Bob Paulson to Charlie Angus: "Go Cut Yourself a Switch, Boy"

Let it never be said that the far-left gives up easily.

In the wake of the RCMP's decision to end the investigation of former PMO Chief of Staff Nigel Wright without pressing charges, various individuals refused -- simply refused -- to accept that. From iPolitics columnist Michael Harris to Green Party leader Elizabeth May, people began demanding to know why Wright wasn't charged.

Timmins-James Bay MP Charlie Angus -- who is also the NDP's ethics critic, despite his own run-in with Elections Act violations -- decided to take that a step farther. He decided to write the RCMP. He might not be so happy he did. RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson decided to write back.

Here's an especially-tasty excerpt from Paulson's letter:

"While I'm at it, permit me to point out that in your letter you alternately refer to '...the decision to drop the charges against Mr Wright', and 'the decision to end the investigation into the actions of Mr Wright...' While I'm sure your selection of words was largely innocent you must understand that Mr Wright was never charged with any offense and so the RCMP did not decide to drop charges. The RCMP decided not to bring charges after we thoroughly and completely investigated the matter. Illustrative perhaps of the complexity of these situations and the need for precision around these sensitive matters."

Ouch. I imagine that Mr Angus is learning that perhaps sometimes it's better to let the facts stand in the way.

But here's the thing: there is no reason whatsoever to treat Mr Angus' letter for anything other than precisely what it is: an attempt to put political pressure on the RCMP. If it were an NDP MP, staffer, or operative under investigation, and a Conservative MP doing the same thing, the NDP would be freaking the fuck out. They would be insisting that this MP was applying political pressure in order to obtain a result from which he could gain political advantage.

And they wouldn't be wrong. Except that isn't what's going on. It's an NDP MP -- an ethics critic, no less -- applying such political pressure. It's no less acceptable.

And it's no more ethical. To attempt to place political pressure on the national police force in a highly politicized matter is an act of extremely questionable ethics, to say the least. Of course no one should expect Mr Angus to do the right thing and resign his portfolio -- he didn't do so the last time his adherence to the rules -- and election law -- were found to be sorely wanting.

The Unconscionable Nuttiness of Michael Harris

iPolitics columnist Michael Harris is bitter. Very bitter. And because the RCMP have elected not to take any prisoners in l'affaire Nigel Wright, neither will he, apparently.

This week, the RCMP cleared Wright of any criminal wrongdoing. It had been alleged that Wright had committed "frauds upon the government" by giving now-suspended Senator Mike Duffy $90,000 to repay expenses that have been alleged to have been improperly claimed. A decision by the RCMP on whether or not Duffy has committed any crime is said to be forthcoming. It sounds like charges might be laid.

About the RCMP's decision, Harris is apparently furious. Furious enough that he and his left-wing cohorts haven't gotten their way that he's taken it upon himself to impugn the RCMP's independence.

"The other night on television, Stephen Harper’s former communications manager, Geoff Norquay, said that since the RCMP has assured Nigel Wright he will not be charged, nobody cares about the whole stinking mess any longer.

Well, I do. As the saying goes, justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.

In order for that to happen in the case of Nigel Wright, we deserve a full explanation of how this decision was made — and who ultimately made it."

Apparently for Harris -- who openly chafes at any suggestion that he holds a cavalier attitude toward the law -- justice being done and being seen to be done precludes the RCMP declining to charge someone who hasn't actually broken the law. An impressive leap of logic, that.

And now that the RCMP have declined to press charges against Wright apparently everyone within the RCMP must suddenly account for where they stand, and what role they had -- if any -- in the decision to not charge Wright with fraud.

Corporal Greg Horton? Commissioner Bob Paulson? Only one is known (Horton) to have played any role whatsoever in the investigation, but apparently both must answer to Michael Harris, apparently.

But here's the thing: the RCMP's decision not to charge Wright is far from surprising, and not for the reasons that Harris insinuates.

To reach this conclusion, it's worthwhile to take measure of just what Harris is alleging makes Wright's cheque to Duffy criminal:

"Even though the RCMP investigation into Nigel Wright has been dropped, what about the Parliament of Canada Act? Under Section 16 of that statute, it is an indictable offence to give a senator compensation for services rendered with respect to 'any claim, controversy, arrest, or other matter before the Senate'."

Harris' reading of the Parliament of Canada act reads with all the expertise of someone whose doctorate of laws is honourary. It seems that Wright's and Duffy's financial arrangement lacks a key component: any services rendered.

