Senator Mike Duffy’s scorched-earth campaign continues as the CBC has obtained a letter the RCMP wrote last Friday, seeking documents from the PMO that were all mentioned in Duffy’s address to the Senate last week. Because that is something that these kinds of statements under privilege can do – direct the police where to continue their investigation. PMO, incidentally, says they’ve not received any such letter. But it has to be said that it would seem to shift the focus of the investigation from Duffy’s misspending to an attempt by the PMO to bribe, or otherwise influence a sitting legislator – a distraction that Duffy likely welcomes as he seeks to keep attention away from his own actions.

Meanwhile, back in the Senate chamber, the closure on the suspension motions was imposed, and passed despite several no votes or abstentions among Conservative senators. Brazeau also addressed the Senate to say that he had been the victim of a political process after having been tried in the media, and that he had the rules changed on him, warning that any other Parliamentarian could fall victim to the very same treatment – and he does have a point, no matter what we think of his actions. Not that it’s enough for some senators like Vern White, who would have argued for full expulsion, apparently without due process. Because that’s exactly what justice is in this country – taking shortcuts, and making up rules for the sake of political expediency! The final vote on the suspensions will take place later today.

Susan Delacourt uses her research on government messaging to predict how Stephen Harper will tailor his messaging around the Senate expenses scandal in order to appeal to that crucial ten percent of Canadians that will make or break the government in the next election.

In the post-convention landscape, Kady O’Malley looks at the journey from upstart Reformers to the modern-day party, and how everything wasn’t the hard shift to the right that people kept hearing out of the convention. Colin Horgan looks at how the NDP and Liberals reacted to the weekend’s events, and how instructive that might wind up being.

Here’s a look at the line that Justin Trudeau is walking, supporting Keystone XL while also posing for photos with David Suzuki, trying to appeal to both factions at the same time.

The NDP plan to move a series of motions at the Commons environment committee that they say will help to protect the environment.

Not a huge surprise, but Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver’s office was found to have a hand in editing media responses about the delays in the GHG report from Environment Canada, and keeps the explanations for the edits vague.

Energy economist Andrew Leach debunks those claims that Canada is some kind of oil-dependent petrostate, and that oil revenues pay for the social programmes of the nation. Pretty hard to do that when those revenues are less than seven percent of the economy, and have been in decline during the Harper years.

CBC takes a closer look at the proposed First Nations Education Act, where one of the biggest complaints is that it’s too much of a one-size-fits-all approach to a diverse group of communities across the country, each with different needs.

PostMedia looks into the costs of supplying iPads to Senators as they look to reduce the amount of paper being used in the Upper Chamber, but their financial office won’t release details on per-unit costs and who got them over the past three years.

So Brazil was terribly upset that we were spying on them, but they’ve admitted to spying on foreign embassies, so…um, never mind, I guess.

Tobi Cohen talks to NDP organiser Brad Lavigne about his new book, Building the Orange Wave.

In case you didn’t know, Stephen Harper’s father also wrote books – two of them, on regimental flags going as far back as the War of 1812.

And someone made some GIFs of Michelle Rempel’s unimpressed faces during Question Period. You’ll notice that most of them are during Pierre Poilievre or Keith Ashfield’s answers.

Up today: It’s a Liberal opposition day, and they’re using it to try to compel the Prime Minister to testify under oath about the ClusterDuff affair at a Commons ethics committee investigation into the actions of PMO. Good luck with that – committees can’t compel Parliamentarians to testify because of their privilege.