There’s a rather disquieting story in the Huffington Post that quotes a couple of unnamed former Senate staffers, who point the finger at Senate Speaker Leo Housakos as the source of the leaks of the Auditor General’s report into senators’ expenses. And to be clear, in the past couple of weeks, I’ve heard similar tales being floated by someone else on the inside who witnessed it happen, and later witnessed Housakos deny it to other Senators. And indeed, Housakos was in the big chair when he found a prima facia breach of privilege when Senator Céline Hervieux-Payette raised the issue in the chamber, and with that finding, it went to the Senate’s rules committee to study the matter; that study was suspended when Parliament was dissolved, but it could be revived once the committee is reconstituted. That breach of privilege is a pretty big deal, and the fact that more than one person is now coming forward to say something is telling. This going public is also going to put pressure on Prime Minister Trudeau with regards to what he’s going to do with the question of appointing a new Senate Speaker. To be clear, this is a Prime Ministerial appointment because, unlike the Commons Speaker, the Senate Speaker is higher on the Order of Precedence as he or she fills a variety of additional diplomatic and protocol functions that the Commons Speaker does not, and is considered a representative of the Crown. If the current representative is not deemed to be trustworthy, and has indeed violated the privilege of Senators for his own ends, then it seems difficult to see how he can be trusted to stay in the post, and it may light a fire under Trudeau to do something about it, while the rest of the Senate remains in the dark about how they’re going to organise themselves as Trudeau drags his feet.

Good reads:

• A Cabinet order was passed to hire nannies in Trudeau’s official residence, and charges of hypocrisy followed. Comment from Gurney, Den Tandt and Giese.
• On a related note, Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau looks like she’ll be a more active political spouse than previous prime ministers’ spouses (and stop using “First Lady.”)
• Refugees are supposed to start arriving on December 10^th, while John McCallum says he’s worried about backlash from those low-income Canadians seeking housing.
• Those closed veterans service centres will be reopened within a year.
• There were more delays in the Duffy trial, so here’s a look at what we’re expecting toward the end.
• Our planned new surface combatants look like they’re going to cost double what was budgeted, but it may be a question of managing expectations.
• The PBO thinks the government’s deficit numbers may be too rosy, and they’ll be deeper and go on for longer.
• Here’s a look at what elections may look like using preferential ballots, thanks to some polling data.
• Here’s an argument that Harper transformed federal-provincial relations for the better.
• Kady O’Malley laments the changes to the way that the Speaker is being elected, and I fully agree with her sentiments.

Odds and ends:

Here’s a profile of Government House Leader, Dominic LeBlanc.

The Citizen has a Q&A with NDP MP Daniel Blaikie, another second-generation MP.

Paying someone to carry the Prime Minister's briefcase is fine, but paying someone to carry his kid is outrageous.

— The Median Voter (@CanMedianVoter) December 1, 2015