From Puppies to Plays: Canadian Senator Expense Trial Begins

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Bloomberg News

From Puppies to Plays: Canadian Senator Expense Trial Begins
by 'By'Josh Wingrove
3:06 PM CDT
April 7, 2015

Canadian Senator Mike Duffy billed taxpayers for family trips, funerals, a shopping trip for a puppy and other events unrelated to parliamentary business, while operating a “clearing house” fund to distribute government money, prosecutors allege.

The case against Duffy, a former broadcaster appointed to the Senate by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, was laid out Tuesday as his trial began in Ottawa. Duffy stood quietly as 31 criminal charges were read out at an Ottawa courthouse before entering his plea.
“I am not guilty, your honor,” Duffy, 68, said.

The anticipated trial comes ahead of Canada’s October federal election, and is expected to open a window into the office of Harper, whose former chief of staff, Nigel Wright, gave Duffy C$90,000 ($72,000) to repay disputed expense claims. It marks the first time scandal has implicated Harper’s inner circle, raising questions of what the prime minister knew and when he knew it.

Wright is now in the private sector and living in London, and is expected to testify -- though the court heard today some witnesses may only do so by video conference. The court didn’t hear specifically if Wright would be among those.


Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-07/from-puppies-to-plays-canadian-senator-expense-trial-begins

[roguevalley]

1. And they fall. Take Harper with him too,

[happyslug]

2. "a shopping trip for a puppy"? Why does he not do what Nixon did with Checkers?

For people to young to remember when Richard Nixon had been nominated as Eisenhower's Vice President Candidate in the 1952 GOP Convention. After the Convention it was discovered he had accepted a number of gifts. When this was discovered Nixon was hit hard, even through what he did was legal under the law of the time period. Feeling the Political Pressure Nixon made a speech that he had decided to return all of the gift EXCEPT for the Black and White Dog, Checkers. In the speech Nixon made a point of saying WHY he was keeping the dog, that his two daughter, age 4 and 6 in 1952 had fallen in love with the dog and thus he was keeping Checkers even if he had to give up the run for the Vice Presidency that year.

It was a great speech (Nixon disliked the name Checker speech, for he emphasized how the funds were used and that he was returning all gifts, Checker was almost a throw in). Here is the two paragraphs about Checkers:

One other thing I probably should tell you because if we don't they'll probably be saying this about me too, we did get something—a gift—after the election. A man down in Texas heard Pat on the radio mention the fact that our two youngsters would like to have a dog. And, believe it or not, the day before we left on this campaign trip we got a message from Union Station in Baltimore saying they had a package for us. We went down to get it. You know what it was?

It was a little cocker spaniel dog in a crate that he'd sent all the way from Texas. Black and white spotted. And our little girl—Tricia, the 6-year-old—named it Checkers. And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we're gonna keep it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkers_speech

The Checker's Speech was made on the same day of the year that FDR had did his famous Fala Speech in 1944.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fala_(dog)#Fala_speech

These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala. Well, of course, I don't resent attacks, and my family don't resent attacks, but Fala does resent them. You know, Fala is Scotch, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers in Congress and out had concocted a story that I'd left him behind on an Aleutian island and had sent a destroyer back to find him—at a cost to the taxpayers of two or three, or eight or twenty million dollars—his Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since. I am accustomed to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself ... But I think I have a right to resent, to object, to libelous statements about my dog

More on Fala (and includes comments on the speech):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fala_%28dog%29