Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Tkachuk and Stewart Olsen Succumb to Denialism, Senate-Style

Senate scandal - it's not just for the rookies any more.  Veteran Tory senators, Dave Tkachuk and Carolyn Stewart Olsen, have issued statements denying they knew anything about the backroom deal between Harper chief of staff, Nigel Wright, and the beleaguered Cavendish Cottager, Mike Duffy, to cover Duffy's Senate tab.

Tkachuk and Stewart Olsen deny that PMO deal had anything to do with their laundering of the Senate
report into Duffy's expense problems - even if that might have been part of the deal between Duffy and Wright.

"It was all a coincidence, ya see - a pure coincidence.  Coulda happened to anybody, see.

CTV News reported that Tkachuk had a pact with Duffy whereby, if Duffy took Wright's handout and settled his Senate tab, the audit report would be less critical and questions about Duffy's residence problem would go away.   What is this, The Sopranos?

4 comments:

rumleyfips said...

So: Senator Upchuck and Senator Stupid Oldfart know nothing.

I believe that.

The Mound of Sound said...

I don't buy it, Rumley. Tkachuk has been as bent as a penny nail since his days with Grant Devine's nest of corruption in Saskatchewan.

As for Stewart Olsen, I'd be interested in her residency status. She's been a denizen of Ottawa since the mid-80s. She was head nurse at Ottawa's Grace Hospital in 1986 and became involved with Reform in 1993. Latterly she was an aide in Harper's PMO before being appointed Senator for New Brunswick in 2009, almost a quarter century after she left N.B.

To imagine she didn't know what was going on in the PMO with Duffy begs credulity.

Anyong said...

MOS, that is so cool!

Anonymous said...

Did you notice that both Tkachuk and Olsen did not challenge CTV to produce the e-mails or shut up and retract/apologize or face the consequences?

Why would they not challenge Fife to do so if they know that no paper trails exist and they are innocent of the allegation that they worked with Wright to get him to accept the latter's deal, whatever it was?

I think there were basically 2 reasons why Wright created a paper trail for the money he had paid Duffy: (1) to ensure Duffy kept his part of the coerced deal, and (2) so that he himself had a record, for whatever reasons, that he had indeed paid the money to Duffy.