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But he is not responsible for the current campaign to suspend the three senators two years without pay for “gross negligence” — a made-up penalty for a made-up offence, meted out by a process that seems to change by the day. He is not responsible because, as everybody knows, the Senate is wholly independent of the prime minister — as independent as his own office.

He is not even responsible for answering questions about his responsibility in this affair. He does not answer questions from the media, and when called upon to answer questions in Parliament as often as not passes them off to his parliamentary secretary. Even when he does answer questions, he doesn’t answer them.

The notion that Stephen Harper should bear any responsibility for the actions of his staff, or indeed his own, is one of those quaint relics of a bygone age, like outdoor showers or honesty. There was a time when public office holders were expected to take responsibility for these things, as a matter of personal honour if nothing else. But conventions last only as long as they are observed. Today, the prime minister clings to his position — I was the victim of a conspiracy involving everyone around me — as tightly as Senator Duffy clings to his paycheque.

Indeed, the notion that conventions matter is itself a convention. In recent years they have been discarded by the dozen, and the faster they fall the less any of them are missed. A glance at the headlines is enough to see how little remains.