Coop média de Montréal
Journalisme indépendant
Can you support independent journalists with $5? donate today!
Senator Duffy Repays Inappropriate $90K Gift from PM’s Chief of Staff (Received to Repay Inappropriate $90K Expense Claim)
Blog posts reflect the views of their authors.
"Mr. Duffy agreed to repay the gift because it was the right thing to do," said Harper spokesman Andrew MacDougall, although he also stood by his earlier statement that Senator Mike Duffy did the right thing when he repaid the $90,000 received from the government in bogus expenses claims.
“It was right to repay the expenses,” said Mr. MacDougall, “but we didn’t realize that there are rules against Senators receiving large amounts of cash as personal gifts, so Mr. Duffy did the right thing again. He repaid Mr. Wright’s gift.” The gift in question is the personal cheque for $90,000 given to Mr. Duffy by Nigel Wright, former Onex Corporation Managing Director and Prime Minister Harper’s current Chief of Staff.
Mr. MacDougall was not aware of the source of the $90,000 Mr. Duffy used to repay the gift that was used to repay the expense claims, but he said “I’m pretty sure that this time around there is nothing inappropriate about the source of the money. And if there is something inappropriate about it, like let’s just say – hypothetically of course – that a secret slush fund was set up by a group of anonymous donors through gifts of less than $500, which is below the limit for the reporting of gifts, and let’s just say that Mr. Duffy withdrew $90,000 from that secret fund. Now if that were the source of the money, and I’m not saying it is – this is hypothetical remember – but if it were the source of the money, and if it were deemed to be inappropriate in some way, then I’m sure that somebody in the know would tip Mr. Duffy off about the investigation into the impropriety and Mr. Duffy would do the right thing again. He would pay back the money. That’s just the kind of stand-up guy the Senator is.”
“Prime Minister Stephen Harper considers the matter to be closed,” said Mr. MacDougall. The Prime Minister was not available for comment.
David Bernans is a Québec-based writer and translator. He is the author of Collateral Murder. Follow him on twitter @dbernans.
* Note from the author: This article is largely satire. Mr. Wright did in fact write a personal cheque for $90,000 to Mr. Duffy in order to repay inappropriate expense claims. And that cheque was in fact an inappropriate gift. But, as far as the author is aware, Mr. Duffy has yet to repay the inappropriate gift used to repay the inappropriate expense claims. But if Mr. Duffy does repay the inappropriate gift, the author is sure that the source of the money used to repay the gift will not be some kind of secret slush fund. That would be just too ridiculous, wouldn’t it?
About the poster
447 words
The site for the Montreal local of The Media Co-op has been archived and will no longer be updated. Please visit the main Media Co-op website to learn more about the organization.