Senate Has Opposition Focused on Government
OTTAWA – “In the midst of mounting evidence, Conservatives continue to deny responsibility for the ongoing senate scandal or the orchestrated PMO cover up,” states John Rafferty MP (Thunder Bay—Rainy River, NDP).
The Thunder Bay Rainy River MP was up during question period in Ottawa on Monday.
“My constituents in Thunder Bay—Rainy River are asking questions about an expense scandal and attempted cover-up. They wonder why the Prime Minister has not shown any contrition. He will not even acknowledge his story has changed. He will not acknowledge it was not just one person in his office. It was not even a few. It was many”.
Rafferty asked, “Would Conservatives tell us how many people, in addition to those mentioned in RCMP documents, were aware of the cover-up scheme between Mike Duffy and Nigel Wright?”
Mr. Paul Calandra (Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and for Intergovernmental Affairs, CPC): stood to answer the question, “Mr. Speaker, again, this coming from a party whose leader waited 17 years. He was offered a bribe 17 years ago and then when he had the option all of those years, and it is not 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 10 or 15 years, he could have remembered. Maybe he did. I am not sure. Then he remembered 17 years later, ‘Oh, yes, I was offered a bribe from the mayor of Laval. No big deal, though. No big deal’.”
Calandra added, “I think the people of Quebec would disagree with his assertion that it was not a big deal. Imagine what the people of Quebec could have accomplished had only he come clean 17 years ago. They could have accomplished a lot.
We have a motion in front of the Senate right now to bring accountability—”.
The Conservatives faced questions from the NDP Official Opposition over the Senate Scandal during QP.
In the other place, the Senate, it is expected there will be a vote today on suspending Senators Duffy, Wallin, and Brazeau. On Monday the Yohan Martin, the Deputy Government leader in the Senate stated, “On October 22, the Honourable Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Carignan, presented three motions. We have since debated these motions at length. We have not heard any new argument from our Liberal colleagues for at least a week. The debate has been quite repetitive.
“We decided to put forward a non-government motion, thinking that our colleagues opposite would seize the opportunity and use this debate to start a non-partisan discussion on the future of this institution and how we can make it more accountable to taxpaying Canadians”.
“Instead, we have seen opposition delay tactics bogging down the debates, muddying the real issue and, in doing so, they forgot that it is the entire institution that is being dragged through the mud”.
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