Much ado about Duffy
Re Harsh verdict . . . on the Tories, April 22
Although, like most Canadians, I’m a little surprised that Mike Duffy was cleared on all charges, I’ve read a lot of the judge’s ruling and think I understand what he’s saying. Obviously there’d be no point in sending Duffy to jail for breaking the rules when in fact there were no rules.
Certainly one can’t charge him with taking a bribe if nobody is charged with offering a bribe. And definitely the court system shouldn’t have to (on the taxpayers’ dime) clean up a mess that the house has perpetrated.
The whole problem was caused by Stephen Harper insisting Duffy should represent P.E.I., when in fact it’s a bit of a stretch. I note that Harper isn’t charged with anything, although his party certainly got punished in the last election. Hopefully the current government will continue to work on making the Senate something we as Canadians can look up to, rather than fodder for comedians. Mike Allen, Burlington
“We need to enhance the power of the judiciary so that this sort of thing cannot happen again.” ALEX SHEPHERD SEAGRAVE, ONT.
My first reaction to the judge’s decisions in the Mike Duffy trial: I thought the “I was only following orders” defence was totally discredited in the Nuremberg trials. In other words, greedy senators knew or ought to have known that their fiscal behaviour was inappropriate, regardless of unclear rules. Paul A. Wilson, Toronto
One million dollars spent by the RCMP investigating the Senate, wide-eyed judges, inept crown prosecutors — where else have we seen this recently? It’s like the great escape in slow motion. The Senate should be abolished and Mike Duffy, Nigel Wright and Stephen Harper brought together before the courts again to explain why so much fuss yielded such a pitiful result. Richard Kadziewicz, Toronto
Now that the judge’s ruling is out exonerating Sen. Mike Duffy, it seems to me this is the tip of the iceberg. In a free and democratic society it is precious strange to see the judicial system manipulated by their political masters.
The ultimate question surely should be how did the Crown attorney possibly proceed with these charges? It would appear from the judge’s finding that he believed there was a concerted manipulative action undertaken by the PMO’s office.
But how far did this process extend? Is it possible that the minister of justice influenced the Crown attorney’s office to proceed with criminal charges even when a superficial review of the evidence at the time showed it was mostly circumstantial? Not to mention the relationship with the RCMP and how it selectively chooses what to investigate and how it weighed the evidence it uncovered.
And this was not even one isolated case. The RCMP also investigated other senators and exposed the same circumstantial evidential trail. Senators, I suggest, who became a political embarrassment to the government of the day.
These are the activities of a banana republic where the government rules over the judiciary and the police, not as in a normal democracy where the judiciary stands as a third tier of government, a check on the power of the political system.
Remember also the actions of Harper toward the chief justice. The fact that this actually took place in Canada and was executed, to the cost of millions to the taxpayer, I would conjecture, is not something we should simply let slip into the night.
I think it behooves us to undertake a judicial investigation as to how this matter made its way to the court system. It should root out the bad actors here and the judiciary should redeem themselves by dealing with these people.
Ultimately, we need to enhance the power of the judiciary so that this sort of thing cannot happen again. Alex Shepherd, Seagrave, Ont.
Unfortunately for Stephen Harper and the PMO’s office, Canadian judges have been more fair, sober and reasoned than their U.S. counterparts, who seem to be primarily driven by ideology in their decisions. One of Harper’s dreams was to stack the courts with Conservative society shapers.
Instead, with the decisions in the Marc Nadon appointment, mandatory minimum jail sentences, prostitution, assisted suicide and Senate reform, he has been thwarted at every turn. Looks like our legal minds have been up to the challenge of honouring the spirit of our Constitution.
Now, Justice Charles Vaillancourt has blown away the smokescreen surrounding the Mike Duffy affair and pointed a finger directly at the rotten core of a manipulative government. The umpire has made the right call and I’m in awe of Patrick Corrigan, who has summed it all up with a Duffy “bat flip” cartoon.
I didn’t even know that Mike Duffy was on my team and in this version of a championship series his home run helped propel our side to victory. Russell Pangborn, Keswick, Ont.
Questions for the reporters and editors of news organs who joined the “get Duffy” attack when the story first broke: if it was so obvious to the judge that what Duffy was doing was not illegal, how come it wasn’t equally obvious to your reporters at the time?
Or if it was, why didn’t you say so? And what changes will you now make to your policies and procedures to minimize your chances of repeating such a fiasco and having to eat yet more crow and seeing public trust in your competence reduced even further? Tim Cunningham, Vancouver