Mike Duffy returned to life in the slow lane, reclaiming his seat in the Senate for the first time since he was booted unceremoniously from the upper house more than two years ago.
It would be nice to report that he unleashed a witty riposte or two – “As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted …” – or launched into his persecutors among former Conservative colleagues, who suspended him without pay or due process over what were deemed questionable expense claims (he was, of course, exonerated in a court of law on charges of breach of trust, bribery and fraud last month).
But there were no fireworks. Duffy has apparently decided that discretion is the better part of valour, and sat silent throughout.
Earlier, he dined in the parliamentary cafeteria with another formerly suspended senator, Pamela Wallin – no per-diem jokes please – but refused to talk to former colleagues who approached him after lunch.
He took his seat in the Red Chamber, chatted amiably with senators who approached him, and rose only to join in the official “Senate at Work” photograph, arguably the most productive event of the whole afternoon. It will go forever unrecorded as to whether the photographer asked the group to “just say ‘not guilty’” before snapping the shot.
Reporters were reliant on other senators to relay Duffy’s frame of mind.
“After a three-year nightmare he’s doing remarkably well,” said independent senator, John Wallace, who has spoken with Duffy.
“He’s intent on doing his job as a senator. There will be some difficulty with that but the focus is on doing his job.”
The plan appears to be to seek rehabilitation in the eyes of the public, as well as the eyes of the law, in the hope that bygones will be bygones.
Not that the scapegoating by his former colleagues in the Conservative Party will be easily forgotten. Duffy sat as far as was physically possible from Claude Carignan, the Tory leader in the Senate and the man who sponsored the Queen of Hearts-style justice – sentence before trial.
One suspects that, if possible, he would follow the lead of the Ottawa public servant who won the legal right to work in a separate building from an obnoxious colleague who washed his feet with vinegar and broke wind.
As Wallace pointed out, Duffy’s bitterness will only have been deepened by the auditor general’s discovery that 30 other senators were guilty of spending irregularities — although, unlike him, they were given the benefit of due process and legal counsel.
“He’s suffered. He’s had two years without pay and was not treated in a fair and equitable manner,” said Wallace.
In some ways, the old place has changed since he was last there. The appointment of 17 independent senators by Justin Trudeau and the exile of the Red Chamber Liberals from caucus has created a less-partisan environment that he will slip into more easily than the tribal house he left behind.
There is no small irony that Duffy himself was responsible for mobilizing the public anger that forced reform.
In the absence of possible constitutional reform, the Trudeau government’s efforts to change the minds of the two in five Canadians who still think the upper house should be abolished is the best option available.
But an afternoon spent in the slow-moving New Zealand of legislative assemblies suggests that wholesale change will not come quickly.
Peter Harder, the government’s representative in the Senate, has asked two colleagues to be his “legislative deputy” and “government liaison,” rather than the traditional titles of “deputy Senate leader” and “government whip”.
This has not gone down well with the old school parties.
“I would like to congratulate them on their elevation to … I’m not quite sure what positions,” said Liberal Joan Fraser, sounding like the sharp-tongued Dowager Countess of Grantham.
The matter was resolved by someone suggesting the matter should proceed to a study.
Progress is glacial in the Senate. There is no firmer evidence of this than the knowledge that the senator from Kanata, Prince Edward Island, is once again eligible for a housing allowance for the home he has lived in for decades.
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