A raucous Question Period in Canada’s House of Commons had opposition parties concentrating on new developments Monday (October 21) in a Senate spending scandal involving the office of the Prime Minister, while the government focused on its announcement of a trade deal with the European Union.
For months the ruling Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been questioned over its handling of an expenses scandal in the Canadian parliament’s upper chamber, the Senate. And the focus has been on how much the Prime Minister and his staff knew about a payment made by his chief of staff to Senator Mike Duffy to pay off contested expense claims by the Senator.
On Monday, Senator Duffy’s lawyer, Donald Bayne, not only said the Senator was not guilty of any impropriety, but that there was active pressure from the Prime Minister’s office to follow a plan of action given the Senator, otherwise he would be ejected from the Senate.
In the Question Period, the opposition parties hammered away at the Prime Minister and the government, but were told all questions had been answered, and that there were more important things to discuss such as the “historic” trade agreement with the European Union announced on Friday.
RCI’s Wojtek Gwiazda has a report.
Audio of this report will be on line in a few minutes.
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