Ottowa Citizen
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s carefully constructed house of cards comes crashing down
By Michael Den Tandt, Postmedia News October 23, 2013
Mike Duffy’s lawyer says the senator was a victim of the Conservatives’ effort to hide a political embarrassment. Donald Bayne says Duffy was threatened with being kicked out of the Senate if he didn’t agree to the PMO’s plans.
So, that’s it then: The Senate expense scandal is now a mortal threat to Prime Minister Stephen Harper‘s career, and the future electoral prospects of his Conservative government. And all it took, astonishingly, was two of the “accused,” Sen. Mike Duffy and Sen. Patrick Brazeau, standing up in the Red Chamber and telling, just for a few minutes apiece, their side of the story.
Sen. Pamela Wallin is still to come. But the floodgates have opened. In a sense, this is now just the start. From a PMO tactical point of view, it is a calamity.