The end of the Duffy trial leaves big questions about how Senate must reform itself

The end of the Mike Duffy trial — one of the most high-profile political scandals in recent memory — offers a cautionary tale to politicians as well as insight into how the justice system works. And it leaves big questions about how the Senate must reform itself.

Canadian politicos have been gripped by the Duffy trial, which ended Thursday with the dismissal of all 31 fraud, breach of trust and bribery counts against him.

In Duffy, the Senate expenses scandal found its poster boy, alleged to have ripped off taxpayers. There was even a bombshell, an apparent smoking gun: a $90,000 cheque from Nigel Wright, prime minister Stephen Harper’s former chief of staff, used to pay back Duffy’s living expenses. For everyone who perceived problems in Harper’s Ottawa, that cheque represented tangible proof that the federal Conservatives were a bunch of freebooting buccaneers for whom money bought power and loyalty.

Justice Charles Vaillancourt wasn’t easy on the Prime Minister’s Office in his ruling. In fact, he was scathing, saying Duffy had resisted pressure from the PMO all along, but that it was ruthless in its damage control: “the methods employed to achieve a successful outcome to the problem seemed to have known no bounds,” wrote Vaillancourt.

Without the intense centralization of politics and policy in the Harper PMO, it must be said, this crisis may never have achieved such heights. There may have never been a $90,000 cheque, meetings that PMO staff may or may not have been in on, or decisions made that staff may or may not have heard of. This, for the current government, and future governments, is a lesson. But charges never appeared against Wright, the man who cut the cheque. Harper himself was never forced to testify at Duffy’s trial. That smoking gun turned out to be stone cold, and the senator has been cleared of all wrongdoing.

And yet, the stink of corruption need only twig the nostrils; for those senators caught up in the RCMP investigation into misuse of funds, reputations have been damaged. The whole affair has damaged the perception of government in Canada, and it has hurt the red chamber.

In the Duffy case, the notable feature of justice is that it’s sober, often depressing and, frequently, not all that satisfying. And in that regard, that’s the Duffy trial in a nutshell.

He is a man whose great ambition was to be a senator, who then got caught up in the mess, and landed before a judge.

With the mobs braying for his head — and who hoped the prime minister’s would come off with it — little of what was expected, in so many ways, materialized. Justice served, then. But the bigger case of the Senate remains before Canadians.

Vaillancourt said, clearly, that it was not the job of the court to fix the Senate and its rules, and this ruling does not sort out the Senate expenses scandal. The Senate has serious work to do reforming its rules; Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is not about to abolish the Senate. The appointments process has been reformed, it’s true.

But now, growth must come from within to prevent misuse of public funds. Duffy’s vindication is not the Senate’s exoneration. Senators must know that.

The whole affair has damaged the perception of government in Canada.