It is done – Senators Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau have been suspended without pay after two weeks of anguished debate in the Senate about the role of fairness and due process, with the official motion here for your perusal. And once it was all over, Senator Carignan, the Leader of the Government in the Senate, went out to the Foyer to dutifully read a PMO script about how the “Trudeau Liberals” were trying to defend those Senators – not only an odd characterisation considering that Justin Trudeau hasn’t appointed any of those senators (though a couple of his father’s appointments do remain), nor does he control them. And now begins the wailing and beating of breasts at the need to update the financial rules of the Senate, a process that has been ongoing for a couple of years now. John Geddes paints the scene of the evening’s events here. Michael Den Tandt writes that these expulsions will reinforce the “Angry Harper” narrative. I muse about the loss of due process in the face of political expediency here.

Remember that letter from the RCMP that made its way to CBC last night that showed that the RCMP wanted copies of that correspondence that Duffy mentioned in the Senate? Well, Duffy himself sent the letter out to the Gallery yesterday, and the poor redaction job quickly made it apparent that the letter had been sent from the RCMP to Duffy’s lawyer, seeking those letters from him. No word if he’s responded, but it does allow Harper to quite truthfully say that no requests came to the PMO. On a related note, the RCMP investigation into Senator Mac Harb says that the odd arrangement he made with one of his properties where he sold 99.99 percent of it to an ambassador while still retaining the mortgage may have put the bank “at risk,” though there seems to be some confusion around what that means.

Outside of Ottawa, sucking up the oxygen of the news cycle was Toronto Mayor Rob Ford admitting that he has smoked crack in one of his drunken stupors. No, really. And on that note, Emmett Macfarlane considers this a good reason for why municipalities need impeachment powers, given that they don’t have parties or caucuses that can throw withdraw confidence or oust them from their leadership roles.

The Environment Commissioner’s report was released yesterday, and doesn’t have a lot of kind words to say about the government’s lack of plans for protecting biodiversity, or the lack of recovery plans for several species at risk.

Also released yesterday was a report from the Military Ombudsman, who said that the Canadian Forces needs to better support military families, given the frequent moves, difficulty for spouses to find jobs, and disparity in housing.

The refurbishment of the old Nortel campus for the relocation of DND headquarters appears to be stalled, and apparently there is no final decision by cabinet for the move to actually go ahead. No word if this has anything to do with the bugs that may or may not have been found in the buildings several months ago.

The premiers of BC and Alberta have announced an agreement on a pipeline framework that respects both provinces’ concerns around them (though it should be stated that most of the concerns can’t be met government-to-government, but involve negotiating with industry.

David Akin writes about the NDP’s complaints that they can’t seem to catch the media’s attention.

And This Hour has 22 Minutes is back with another parody song, this time of the summer’s monster Daft Punk hit “Get Lucky,” styled this time as “Get Duffy.”