At long last, former Supreme Court Justice Ian Binnie’s report on his arbitration of Senate expenses was released yesterday, and it should come as no surprise to anyone paying attention that the amounts that many of those senators owed was slashed by a considerable amount. (For others, not so much, but we’ll get to that in a moment). Why? Because in the course of his audit, the Auditor General and his staff made a series of value judgments as part of their report, particularly in instances where senators added personal businesses to Senate-related travel, or when spouses travelled with them. Binnie re-evaluated those claims with more information and a broader mindset and found that indeed, many of those claims were actually reasonable, and he let them go through, cutting the demanded repayments significantly in many cases. In other cases, notably Senator Colin Kenny, he remained unconvinced and ordered them to make their repayments with little or no reductions in the amounts owing. After saying that he wasn’t hired to look into motives of these Senators, he did admit that he felt that for the most part, nobody was actively trying to game the system, but that there were some disagreements in how rules were applied. An interesting turn of events is the fact that Senator Dagenais plans to launch a complaint against the AG for the way in which the audit was conducted, which has most pundits and journalists aghast, because they like to think that the AG can do no wrong (when that is obviously not the case, particularly if one starts digging into some of the value judgments made in the Senate audit). The AG’s response to Binnie’s report was that he thinks that the Senate still needs to follow up on all of his recommendations, including the external oversight body, but I will again raise the point that an external body is a violation of parliamentary privilege, and that the institution needs to be self-governing. This is not a technocracy, and the suggestions by some of an audit committee that is still majority Senate-controlled is a far more acceptable solution. The other bit of interest was the way in which he, intentionally or otherwise, blew holes in the defence offered by Mike Duffy’s lawyers, that the Senate was this lawless and inscrutable place that would have anyone confused. Nonsense, said Binnie – there were rules that mostly required a bit of common sense in their application. One wonders if this is something that Justice Vaillancourt will take note of as he deliberates on Duffy’s fate.

Senator Dagenais’ plan to file a complaint about the Auditor General is an interesting turn of events. #SenCA pic.twitter.com/pbD6kKvu1v

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) March 21, 2016

Good reads:

• It’s budget day, so here’s Kady O’Malley’s handy FAQ, Kevin Page’s primer, investments First Nations are looking for, Frances Wooley looks at reframing child benefits, and Chris Selley previews all of the coming disappointment.
• The head of CSE says that Shared Services Canada needs to get on with its cyber-security mandate (and that too was a gong show, according to the AG).
• A law professor is going to court to try and stop the LAV sales to Saudi Arabia.
• Bombardier’s plan to offshore 400 jobs has those for and against government aid for the company up in arms.
• Former Senator Hugh Segal offers some considerations for the Conservatives about where they want the party to be as they embark on a new leadership contest.
• Jen Gerson warns about counting Mulcair out based on the ability of his detractors to organise at the convention.
• Stephen Gordon notes the change in Liberal talking points to long-term growth away from stimulus.

Odds and ends:

The recently fired Senate HR director has gone to the RCMP alleging “fraudulent behaviour” by Senate Administration.

The Conservative motion to save the Office of Religious Freedoms failed.