A Brief Commentary by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper
(Yes, I know I keep reminding you. Niagara At Large will not be officially re-launched until this September 9th due to serious flooding this summer at our home base. But it is hard not pull myself away from the cleanup and wade in on the odd issue, including this one. And I do so here with apologies to pigs of the four-legged kind.)
The premier for Saskatchewan where disgraced Canadian senator Pamela Wallin apparently still has a home for the purposes of claiming travel expenses to and from Ottawa has it right.
Canada’s senate doing what it does best. Feeding from the public trough.
Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall, a Conservative Party affiliate just as Wallin is and was when Prime Minister Stephen Harger appointed her to the senate in 2009, recently said he has traded his view in that Canada’s senate should be reformed for a firm belief that it should be abolished.
And Wall is right. This costly, unaccountable body of appointed political hacks and relic from a post-medieval past serves no valuable purpose in a 21st century democracy. A “house of sober second thought,” as some like to call it. I defy anyone out there to name even half a dozen thoughts this pompous body of political has-beens has advanced in the last year that might improve the lives of this country and its people.
The more recent news, based on Canada’s general auditor’s report and a senate committee review of Wallin’s reported expenses for the past three and a half years, conclude that this one senator alone tried to pick our pockets for at least $139,000 of travel-related expenses that had little or nothing to do with her duties as a senator for which she is paid a salary of some $132,000 a year.
On top of that, the auditor’s costs to Canadian taxpayers for going over Wallin’s nefarious numbers amounted to about $121,000. So what we are really talking about here is a net waste of more than a quarter of a million dollars that could have been spent on health care, environmental protection or something else that may have been far more of a service to all of us than any sober second thoughts Wallin, Mike Duffy and company might cook up in the next ten years.
More horrific than how much it has already cost Canadian taxpayers to audit Wallin’s books is some of the other latest news we’ve received that the auditor is now being directed to audit the expenses of each and every senator. And since there are now more than 100 hacks in the senate we are looking at a possible loss to taxpayers of well more than $10 million. For that kind of money, we can hire a team of college and university students to produce a book full of thoughts that might help the country.
So let’s get rid of this costly, undemocratic institution of aging, burned out swine.
I urge you to contact your federal member of parliament and make it known that your support for them will be determined, at least in part, on their getting involved publicly in an aggressive effort to abolish Canada’s senate.
(Niagara At Large invites all of you who are willing to share your name with your views to comment on this post.)
Niagara At Large 
Sadly, My Federal member would give a rat’s ass. He is a member of Harper’s choir. What galls me as much as anything about this mess is that Ms. Wallin felt she “needed to respond” to every request for a speech, a talk, a fundraiser hither and yon, and yet never, by her own admission, found the time to ever actually drag her body to the polling booth. Never heard of advance polling, proxy voting, apparently. Too busy fundraising for her partisan beliefs. My spouse and I have been out of country on many elections and have never once missed an advance poll. Have even proxied for others. But not Ms. Herhself. End of rant.
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As I read your commentary above, I thought about the email I received from a friend in Dunville earlier today. The subject line was: Mike Duffy explained …
While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75 year old rancher, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to politicians and their role as our leaders.
The old rancher said, “Well, you know, most politicians like Mike Duffy are ‘Post Turtles’.”
Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him, what a ‘post turtle’ was.
The old rancher said, “When you’re driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that’s a post turtle.”
The old rancher saw the puzzled look on the doctor’s face so he continued to explain. “You know he didn’t get up there by himself, he doesn’t belong up there, he doesn’t know what to do while he’s up there, he’s elevated beyond his ability to function, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass put him up there to begin with.”
Best explanation I’ve heard yet.
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I have to agree … and remember, I spent 46 years working around politicians at all levels from one end of this wonderful country to the other.
There is a great deal of truth and wisdom in the joke above.
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My Party, the Green Part,y feels that the senate is no longer a benefit for the Canadian people, so it should be put on the ballot as a referendum issue. Let the Canadian people decide. The Republic of Ireland also feels their Senate is useless and has put the idea of dissolving the entity, on their next election ballot.
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