The fact that Mike Duffy’s expenses have reignited an old and frankly tiring debate on whether Senators should be able to claim for their legitimate work expenses, or whether it’s this particular shameless senator whose expenses, however legitimate, are forever tainted. We can look and see competing editorials from the likes of Robyn Urback, who is justifiably dubious about the whole thing given the history and cloud that remains around Duffy’s primary residence, and Kady O’Malley, who notes that Duffy’s current expense claims are entirely legit so we should stop begrudging them (while not forgiving past transgressions either). But of all the commentary that I’ve seen in the past week, the least helpful comes from within the Senate itself.

When asked about the whole Duffy ordeal, the Conservative Senate leader, Claude Carignan mused about how the Senate’s rules may still need to be updated, which I’m not quite sure how much more stringent they need to be at this point considering how much they’ve come in the past two years (and for years before that), and it sounds a lot like he’s trying to play along with the attempts at cheap public outrage over the whole thing, while simultaneously ignoring the fact that Duffy’s residency issue remains a problem from the manner in which Stephen Harper appointed him, and a Harper loyalist, Carignan is almost certainly loathe to criticise that decision. But it got worse. Carignan then basically dumped the problem into the lap of Senator Peter Harder, the “government representative” as though he were somehow able to do something about it. As Carignan, a former Government Leader himself should know, it’s not up to the Government Leader to shepherd rules changes considering that Senate Rules are the domain of the appropriately named Senate Rules committee, and that expenses are the domain of the Internal Economy Committee, and last I checked, Harder is not a member of either committee, nor does he have a caucus that has senators who sit on those committees. In other words, he has no senators that he can use to exert any kind of influence over in order to make those changes. With these facts in mind, I’m not sure why Carignan would suggest that rules changes need to be spearheaded by Harder except that it’s more petty politicking, trying to undermine his (already shaky) legitimacy, while looking to absolve himself of any responsibility event though Carignan controls the largest caucus in the Chamber. If we need to have a discussion about how the residency rules need to continue to evolve, then great, let’s do that. But to try and play this particular game about it is really beneath Carignan’s position and he should know better.

Good reads:

• The Senate’s Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee came out with an interim report on delays in the justice system, and had harsh words for the government.
• Speaking at the Canadian Bar Association conference, Jody Wilson-Raybould spoke of the need for more restorative justice for Indigenous offenders.
• Government lawyers argue that because they now have an assisted dying law that the Supreme Court’s Carter decision no longer applies.
• John McCallum says we need to vastly increase immigration to deal with coming labour shortages as the population ages.
• Here’s a long read about Adam Scotti, the PM’s official photographer.
• John Geddes spent some time on the campaign trail with Michael Chong.
• Susan Delacourt talks to new Liberal MP Anita Vandenbeld about her “Tim Horton’s caucus” that keeps her grounded.
• Paul Wells notes that the government plans to use Canada’s stability as a draw for investment from abroad.
• Colby Cosh gives a perfectly acerbic summation of the crisis that Elizabeth May and the Green Party find themselves in.
• Andrew Potter notes that we have thus far only had to deal with relatively dumb would-be terrorists, and the real test will be when a successful one comes along.

Odds and ends:

In the final column of her journalism career, Jane Taber reflects on the tough job of being a woman in politics.