Even before the Auditor General had turned over to the Senate his report on their expenses, the leaks were already coming out fast and furious, starting with the knowledge that the two leaders in the Senate as well as the Speaker had expenses that were questioned, and in the cases of the Liberal leader and the Speaker, they planned to challenge those claims before the independent arbiter that has been set up to deal with these issues, while the Conservative leader’s expenses were already paid back as they related to a staffer who had improperly filed claims. The Liberal leader, Senator Cowan, got out in front of it – there are $10,000 in travel expenses from four years ago that had to do with parliamentary business that he no longer had supporting documentation for because the claims had been dealt with at the time and not retained, but the auditors are making a big deal of it – and that seems perfectly fair and reasonable. By this point, however, certain breathless types in the media started hyperventilating about how the fact that these were the people who established the arbitration process, so this was supposedly some kind of “conflict of interest,” which not only sounds ridiculous on its face, but it impugns the integrity of former Justice Ian Binnie, who will hear the cases. I mean, come on. It also smacked of the presumption of guilt, never mind that there is plenty of indication that in many cases, the auditors made value judgements about what should qualify and what should not, and of these 29 total files, one has to assume that a good chunk of them will come out of the arbitration process favourably. As time went on, the nine senators whose audits were found to be egregious were revealed, two of those senators still sitting – Senator Boisvenu for the Conservatives (who immediately removed himself from caucus pending the outcome of the investigation), and Senator Kenny for the Liberals (who was recently out of caucus during a sexual harassment investigation that he was cleared in). All of this before the report has been made public. The fact that we don’t have facts and figures before us, that we have a number of claims going before the arbiter, that some of these claims were simply errors and not done with malicious intent, and that there were demonstrable problems with the auditors during the process means that we should all take a deep breath and not rush to proclaim everyone guilty, or the institution as a whole to be tarnished. Yes, it’s a rough patch, and it’s the price they are paying for increasing their transparency. It’s funny that all of the MPs sanctimoniously lining up to denounce the Senate – or worse, concern troll about its credibility or legitimacy – won’t let the AG look at their own books. Funny that.

But holy moly the spinning and leaking and leak-spinning and spin-leaking that's going on around this thing, with my trade as its enablers.

— Andrew Coyne 🇺🇦🇮🇱🇬🇪🇲🇩 (@acoyne) June 5, 2015

Good read:

• In the Mike Duffy trial, we learned that he charged the Senate for a trip where his appearance was cancelled, and that his “primary residence” wasn’t liveable in winter.
• John Geddes looks at the contradictions in the report on the Ottawa shooting and the way that Hill security has been a “priority” since 1992, while Senator White thinks the RCMP on the Hill need more powerful guns.
• Ridiculously alarmist and misleading headline aside, this analysis from Pundit’s Guide on pro-rated election spending limits is a good read.
• Stephen Harper re-announced a bunch of inadequately funded anti-terror measures in Toronto.
• The Liberals are looking to take on the Conservatives regarding their claims of being the party of national defence. Here’s The Canadian Press’ Baloney Meter™ taking on the government’s spending claims.

Odds and ends:

MP Ryan Leef gave a statement congratulating his sister’s wedding anniversary – and forgot the name of one of her children.

Liberal Senator Dennis Dawson has a reasonable plan for curbing pre-election spending. Don’t expect the parties to sign on.

Everyone lost their minds over this Tim Horton’s/Enbridge thing. Seriously guys – there a way more important issues out there.

Aw, thanks, @synshow. It’s beautiful. pic.twitter.com/ARn8LoIE4E

— Tabatha Southey (@TabathaSouthey) June 5, 2015