It is pretty hard to go through a day without hearing another juicy tidbit from the Senate debacle currently occupying Parliament Hill and newscasts.
The interesting twist this week is the claim by Senator Mike Duffy that the Prime Minister’s Office knew of the back room deals being made for the repayment of inappropriate housing allowance claims.
To no one’s surprise Prime Minister Stephen Harper denies any knowledge of the deals.
However, a poll conducted by Ekos Research and iPolitics.ca indicates Harper is skating on thin ice.
Of the 1,377 Canadians polled, 40 per cent said they believed Senator Duffy’s version of the story which implicates Prime Minister Harper.
Conversely, only 18 per cent of those polled believed the Prime Minister’s claim that his former chief of staff, Nigel Wright, acted alone in settling covering Senator Duffy’s repayment of living allowance funds.
As the scandal develops, it appears more and more difficult to believe Prime Minister Harper didn’t know what was going on in the PMO.
It is the Prime Minister’s Office after all, and any good manager should know what is going on in their office.
Given Harper’s penchant for control, it is difficult to believe he had no idea Nigel Wright was going to write a cheque to Senator Duffy to cover the reimbursement of his inappropriate housing allowance claims and his legal bills.
It appears Canadians smell Watergate on Parliament Hill, or more appropriately Harpergate.
Time will tell.