Adrian Wyld/CP
The Senate expenses scandal has taken its toll on some of Parliament Hill’s former celebrities. We’ve spent months chronicling the misadventures of famous names like Mike Duffy and Pamela Wallin, whose stars have fallen in the wake of embarrassing audits into their travel bills and living expenses.
As we head into a new week, Sen. Patrick Brazeau appears ready to take on the Senate — at least to judge by a sample of tweets from his Twitter account on Sunday evening:
Will be speaking tomorrow on my motion to have open, public meetings on #SenCa scandal for due and fair process. Facts to come. #cdnpoli
— SenPatrickBrazeau (@TheBrazman) November 4, 2013
I’m on trial by the #CPC-led majority in the Senate for $144.97. Talk about being thrown under the bus. The rest comes tomorrow. #cdnpoli
— SenPatrickBrazeau (@TheBrazman) November 4, 2013
If Canadian justice, common sense and due process does not prevail in the #SenCa scandal, it should be abolished. #cdnpoli
— SenPatrickBrazeau (@TheBrazman) November 4, 2013
Needless to say, we’ll be watching.
Maclean’s published two must-read profiles of Wallin and Duffy. We looked at their high-flying, partisan lives in the Red Chamber. We also trace the Prime Minister’s involvement in the ongoing scandal, and muse about the future of the institution. For good measure, Scott Feschuk lampoons Senate expense forms.
Before we get to that, here are the latest headlines:
- Conservative MPs anxious to move beyond Senate ‘distraction’
- The Senate scandal measured in tweets
- Paul Wells on Stephen Harper’s convention speech in Calgary
- Why the PM is no match for Mike Duffy
And here is everything you need to know about an extraordinary couple of weeks in Canadian politics:
- Story Time with Paul Calandra
- Duffy affair puts Conservative party lawyer back in the news
- What you need to know from the latest Duffy documents
- Mike Duffy’s speech to the Senate and tabled documents
Click the photos below for more from our Senate file.
When the scandal exploded in the House of Commons, we followed the heated exchanges. If you missed it, you can still catch up.
 MIKE DUFFY: KING OF THE HILL |
 PAMELA WALLIN: THE HIGH-FLYING LIFE |
 HIS OWN WORDS: DUFFY |
 HER OWN WORDS: WALLIN |
 HIS OWN WORDS: BRAZEAU |
 DUFFY AFFAIR: OCT. 25 RECAP |
 ON DUFFY’S TRAIL |
 WALLIN’S FLIGHTS |
 THE SENATE’S FUTURE |
 CHAMBER OF SECRETS |
 FESCHUK ON THE SENATE |
About the Senate scandals
Stephen Harper rarely attends Question Period on Mondays, but Oct. 21, 2013 proved an exception to that general rule. The Prime Minister took questions on the Senate expenses scandal from deputy leaders on the NDP and Liberal benches, and the House warmed up for a string of raucous QPs to follow.
NDP Leader Tom Mulcair spent Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in the House, focusing exclusively on the Wright-Duffy affair. On Tuesday, Harper passed off many of those questions to his parliamentary secretary, Paul Calandra. The next day, the PM changed tack, answering just about every question put to him. On Thursday, with Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau on a sojourn to Washington, D.C., Mulcair and Harper spent the better part of thirty minutes going toe-to-toe.
Throughout, Mulcair was fuelled by the testimony of Sen. Mike Duffy and Sen. Pamela Wallin, two former Conservative senators who’ve turned on their old colleagues. Harper was forced to react, bobbing and weaving and mostly sticking to his script. One slip on Thursday caught attention. Harper had formerly said Nigel Wright, his ex-chief of staff, had taken full responsibility for the cheque he gave to Duffy to cover improperly claimed expenses. The PM changed his tune slightly, repeating that Wright had told “very few” people about that decision. No word on how many is a few, and who the few were.
