{"id":10394,"date":"2015-04-16T00:27:22","date_gmt":"2015-04-16T04:27:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=10394"},"modified":"2015-04-29T22:48:56","modified_gmt":"2015-04-30T02:48:56","slug":"politics-as-usual-the-circus-comes-to-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/politics-as-usual-the-circus-comes-to-town\/","title":{"rendered":"POLITICS AS USUAL: The Circus Comes to Town"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Duffy trial began in earnest this week, as did the breathless multimedia coverage.
\nThus far, what has been revealed? As expected, both the sordid and the silly. Regardless, what permeates the proceedings is the unmistakable and pungent scent of entitlement and huffy defensiveness that the threat to same engenders.
\nIt is early days yet of an expected 41 day trial. However, one thing has already stood out for me as disquieting. And it isn\u2019t about Mr. Duffy.
\nI am not an apologist for the suspended Senator; however, in reading the statements made by the Clerk to the Senate one has to at least entertain the question why Mr. Duffy is being singled out as much as he is. There are potentially many folks who could be in the same boat.
\nBased on media reports, it seems the crux of the matter for Mr. Duffy is his allegedly questionable expense claims which ostensibly derive from the \u201cfact\u201d he claims various per-diems and other such expenses for time spent in Ottawa as opposed to his \u201cprimary\u201d residence in PEI.
\nIt appears the crown is arguing Duffy\u2019s PEI home is not his primary residence and thus he was not eligible to claim all he did.
\nAh, but the defence counters, just what is a primary residence? The Clerk of the Senate \u2013 incredulously \u2013 could not answer that. It seems there are no defined criteria for residence. In fact, the Clerk admitted that in the absence of a definition, he had his own \u201cshorthand\u201d criteria for determining residence. His \u201cshorthand\u201d criteria venture into Captain Obvious territory but \u2013 just the same \u2013 they are not stated anywhere.
\nAgain, not picking on the Clerk here, but that strikes me as somewhat ridiculous. How can there be no stated criteria for determining primary residence? Given the obvious potential for abuse, it would seem this semi-truck-sized loophole in the rules should have been addressed a long time ago.
\nAnd thus it begs the question: if the Clerk was aware there was no definition of residency, why did he and his staff not bring this regulatory gap to the relevant authority\u2019s attention? Is that not his job to identify and address gaps in process to ensure the fair and effective workings of Senate? Or were he and the ambiguity deliberate so as to afford some extra portions at the public trough by our representatives in the Red Chamber?
\nRegardless, if the Clerk had a working \u201cshorthand\u201d set of criteria for determining residency, was this ever conveyed to the new or existing Senators? If not, why not? It would seem the tents of this circus would never have been pitched if such criteria had been made plain. No one could claim ignorance.
\nThey say ignorance of the \u201claw\u201d is not a defence, but is absence of \u201claw\u201d a defence?
\nRepresentatives \u2013 elected or appointed – are often faulted for \u201cmicromanaging\u201d; of dabbling in the minutiae; but as Duffy\u2019s case well demonstrates; it\u2019s the minutiae that gets them every time.
\nThe public expects our fearless leaders to have a full grasp on what\u2019s happening: how, when and why they\u2019re using our money.
\nThey can\u2019t use the excuse I don\u2019t know, or I didn\u2019t know that rule applied to me. The public will never accept that, regardless of whether it is true or not. And quite rightly.
\nIt\u2019s in their best interest to understand all aspects of areas under their responsibility – or be prepared to suffer the consequences.
\nUntil next week, stay informed, stay involved because this is – after all – Our Town.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas The Duffy trial began in earnest this week, as did the breathless multimedia coverage. Thus far, what has been revealed? As expected, both the sordid and the silly. Regardless, what permeates the proceedings is the unmistakable and pungent scent of entitlement and huffy defensiveness that the threat to same engenders. It is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-2HE","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-13 18:48:00","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10394\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}