ll ‘ t he Duffer’s Minute’ highlight in our national cross of space and time? How the former CTV newsman from “the Island”… duped, dumped Duffy played a historic and antecedent hand in Canadian political destiny f or the ( former- PM) MP for Calgary Heritage. These fluid minutes are all part of what renowned English historian, E. H. Carr said were akin to Marc Antony’s misguided infatuation “for want of Cleopatra’s nose” – the unavoidable “accidents in history” by military and political chiefs in the changing epochs of their times. The entire ( Conservative) master plan for Senate reform has been part of a larger Canadian melodrama for years. Its political legitimacy and relevancy in our changing federation has been a contention of public debate since pre- Confederation 1867. In this 21st Century contemporarily chess game version, the first Stephen Harper foray moved ahead on the board in 2006, when the former- Prime Minister introduced a Senate reform bill to give Canadians a say about who represents them. At that time, Harper fashioned his political manoeuvre as a step forward on the national political chessboard. “This bill will allow us to move to a new era in Canadian democracy,” Harper told his cheering caucus and Cbrand sycophants in Ottawa back then. In this opening attack ( and subsequent national diatribes), Harper pushed forward on the board of our space and time a tough- PM plot of reforming the Senate ( or abolish it). He was dubbed as Conservative Caesar: who’d come, claim, conquer, and reform the Senate come hell or high water!
Politics is a fickle mistress, changing her garments whimsically at will of public perceptions every federal election. But perhaps Vaillancourt’s scathing rebuke of a political Hollywood-styled, commander l ed master plan is giving too much credit to what many Canadians may look on now ( and in future hindsight) as once powerful blind men on an uncoordinated trapeze act. One clown not knowing what two other clowns were up to in a less than masterful performed fiasco of “Who’s on first?” In a future conceived Historica Canada Minute, perhaps it warrants a “Bud” Abbott and Lou Costello styled-comedic( YouTube)- circus- skit gone awfully wrong. One not knowing who was pissing off, passing off, or grabbing the swing on a high- wire act, creating their own national political accident in hatching.