The Senate expense scandal dominated Thursday’s session of Parliament, as Conservatives continued to push for the suspension of Senators Mike Duffy, Patrick Brazeau and Pamela Wallin.
During question period, which followed a Friday schedule due to the Conservative party’s convention in Calgary, Paul Calandra, Harper’s parliamentary secretary, said there is a motion to provide accountability, and that “the Liberals need to get out of the way and let us pass that motion.”
But on Thursday afternoon, Sen. Claude Carignan, government leader in the Senate, said that the upper house will not sit on Friday. This means that the vote to suspend Duffy, Brazeau and Wallin will be postponed to Tuesday at the earliest, as Conservatives gather in Calgary.
Senators reconvened Thursday afternoon to debate on possible suspensions, and Liberal Sen. James Cowan showed his support for Sen. Joan Fraser’s motion of sending questions of the suspensions to a committee.
“There is a fundamental belief in law, due process and fairness, and Canadians are watching,” Cowan said Thursday afternoon. “Process does matter; we should not underestimate the importance Canadians attach to process.”
Carignan had called for the three senators to be suspended without pay, benefits or access to Senate resources. But Conservative Sen. Yonah Martin tabled a notice of motion Wednesday, which would call for the three senators to be suspended without pay or access to Senate resources, but would allow the senators to retain access to health and life insurance benefits.
Conservative Sen. Hugh Segal has spoken out against the motions and signalled his intention to vote against them.
The three senators embroiled in the scandal have maintained they followed the rules.
Duffy had announced that the Conservative Party paid him more than $90,000 for his living expenses, and covered more than $13,000 in associated legal fees. Harper had replied by saying that it’s “regular practice” for the Conservative Party to cover legal expenses for members of its caucus.
NDP House leader Nathan Cullen said he remembered “someone saying once that when you’re under the kind of cloud the prime minister admits his government is under, I would think that you’d use every opportunity to be as forthright as possible – who said that? Oh, that was this prime minister.”
Cullen asked if the prime minister is aware of any other cheques from Wright to Duffy. “Simple question, how about a simple answer?” he asked.
Calandra, a Toronto MP, replied by saying his party has been very clear, that “when it comes to helping out our members who require legal assistance, we do that.”
Liberal MP Ralph Goodale later said that senior insiders “have been up to their necks in a scheme to cover up the wrongdoing and the public embarrassment of Mike Duffy.”
But Calandra shot back that the Liberals have “nothing to teach on ethics and accountability.”
“Hearing the Liberals talk about ethics is like watching a snake come out of its skin, you know what the snake will come out looking all shiny and new but it’s really the same dangerous snake it was before,” Calandra said.
Calandra said “Nigel Wright has taken full and sole responsibility that what he did was wrong, he’s prepared to accept responsibility, we have a motion in the senate right now,” he said.
None of the party leaders were present for question period. Calandra was speaking on behalf of Harper, Cullen for NDP Leader Tom Mulcair, and Goodale was taking the lead for Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau.
Wright left his post in May after news got out that he had given Duffy $90,000 to cover the expense payments.
Calandra said the Liberals are “standing in the way of ethics and responsibility in the Senate,” saying that the Liberals and the NDP have been supporting the senators, “trying to make victims of these people who took from Canadians.”