Awkward, that.

But let's take a look at what some legal experts had to say about l'affaire Wright. As it just so happens, Harris loves experts. He could listen to and defer to them all day. Or so he says.

But what did the experts say?

Well, Canada's top expert on fraud law, David Debenham, had this to say:

"'Some of us are not convinced that [Mr Wright] did break the law, actually,' said David Debenham, a partner at the Ottawa-based law firm of McMillan. Even if all the details of the document were proven true, Mr Debenham believes they offer thin proof of any wrongdoing.

'[Mr Wright appears to be] basically trying to help Mr. Duffy to do the right thing. There doesn’t seem to be a personal motive. He’s not trying to persuade Mr Duffy to break the law, he’s offering the money so Mr Duffy can comply with the law.'
Further, Mr. Debenham said he remains perplexed as to whether the ITO is even offering evidence that condemns Mr Wright’s actions. 'What, exactly, is the corruption element here? There doesn’t seem to be any influence peddling,' he said."

For the record, Mr Debenham doesn't have an honourary doctorate of laws. He just has 25 years of experience in the field as an actual lawyer (not merely as an activist). Oh, and he also co-chairs the Supreme Court Practice Group. No biggie. Certainly no reason why Harris, with his honourary doctorate in law, would want to defer to an expert.

There's two reasons why Mr Harris would discard Mr Debenham's actual expertise in favour of his own honourary (read: not actual) expertise. One reason is that he is simply unaware of it -- that in writing this column he simply failed to do his research. It wouldn't be the first time. The second is that it wasn't sufficiently political enough for Mr Harris, and so he discarded it.

Even while he tries to ascribe it to others, this is Harris' modus operandi. He politicizes everything. Now he's out to politicize the RCMP.

This is the basest form of political iconoclasm: nothing that disputes Harris' position can be acknowledged, and any institution that declines to act as his personal political enforcers must apparently be razed to the ground. Never mind that the facts do not, and never have, justified charging Wright with fraud. That doesn't matter. Harris is determined to see conservative scalps taken, and any institution that doesn't gleefully go along with it must be horribly corrupted.

But sadly Harris has played a mean trick on himself that he doesn't seem to have comprehended: in declaring his non-confidence in the RCMP simply because he didn't get his way, Harris has precluded confidence in the RCMP period. Had the RCMP charged Wright -- in clear contradiction of the requisite legal principles -- Harris could have feigned confidence in the RCMP, but it could not have been legitimate. His confidence -- or lack thereof -- in the RCMP is entirely flippant, the hallmark of a cavalier attitude toward the law. And now everyone knows it.

Michael Harris Under Theresa Spence's Cone of Silence

If I didn't know better, I'd swear that iPolitics columnist Michael Harris had been out to the scandal-engulfed Attawapiskat reserve and been threatened with arrest. Simply nothing else could explain the cone of silence he's placed himself in -- at least in regards to that subject -- since Chief Theresa Spence's commonlaw spouse, Clayton Kennedy, was charged with theft and fraud.

Strange, that. After all, Harris was so obsessed with the RCMP investigation into former PMO Chief of Staff Nigel Wright that, following the RCMP dropping the investigation, he took to Twitter to suggest -- to very nearly insist -- that the case showed that the national police force's independence was now in question.

Yet Kennedy is now facing charges stemming from alleged theft and fraud that took place under Spence's watch and... silence. Nothing to be said from the esteemed Mr Harris.

This would make it seem as if Harris, who previously was one of Spence's biggest boosters in the Canadian media, had only suddenly taken leave of this particular story. But the truth is rather different: he took leave of it long ago.

For example, let's take a look at what Harris wrote about Spence on January 3, 2013:

"...Last December 11, it was shocking to see someone actually want to talk to the prime minister as the country’s most important employee, not as an imperial figure who lives at the top of an unapproachable mountain shrouded in mist. Chief Spence had the audacity to think that she was important because her concerns were important. She was also sufficiently committed to the notion of democracy (however battered it may be in Canada) that she believed talking to the prime minister — nation to nation, as promised — might benefit everyone."

She was committed to the notion of democracy, was she? Well, it turns out that her devotion didn't last the year. In August, 2013 the Attawapiskat band held an election. Spence was reelected, but election had been run with a caveat: if you live off-reserve -- more than half of Attawapiskat band members do -- you were required to travel back to the reserve to vote. The move effectively disenfranchised any band members who wouldn't or couldn't.

