Robert Fife Brought Duffy Scandal to the Office of the Prime Minister

Robert Fife Brings Duffy Scandal to the Office of the Prime Minister, a column I wrote for the Cranbrook Guardian on May 17, 2013

by Michael J Morris

Updated on August 16,2013 to remind Canadian citizens that it was a journalist who brought the scandal into the open. No spin, just great reporting by Robert Fife. Where I have updated is in italics.  mjm

When I saw the tweet that once again Robert Fife had proven why he is simply the best, it immediately captured my attention.

Kevin Newman, the host of CTV's Question Period was retweeting a comment by Rosa Hwang, senior broadcast producer with CTV National News. "Once again Robert Fife proves why he's simply the best."

Bob is now the host.

"What had Fife done now?", I wondered, and soon learned that the Ottawa Bureau Chief of CTV News had broken the story that Nigel Wright, the chief of staff to Stephen Harper, the prime minister, had written a personal cheque to Mike Duffy, the senator appointed by Harper,  for $90,172 to pay back expenses to which the senator was not entitled. 

The Duffy scandal was now placed squarely in the office of the prime minister by Bob Fife, who was in Grade Nine when I arrived  to teach at Chapleau High School in 1969, and once he learned I had been a daily newspaper reporter, he never stopped asking me questions throughout his high school years. And when he was attending the University of Toronto, he challenged me on every issue when he came home on vacation or to spend the summers.

In the interests of full disclosure, Bob's father, the late Clyde Fife was one of my father's best friends, and my grandmother and his grandmother were also great friends.

Careful readers will note that I have referred to him in the above paragraphs as Robert, when referring to the quote about him, then Fife, then Bob. That's the way it's been for 46 years now. I call him by one and all depending on the situation -- I just did a rough calculation. How time flies, and how proud I am that from the very beginning of his career as a reporter, Robert 'Bob' Fife has been among the best of his generation.

In November 2008, Deborah Howell, the ombudsperson at the Washington Post wrote that "good reporters are the heart of news gathering. If it's news, they have to know it. Without them, the public wouldn't have the news and information essential to running a democracy -- or our lives. Whether the story is local, national or foreign, it has to be gathered on the ground by a reporter." 

That sums Bob up as he simply did his job and revealed another twist in the continuing saga of Duffy, the senator appointed to represent Prince Edward Island but really lives in Ottawa. 

Just recently Bob won the Canadian Association of Journalists Award for his work on uncovering the XL Foods scandal in 2012. In the 1980s when he was still a "young" reporter, Maclean's magazine called him the best investigative reporter in Canada for his coverage of the Ocean Ranger disaster.

He has written two books, A Capital Scandal with John Warren, about the Brian Mulroney years as prime minister and the other Kim Campbell: The Making of a Politician.

Ms Powell added in answering the question about what makes a good reporter, "Endless curiosity and a deep need to know what is happening. Then, the ability to hear a small clue and follow it."

Once Bob broke the Duffy-Wright story, social media has been swamped with tweets, the pundits have been pontificating, talking heads have been talking, and speculating and doing their usual, not really adding much new to the story.

Meanwhile, as I started to work on this column, Bob posted on Twitter and Facebook that Duffy has now resigned from the Conservative caucus, and will sit as an independent senator but he has not resigned from the Senate. So far, Wright and Harper have provided no acceptable explanation. More to come!

The trial of Duffy is now underway.

Bob is one of those reporters who certainly fits the comment by former Washington Post Post executive editor Ben Bradlee who thought that a reporter's most important quality is energy: "They've got to love what they're doing; they've got to be serious about turning over rocks, opening doors. The story drives you. It's part of your soul."

Mr. Bradlee should know. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein reported to him as they covered the Watergate scandal in the United States.

Ironically perhaps, the last chat I had with Bob was at the 90th anniversary reunion of Chapleau High School in 2012 where we were participants in an ecumenical service. It fell to me to read from the Old Testament, (perhaps because of my age) from the book of Ecclesiates, the part about, "For every thing there is a season".

