Roundup: Victory for concern trolls

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Consider it a victory for the concern trolls, particularly those hosting the political shows, who spent four days hounding Senate Speaker Leo Housakos and Senators Carignan and Cowan over a trumped up appearance of conflict of interest because they had a role – and largely a peripheral one – in the establishment of the arbitration process and appointment of Justice Ian Binnie to oversee the Senate arbitration process. While Carignan repaid his staffer’s questioned expenses right away, citing it as an error, both Housakos and Cowan had legitimate differences of opinion with the Auditor General over the expenses he flagged, and both intended to take it to arbitration. Monday morning, they changed course, citing that they didn’t want to taint the process by any appearance of conflict, which if you ask me is a potential tacit admission of guilt, but also weakens any ability for senators to push back against what is looking increasingly to be a series of subjective value judgements made by auditors when it comes to expenses that were flagged. (And I’m not going to go into the way in which the NDP and others are conflating these legitimate grievances with notions of criminality other than to offer the reminder that Thomas Mulcair should be thankful he made the comments about Senator Housakos that he did during QP yesterday were made under privilege, lest he face a libel suit). The fact that members of the media torqued this angle of a conflict of interest – which did not bear itself out in fact – shows how much they feel no compunction or conscience about using the Senate as a punching bag because they feel they have public sentiment on their side – never mind that they were central in creating that public sentiment out of overblown rhetoric and hyperbole. It’s not that all of the AG’s findings will be questionable – the ones that Senator Eaton repaid certainly did not appear to be above board, but as Senator Plett remarks in his explanation for some of the flagged expenses, the auditors’ assessments can lack common sense. Of course, for all the concern trolling, it remains a basic fact that the figure of potentially misspent funds is actually tiny in context – and when you look at it in comparison to spending breaches in the Commons, it doesn’t even compare. But MPs won’t admit that they have a worse record, nor will they open their own books up, but don’t let the hypocrisy surprise you.

Good reads:

  • In the Duffy trial, we heard from his former assistant who not only was still working while collecting EI, but was also filling out pre-signed expense forms.
  • Jason Kenney is being asked to stop the military from trying to cut its recruitment targets for women.
  • In a move that borders on satire, Stephen Harper and the G7 vowed to eliminate fossil fuels…by 2100.
  • MPs have tabled their sexual harassment code of conduct.
  • Aaron Wherry muses about the meaning of Laurie Hawn daring to speak out against Supply Management.
  • Laura Stone has lunch with Irwin Cotler and gets his views on parliament and this government’s treatment of the justice file.
  • Emmett Macfarlane writes about the political problems with Montreal trying to open a safe injection site under new federal rules.

Odds and ends:

Here’s a look at some of the bills before the Senate (with the proviso that the “ten days left” is false, because the Senate rises when the work is done)

The Federal Court case between the NDP and the Board of Internal Economy is resuming (which I expect will get tossed on jurisdictional grounds).

Dear media colleague: Pat Martin pulls this unconstitutional nonsense every year. Stop paying attention to him.