“Someone who gets away with something once may try to get away with something again,” the adjunct professor of political studies says of casual political rule-flouting. “This is what happens. Nobody makes the BIG move. Whether by design or whatever, it happens in small increments.”
The uproar over Senate spending — which extends to Duffy’s fellow Conservative appointees Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau, as well as Liberal appointee Mac Harb — is unfolding in the context of a recent spike in political-misconduct cases across Canada and beyond.
In Quebec, a corruption scandal involving bribes and kickbacks on rigged construction contracts has ensnared Montreal-area businesses, politicians and municipal officials, giving rise to the Charbonneau Commission and — among other outcomes — criminal charges against the ex-mayor of Laval, Gilles Vaillancourt.
In Labrador, ex-federal Conservative cabinet minister Peter Penashue was forced to resign his seat over illegal 2011 campaign donations but — during his failed re-election bid earlier this month — received strong endorsements from Harper and Defence Minister Peter MacKay, even while still facing possible criminal prosecution.