It was an unusual scene, where the Speaker of the Senate arranged a media event inside the Senate chamber. His purpose was two-fold – to give a bit of a lesson to journalists about the history and role of the institution, as he was alarmed that the kinds of misinformation that he’d seen in the media over the past several months; he also wanted to try and answer as many questions as he could at once. Unfortunately, much of the former goal as a “learning moment” seemed lost on many of my media colleagues as they started asking him questions as though he were the person in charge, as opposed to the presiding officer, and as such, it’s not up to him if they end up calling Michael Runia or Senator Gerstein before committee, but rather, it has to be a decision of the Senate.  What they did find out was that the Senate is cooperating on getting those emails requested by the RCMP, and that parliamentary privilege cannot shield senators from an investigation.

Former dean of the Senate – and one-time Leader of the Government in the Senate Lowell Murray can’t recall a time when PMO was actively sticking its tentacles into the Senate and trying to influence its committees. He does, however, make some very astute observations – that these Senators allowed it to happen because they were likely trying to be “team players” (and I’ve heard from my own Senate contacts that this threat of “You want to support the Prime Minister, don’t you?” gets tossed around a fair amount), and that PMO was trying to treat this cover-up as a communications exercise, which is why they tried to manage it in the way that they did.

Oh noes! A couple of Senators owned homes in Ottawa – where they worked – before they were appointed to the Senate! Not sure how this is a scandal, even if they did claim a legitimate housing allowance, even if it didn’t go towards hotel rooms or rental apartments.

Michael Chong’s “Reform Act” bill is tabled today. Aaron Wherry gives us some background about Chong here. The Liberals have already invited Chong to speak to their caucus legislative committee, later tonight, to talk about the bill in greater detail. If anything, the Liberals seem far more open to the conversation about democratic reform – in plausible terms – than either the Conservatives or NDP. My column about the reported contents of the bill and its shortcomings is on Loonie Politics.

Stephen Maher asks five questions about the recently recovered Benjamin Perrin emails in the ongoing ClusterDuff investigation.

The NDP’s attempt to scrap the Board of Internal Economy for an outside body to manage MP expenses has failed, and they’re quite unhappy about it. The House committee charged with looking into the matter did agree that there needs to be greater transparency, and will work with the Auditor General as well. Meanwhile, an attempt to get the Commons to waive privilege for Access to Information requests has met with a new graduated system of access levels.

Industry Minister James Moore says that Canada’s new space plan will be unveiled next year, in response to the Emerson Report on the aerospace industry in this country. Liberal MP Marc Garneau, former astronaut and head of the Canadian Space Agency, is sceptical.

The federal government has so far spent $9 million on their ad campaign to passive aggressively complain about how awful our country’s wireless industry is.

There are questions as to why the military hasn’t been able to conclude some 70 inquiries into soldier suicides.

The NSA documents on G8/G20 surveillance acquired by the CBC raise questions about just what they were coordinating with their Canadian partners – meaning CSE – but little indication of whether that is anything banal or contrary to Canadian law.

Satirical Halifax magazine Frank is hiring Senator Brazeau as a freelance reporter, to delve further into the Senate scandals. This is problematic, however, because the Press Gallery’s accreditation rules require not only two assignment letters from freelancers, but also that they be free from political influence – not working for parties, or the civil service, because of conflicts of interest. It’s hard to see how Brazeau would qualify under those terms. While it may be a great publicity stunt for Frank, the Gallery has its own reputation to consider.

And economist Stephen Gordon looks at sluggish Canadian growth by means of explaining the difference between GDP and GDI – Gross Domestic Income – and how commodity prices have altered what used to be a close balance.