Being a product of the 1960s, I listened to Turn Turn Turn (to Every thing there is a season) made popular by the folk rock band The Byrds, with music written by Pete Seeger in 1959.

For sure it is a season for something in Canadian politics and Robert 'Bob' Fife, "simply the best" is part of it from Bruce Hutchison's far side of the street. How's that for mixing metaphors in one sentence!

My email is mj.morris@live.ca

Duffy trial reveals ugly truths about Canadian democracy

Perceptions by Gerry Warner

A “Great Senator” and “one of my best, hardest-working appointments ever.”
None other than Prime Minister Stephen Harper scrawled this effusive piece of puffery in silver marker on a picture of Mike Duffy just five months after the PM appointed the now-disgraced senator to his job.
An enlarged copy of the photo was introduced as an exhibit in court Thursday on the third day of Duffy’s trial on 31 criminal counts of fraud, breach of trust and bribery.
And there are 39 trial dates to go in what is shaping up to be an unvarnished look inside the seamy underbelly of federal politics in Canada and when it’s over there will be bodies stacked outside the courthouse door. Three in particular. Let’s begin at the top.
From day one of this tawdry affair, Stephen Harper insisted he knew nothing of the potentially criminal machinations going on in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) much like Manuel in the great British comedy “Fawlty Towers” whimpering “I know nothing.”
Dear reader, in your heart-of-hearts, do you believe that? Does this sound like the iron-fisted, micro-managing Prime Minister that for the past 11 years has been running Canada off the corner of his desk? The peerless leader renowned for his anal-retentive control of the PMO and the entire Conservative Party. If you believe that, I have a Mike Duffy Bobble Head doll I’ll send to you.
Of course, we may never find out, because unlike our American neighbors to the south, who on occasion impeach their presidents and bring them to trial where they’re submitted to cross-examination and other nasty things to protect their
democracy, we don’t do things that way in Canada. We just take our leaders at their word and wouldn’t embarrass them by calling on them to testify.
At least that’s how it appears so far, but that may change before this trial is over.
Then there’s poor Nigel Wright, Harper’s former, ever-obliging, chief-of-staff who would take a bullet for his boss, and did in fact, a $90,000 silver bullet that he used to shut up a recalcitrant, now suspended senator, who believes in his heart-of-hearts that he never did anything wrong – and his trial may prove him right – but was damn determined not to be the scape goat for what he believed most of his fellow Senate colleagues were doing.
And who says Canada can’t produce juicy political scandals with the best of them?
Then there’s our much, maligned, in-glorious Senate, our supposed “Sober Chamber of Second Thought,” which every Prime Minister in Canadian history has appointed members to, who promptly engaged in partisan political activity on behalf of their benefactors. But none did it better than Mike Duffy, who raised thousands, if not millions, for Conservative coffers much to the delight of the Conservative Party and its latest glorious leader, Generalissimo Harper, our great war time leader. (You know this stuff just kinda writes itself, but I digress.)
And which of you dear readers out there think our glorious, unelected Red Chamber will still have the support of Canadian voters when this tawdry trial is over?
Remember there’s more trials to come with pillars of rectitude like suspended Senator Pamela Wallin, who faces numerous charges of having her nose in the trough right beside Duffy and suspended Senator Patrick Brazeau, who was suspended from the Senate after being charged with domestic assault and sexual assault and now runs an Ottawa strip club called the BareFax. Honestly, I’m not making this up.
Dear Canadians, we’ve been had by this crew and thank God we still have a legal system that’s hopefully capable of getting to the bottom of this sleazy affair that is an insult to our intelligence and the credibility of our soiled democracy. And when it’s over I hope we can rebuild a strong and credible democracy but it won’t be with the likes of the politicians and apparatchiks mentioned in this article.
Especially the prime minister.


Gerry Warner is a retired journalist, who once tried politics himself.