Only 507 votes were cast. The Attawapiskat band has 3,351 members.

In a vote held on-reserve, the majority of band members voting approved a band election code that would give all band members a ballot, whether they lived on- or off-reserve. Under the leadership of Chief Spence, Michael Harris' model democrat, Attawapiskat band council refused to ratify it.

Quite the democrat, Theresa Spence is.

Yet even after having given her his official seal of approval, to to speak, Harris had clammed up on all matters Attawapiskat long before then. And now that thousands of dollars in fraud and theft have taken place under his model democrat's watch, Harris is silent again.

But not so silent on Nigel Wright. Harris took to Twitter to fume that the RCMP owes an explanation regarding who made the decision to clear Wright, and why. It's not at all hard to imagine that Harris imagines that he would be the one collecting such an explanation. In the absence of such an explanation, Harris seems quite content to impugn the independence of the RCMP -- quite the cavalier attitude towards the law if there ever was one!

There is something important that these three stories have in common: it's what they actually don't have in common. And that is Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Chief Theresa Spence, in faking a hunger strike, was making Harper look callous in the eyes of many. Because she was harming Harper's political image, Harris endorsed her not knowing that her common law husband had seemingly been stuffing his pockets with Attawapiskat band cash. (It seems fair to at least strongly suspect that Spence herself was a beneficiary of that larceny.)

The speculation by RCMP investigator Corporal Greg Horton that in giving now-suspended Senator Mike Duffy $90,000 to pay seemingly-improperly-claimed expenses back to the taxpayers Nigel Wright had committed fraud was ammo in the arsenal of the opposition for months. The story hurt Harper, so of course Harris mentioned it as often as he could.

But Clayton Kennedy being charged with theft and fraud? Well, that has nothing to do with Harper. So because the story doesn't harm Harper politically, Harris steers clear of it.

If I'm being unfair to Harris he can feel free to correct the record at his leisure by explaining his evident disinterest in the Kennedy story. It seems to be clear at this point that whatever got Harris' dander up about Wright, it wasn't the speculated -- never even alleged -- fraud. Remember: Kennedy (linked to Spence) has been charged and Wright (linked to Harper) was cleared.

So is Michael Harris huddled under a cone of silence? Or is it more of a code of silence -- a left-wing Omerta?

Only Harris knows for certain. And he may feel free to explain at his earliest convenience.

What Stephen Harper Should Have Done Right

Apparently, my last blogpost here was something of a bombshell. I think I've made it quite clear what I think Prime Minister Stephen Harper is doing wrong.

But I haven't yet made it clear how Harper should have handled the matter.

There's one thing Harper isn't wrong about: perception matters. Which is actually why, in making the decision to harangue Senator Mike Duffy -- a Senator he himself appointed to the upper chamber -- into repaying allegedly-ineligible expenses, he committed more than a simple error.

It's because perception matters that issues such as the one confronting Harper over Duffy and his colleagues Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau should have been handled in the open through due process, and should have been seen handled in the open via due process. The only role Harper should have had any point in this entire sad affair was calling a public inquiry to sort through the allegations against Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau and sort through the explanations each has -- none of which I find to be tacitly incredible, one way or the other.

That's exactly how the PMO should have handled the entire matter as well. And while Nigel Wright may or may not have acted without Harper's knowledge -- my opinion is that he likely did --  he was acting within Harper's stated wishes. It was Harper's desire that this go away quietly instead of the requisite questions being answered through due process that drove Wright to act as he did.

No one can argue that Harper isn't responsible for the actions of the PMO. Even if he didn't know what was going on -- the absolute least of which was Wright's cheque -- he should have. After issuing a directive that the Senate scandal be made to go away quietly, he should have checked up on exactly what was being done to make it happen. Of course, even this never should have happened, because Harper never should have even been so involved.

And now that Harper has been so involved he's attempting to roll on everyone else involved. He's changed his story on Wright so many times in so many ways that it's nearly impossible to keep track of it all.

He did it to himself, seemingly out of nothing more than a disdain for letting the matter be handled through due process out of the fear -- the mere fear -- of due process. And it may now be too late for him to turn back.

\Over this one comparatively inconsequential issue he's managed to lend fire to one of the left-wing Twitterverse's most impotent slogans; for the first time, Prime Minister Harper must resign.