Mike Duffy acquitted of all 31 criminal charges

By Laura Bohnert

To absolutely no-one’s surprise, former Senator Mike Duffy gets off scott-free.

Mike Duffy initially became caught up in the Canadian Senate expenses scandal in 2012. Duffy, along with Senators Patrick Brazeau, Mac Harb, and Pamela Wallin, had been caught claiming travel and living allowance expenses they were ineligible for. Duffy was to be part of the Deloitte audit, and before the audit was complete, Duffy notoriously used a personal cheque provided by then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Chief of Staff, Nigel Wright, to repay $90,172 for the living expenses he had claimed.

The scandal led to an additional audit of the expense claims by the other 116 members (current and former) of Senate. Thirty senators were determined to have claimed inappropriate expenses and, of those thirty, nine cases were recommended for police investigation.

Duffy was charged on July 17, 2014, with 31 criminal offenses.  These included fraud, breach of trust, and bribery (to name a few).

On April 21, Duffy was acquitted of all 31 of these charges.

His file will not be referred to the auditor general for review. He has been reimbursed for his funds and his suspension, and, “As far as the Senate internal economy committee is concerned,” states a spokesman for the committee, “the matter is closed.”

Most of the other senators involved in the scandal will be avoiding criminal charges as well.

Of course, none of us really expected anything less, did we? You couldn’t expect the site of corruption within Canada’s politics to expose and thus affirm its own corruption. Mike Duffy was, after all, taking the brunt of the fall for a crime he partook in simply by following suit of the rest of Senate, and that would be Senate cannibalism—even though ridding Canada’s starving economy of a few (or 30) leeches might seem to us a good way to trim the fat.

Maybe we need to start with something smaller, though, like focusing Canada’s reform on getting its judicial system out of the pockets of its wealthy. Of course, that isn’t very likely to change either, especially since this case has gone on long enough that most of the country has forgotten about it—but did you hear that Prince died? That story will last longer in the news.

Suddenly, opening our borders to all those US citizens hoping to flee Trump seems like more and more of a moot point. The only real difference here is form. Trump is obnoxiously and controversially blatant about the influence of wealth; Canada hides it under endless tedium. Welcome to Canada where corruption is made too drawn-out and boring for anyone to keep bothering to pay attention.