Thursday, February 7, 2013

Senate's token Indian gets his due

Senator Patrick Brazeau has led a charmed life. He has managed to stay a step ahead of one damning scandal after another. His tenure as National Chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples was overshadowed by allegations of sexual harassment, financial hanky-panky, and alcohol abuse.

Big Chief Harper decided that was the kind of man he wanted in the Senate as a token Indian, and thus Brazeau's charmed life took another step forward. The fact that Brazeau intended to keep his six-number salary as CAP chief while also pocketing his six-number senate salary gives a measure of the man's standards of integrity, and was an omen of scandals to come.

After making headlines in the past couple of weeks for his disparaging remarks about Theresa Spence and his dodgy expense claims at both of his government sinecures, Brazeau is making the front page again for his arrest on an alcohol-fueled domestic violence incident.

This seems to have been the last straw for the man who put him in the Senate. The PMO announced today that forthwith Senator Patrick Brazeau was no longer a member of the Conservative caucus.

So he instantly becomes an "independent" Senator, his pay and perks unaffected.

Patrick Brazeau achieved a status in society that would have allowed him unprecedented influence in bettering the lot of his people.

It is a tragedy that it has come to this.

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