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Poor Mike Duffy must be kicking himself.

The former Conservative senator endured a national shaming when it was discovered he’d been expensing meals in his home in Ottawa while claiming his “real” home was in Prince Edward Island. Though a court ultimately decided his actions weren’t criminal, the episode had to hurt. And all over a measly $90,000. Now he discovers that if only he’d signed on with the Liberals instead of the Tories, he could have sold the shack in P.E.I., pocketed the cash and charged taxpayers a couple hundred thousand to move his stuff to Ottawa.

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Gerald Butts and Katie Telford, two top advisers and close pals of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, made Duffy’s sorry little gambit look like amateur hour when their chance came to cozy up to the public trough.

After helping Trudeau win last year’s election the two were asked to stay on with the Trudeau team and move to Ottawa. Both lived in Toronto. Toronto isn’t all that far from Ottawa, about an hour by air. People drive back and forth all the time. Both had homes that had appreciated handsomely thanks to the fact Toronto’s housing market has been going through the roof, and cashed in big time when they accepted the Ottawa offer and sold their homes. Butts sold for $630,000 more than he’d paid, Telford for $500,000 more than she paid, according to figures acquired by the Globe and Mail.