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Pamela Wallin: Six degrees of separation?

It was all over the news last week that Pamela Pitstop had coughed up nearly 200 grand to pay back the taxpayers of Canada for her fraudulent travel claims. For her part, Pammy says she has done nothing wrong, that the Deloitte auditors changed the rules and that she was only guilty of being a bad beancounter.

She may be the only person in Canada who thinks she's a victim.

But it made me wonder: why are there so many political crooks in Saskatchewan?

To begin with, Saskatchewan has a bit of a reputation for being a crime culture. and Saskatoon and Regina are always within the top five cities in Canada with the highest crime rates in all categories.

Did it begin with Al Capone in the tunnels of Moose Jaw? Or it is part of a wild west mentality every man and woman for themselves?

I think it all began with Conservative leader Grant Devine, the former premier of Saskatchewan whose government smelled like Regina before the invention of the water softener. During the Devine years, crime was rampant. It began with Cabinet Minister Colin Thatcher bludgeoning his former wife in her garage. What a public relations disaster that was.

Then the principal secretary, Dave Tkatchuk, tore the blouse off an MLA, which is not a crime in Saskatchewan apparently.

Then 12 members of Devine's government went to jail for defrauding the taxpayers of that great province of $837,000.

Deputy Premier Eric Berntson thought he'd escaped by taking a Senate seat, but was fingered and went to jail for fraud.

Tkatchuk -- who was never convicted of any crime -- was then promoted to Senator and became the chair of the Senate finance committee. Now he's embroiled in the whole Mike Duffy-Nigel Wright mess as the mastermind of the whole whitewash.

For her part, Pamela Pitstop, also of Saskatchewan has had to pay back all that money and do the walk of shame every morning to the Senate seat she still occupies.

Six degrees?

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