RON MACLEAN
Hello, I'm Ron MacLean here with Don Cherry on the occasion of our first ever broadcast of "Senate Night in Canada." Don, we should give people a little background on this.
DON CHERRY
Yeah well we were as you know covering the Senate as a sort of sideline on House of Commons Night in Canada, when all of a sudden it took on a life of its own. The Red Chamber really demanded its own coverage, and there's no end in sight. So I talked it over with Kathy Broderick...
RON MACLEAN
Your Twitter manager...
DON CHERRY
Yeah, I'd be lost without her, and we decided - we being all of us, you too - that we needed dedicated coverage. Who knows where this will go, but we thought we should follow the money. We thought of having an all inclusive "Houses of Parliament Night in Canada" but it sounded either boring or the highlight reel from a bordello, so we decided to separate the powers.
RON MACLEAN
What about "Governor-General's Night in Canada"?
DON CHERRY
We thought of that too when Michaëlle Jean was GG, mainly because we were all huge fans....
RON MACLEAN
But how about David Johnston? He actually played for Harvard and had a shot at a pro career.
DON CHERRY
I know. A great guy. But I think of him like Bill McCreary, he works best when he's invisible...
RON MACLEAN
I think you had a crush on the previous GG.
DON CHERRY
Who didn't? But she doesn't play a contact sport.
RON MACLEAN
Well...
DON CHERRY
Stifle yourself. We're talking about the Senate.
RON MACLEAN
So bring us up to date.
DON CHERRY
Hard to know where to start. It's like sudden death overtime...
RON MACLEAN
Mike Duffy might not agree it's "sudden"...
DON CHERRY
Yeah OK, it's more like "death of a thousand cuts" overtime, but Duffy's fighting back. That's what makes it so interesting.
RON MACLEAN
There's a lot of people suggesting this whole debacle shows that the Senate is useless and should be abolished...
DON CHERRY
That's so old. People complain about political institutions when the institutions don't follow orders. Harper calls political debate "bickering" and has, just in my opinion, no idea why there's an actual opposition that has a job to do in British Parliamentary Democracy, which is to hold the government to account, as opposed to forelock-tugging obedience to an executive that rules by Divine Right...
RON MACLEAN
Wow...
DON CHERRY
I'm just getting started. Then, when it starts to leak out that there's some kind of malfeasance...
RON MACLEAN
What?
DON CHERRY
...playing fast and loose with expenses and residency requirements, the Prime Minister wants to fire the Senators he appointed - having said he wanted Senators elected and also, now that I think about it, championed a Federal Accountability Act after which he has avoided accountability and transparency like the plague, Duffy and Nigel Wright both having a plague to be avoided, and is confused about why anybody objects...
RON MACLEAN
And who is objecting?
DON CHERRY
Hugh Segal for one, Don Plett for another. Both these guys are Conservatives but have some respect for due process and the rule of law, neither of which is in evidence in current motions to disbar, fire, suspend, excommunicate sitting Senators. In fact, the Senate is now caught up in figuring out the rule of law. Everybody's on the hook, including Noël Kinsella.
RON MACLEAN
The Speaker of the Senate...
DON CHERRY
Exactly. The guy who has the power to suspend proceedings in case of "grave disorder"..
RON MACLEAN
As you talked about before...
DON CHERRY
As I talked about before. So the show will continue next week, and I can hardly wait. In the meantime we have the Conservative annual meeting in Calgary to entertain us, with apparent rebellion brewing about the shabby treatment of Nigel Wright...
RON MACLEAN
...which we'll have to leave until next time on Senate Night in Canada.
DON CHERRY
You know, David Bulger said when Duffy was appointed that he didn't think it was constitutional...
RON MACLEAN
And now it's coming back to bite Duffy?
DON CHERRY
It's coming back to bite the entire government. Yagottaloveit.
