Roundup: Mischief-making with Senate offices

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Because it’s open season on Senators, the story of their apparent lack of willingness to get office space an added block away from the temporary Senate chamber, adding $25 million to the price of temporary space, has turned into a new round of howls of outrage and outright derision. According to the Senate, however, the figure is false and being used to cast them in a poor light – which is everyone’s favourite game these days. The true costs would be less than half that, according to the Senate law clerk, and the original public works plan would have had them spread out a lot more, which would increase costs for things like transportation and IT services. Not only that, but apparently the people who are trying to make hay out of this story don’t seem to grasp some of the basic geography of the situation. While MPs are staying clustered around the West Block (where the temporary House of Commons will be located), with new office space opening up in the soon-to-be-completely-renovated Wellington Building, Senators won’t get that luxury. In fact, the temporary Senate chamber, to be located in the Government Conference Centre, is much further afield which poses additional challenges for both walking times and getting the little white busses into and out of the location (given the way the roads work around there), while they have thirty-minute vote bells. Add to that, winter is going to be a particular challenge, and you have a bunch of aging senators who are going to need to be extra careful about things like the ice and snow, and it will be a problem. For anyone to start mocking senators that they don’t want to walk an extra block doesn’t seem to grasp the actual sense of the problem, and the churlish and childish taunts of the likes of Thomas Mulcair and Charlie Angus are really unbecoming. It would be a thought if other journalists could actually provide context to the situation rather than engaging in mischief-making and piling on to the Senate in the midst of overblown and torqued reporting on the AG report.

Good reads:

  • At the Duffy trial, we heard about other Senate aides using pre-signed travel forms (but only for routine trips) and more of the defence’s testimony was undermined.
  • The big excitement yesterday was of course Bono’s visit to Parliament Hill.
  • The Information Commissioner is taking the government to Federal Court over those illegal gun registry records deletions, and has filed a damning affidavit to back up her claim.
  • Thomas Mulcair is expected to give a speech on Bay Street about championing the manufacturing sector. So, more subsidies then?
  • The government defends their raft of Potemkin bills as a “framework” for the election campaign – billed to the civil service, of course.
  • A study of US medical marijuana laws shows that it didn’t increase teen use. Sorry, Conservatives – another talking point disproven.
  • Matthew Fisher ponders NDP foreign policy (or lack thereof).

Odds and ends:

The Sir John A Macdonald building is finally finished its renovations.

The Liberal candidate in Central Nova apparently quit over C-51.

John Oliver mocks our Senate “scandal” for being so tame. And he’s right in that it’s hardly a scandal (so can we stop hyperventilating over it?)