{"id":291600,"date":"2015-04-07T17:02:56","date_gmt":"2015-04-07T21:02:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/2015\/04\/wd90-is-baaaack\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T15:18:43","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T19:18:43","slug":"wd90-is-baaaack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2015\/04\/wd90-is-baaaack\/","title":{"rendered":"WD90 is baaaack!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Or is it? The Mike Duffy trial opens today and the media circus with it. But is this examination of the Wright-Duffy $90,000 payment\u00a0and related matters\u00a0just bread and circuses or\u00a0a serious constitutional moment?<\/p>\n<p>By that I don&#8217;t mean will we finally fix the Senate? As I&#8217;ve <a href=\"https:\/\/c2cjournal.ca\/2014\/09\/why-we-must-reopen-the-constitution\/\" target=\"_blank\">argued elsewhere<\/a>, we can&#8217;t until we fix much deeper structural problems in our Constitution reflected in the unworkable, nay incomprehensible amending formula. What I mean is, will we hold the branch that does matter to account, the &#8220;4th branch,&#8221; the\u00a0cabinet that is half legislature and half executive and dominates both in an unhealthy fusion with the PMO at its apex?<\/p>\n<p>Andrew Coyne in today&#8217;s <em>National Post<\/em> (and <em>Ottawa Citizen<\/em> and others) is <a href=\"https:\/\/news.nationalpost.com\/full-comment\/andrew-coyne-mike-duffy-trial-finally-gives-all-involved-a-chance-to-expose-the-glorious-truth\" target=\"_blank\">marvellously scathing <\/a>on how happy various parties should be that they can finally prove their tales about this sordid business were true. Especially the Prime Minister. And here&#8217;s the serious issue.<\/p>\n<p>Few people think much of the Senate these days and it has little power. But the PMO increasingly dominates every aspect of government in Canada other than the judiciary. And if we do not find out what the Prime Minister knew, when he knew it, and why his story kept changing, we will have missed an important opportunity to insist that we still have a government of laws not men.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Or is it? The Mike Duffy trial opens today and the media circus with it. But is this examination of the Wright-Duffy $90,000 payment\u00a0and related matters\u00a0just bread and circuses or\u00a0a serious constitutional moment? By that I don&#8217;t mean will we finally fix the Senate? As I&#8217;ve argued elsewhere, we can&#8217;t until we fix much deeper [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":913,"featured_media":291043,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"article-status":[],"irpp-category":[],"section":[],"irpp-tag":[],"class_list":["post-291600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>WD90 is baaaack!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2015\/04\/wd90-is-baaaack\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"fr_FR\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"WD90 is baaaack!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Or is it? The Mike Duffy trial opens today and the media circus with it. But is this examination of the Wright-Duffy $90,000 payment\u00a0and related matters\u00a0just bread and circuses or\u00a0a serious constitutional moment? By that I don&#8217;t mean will we finally fix the Senate? 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