Will charges against Mike Duffy further hurt the Tory government?
Posted July 17, 2014 10:58 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – How will these charges against Mike Duffy affect the Conservative government?
Thirty-one charges have been laid against the suspended Senator. The charges include fraud, breach of trust, and bribery. But one political scientist doesn’t think this latest development will hurt the party any further.
Dennis Pilon with York University says the Tories have dealt with repeated black eyes over the Senate expense scandal, and he believes this is the outcome people who have been following it expected. But he says there is a lesson here:
“We’ve seen lots of bad press about lots of politicians. But not this kind of bad press. I think this is the problem when you choose, basically, ‘celebrities’ to be senators,” he explains.
Both Mike Duffy and Suspended Senator Pamela Wallin are former TV journalists.
“That’s what the prime minister did. He chose Duffy, he chose Wallin… in part because they had a certain kind of celebrity allure. But the problem is celebrities have a very different view of what public service is than traditional politicians.”
