Senate debate coming to a vote

(Update)

With so much media attention focused on the tribulations of the Toronto Mayor, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has managed to slip out of the Senate scandal spotlight at least for a couple of days.
But Tuesday, that could change again.

As Scot Urquhart tells us, that’s when the Conservative leader in the Senate will force a vote on the proposed suspensions of Tory Senators Mike Duffy, Patrick Brazeau, and Pamela Wallin.

Prime Minister Harper: “Do the right thing now and suspend those Senators without pay.”

Stephen Harper had no trouble getting the party faithful in Calgary to agree with him over the weekend. But back in Ottawa, it’s a different story. Yet another Conservative Senator, John Wallace, spoke out publicly against the plan to suspend Senators Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau.

Wallace says Harper’s demands place equal penalties on three individuals with different facts, and different circumstances. Wallace says they each deserve a fair hearing. Which is why perhaps, the Conservative Senate House Leader Claude Carignan offered a somewhat confusing suggestion that there might be three votes on the suspensions after all: “We won’t have 3 different votes because it’s 3 different decisions, 3 different Senators, we won’t have three different votes.”

James Cowan: “These guys are making up the rules as they go along.”

The Liberal leader of the Opposition in the Senate, James Cowan, pointed out that the Conservatives have gone from three motions, to a single motion, and now apparently back to three again, in the three weeks this issue has dominated debate. What is clear, is that the Conservatives managed to impose closure, and limit that debate to only six more hours. Meaning the vote, or votes, could take place, late Tuesday.

James Cowan: “I understand that they have problems with their Caucus. But that seems a very strange way to deal with it.”

Although the Prime Minister would have preferred to ignore the on-going scandal at his Calgary convention. He was forced to acknowledge its stubborn persistence to the party faithful. Although he did so dismissively: “what all of this tells us and what it tells me. In terms of such opponents, I couldn’t care less what they say, we will do the right thing.”

The “right thing”, apparently, was to pluck Paul Calandra, a relatively obscure back bench Tory from his customary perch and plunk him down in the hottest seat in the House of Common; “fielding” questions on behalf of the Prime Minister concerning the connection between the Prime Minister’s Office, and the Senate scandal, rathering than “answering” them:

Charlie Angus: “When was the last time anyone in the Prime Minister’s Office, or the cabinet, spoke to Nigel Wright, How long after Nigel jumped ship and what was it about?”

Paul Calandra: “Forget about the European free trade, Forget our troops in the field. Forget about the equipment that they need Mr. Speaker. When was the last time we spoke on the phone with someone, this is the best they have?”

During the exchange in the House of Commons, Calandra handled 23 consecutive questions about the Senate affair, without giving a direct answer to any of them. He talked about his Italian immigrant parents, a hockey rink in Brantford, a diabetes fundraiser in the Yukon, and even burst into song, at one point. All of which suggests that, at this point, the Conservative government wants to talk, or sing, about anything except how the Prime Ministers office might be tied to the Senate scandal.