The Salem Senate trials

The Guardian in PEI has a copy of the speech Mike Duffy would have delivered had he been in the Senate yesterday.

Colleagues, the Senate and the House of Commons are not courts, or if they are, they’re Kangaroo Courts undermined by partisan, political or personal conflicts of interest. Due process is the only way to achieve fairness and fundamental justice in our cases.

Witch hunts are bad, our ancestors learned that after the trials in Salem, our parents and grandparents learned it from the slanders of the late Senator Joe McCarthy, my generation learned it from Watergate. Please stop this witch hunt and allow the police and the auditors to do their work.

CP reports that there is some confusion as to just how far removed from the public payroll the Senate’s infamous trio now are. Ms. Wallin’s lawyer tells Global that the senator’s pension is beyond the purview of the Senate.

Now it matters what the auditor general will find in his review of Senate expenses and how the precedents of Mr. Duffy, Mr. Brazeau and Ms. Wallin will be applied.