It's time to abolish the Senate.
Until now, most Canadians would have been hard-pressed to even name one senator. But over the last several months, the names of Conservative senators Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin, Patrick Brazeau, and Liberal Mac Harb have become all too familiar to Canadians.
Duffy of course has taken centre stage. A long-time journalist with both the CBC and CTV networks, he was named to the Senate in December 2008 by Stephen Harper. Since then, Duffy has tirelessly performed his senatorial duties: campaigning for the Conservative Party while claiming to be too dumb to fill out housing allowance expense forms correctly.
And it was while he was being investigated for that that he's rumoured to have been tipped off and repaid over $90,000. And then we find out that this was a personal "gift" that came from Prime Minister Stephen Harper's chief of staff. And then we find out that Duffy claimed Senate expenses for business in Ottawa on days he was campaigning for fellow Conservatives across the county. Clearly he had to go. And he did, leaving the Conservative caucus on May 16.
Pamela Wallin, another former CBC and CTV journalist who was appointed to the Senate just days after Duffy in January 2009, has also been under investigation for claims of travel expenses. Over a two year period, she charged the Canadian people over $320,000 for "other" travel expenses, in addition to travel to her home province of Saskatchewan. She too resigned from the Conservative Party caucus one day after Duffy, via a news release.
Then two days later, on Sunday morning of the Victoria Day long weekend, Harper's chief of staff, Nigel Wright, resigned. This was the right thing to do, given what he'd done, but it leaves a lot of questions unanswered. For example, does Duffy have money problems? He makes over $132,000 a year as a senator, not to mention his various pensions, yet owes a $360,000 mortgage on his Ottawa home. And surely Stephen Harper must have approved the payment to Duffy.
Then there's Patrick Brazeau, before the courts on sexual and other assault charges and out of the Conservative caucus as well and refusing to repay his housing expenses, claiming as his permanent residence his father's home in Quebec. His neighbours claim to have never seen him there. Or Liberal Mac Harb, promising to fight the Senate committee's findings that he, too, improperly claimed living expenses.
On Tuesday morning Stephen Harper will speak to his caucus: MP's and Senators alike, and presumably lay down the ethics law to them (ahem). And then he flies off to South America for the rest of the week. MP's from other parties are going to keep asking the tough questions about what he knew and calling for investigations. Me, I'm with the NDP: abolish the Senate. We have enough politicians already.
